I strongly advise not to get Tmobile insurance, don't make the mistake I did... It sounded good 4 years ago, when Applecare didn't have lost & stolen option... So last week at the end of July in 2023, I needed to replace my battery it's at 77% health... Tmobile store sends me to Apple store, I was told that I have to go back to Tmobile since the phone is older than 2 years (normally they would replace it or install new fresh battery at 100% health). I go back to Tmobile, waited 20 mins for help... they order me a phone. They didn't notify me that it was ready for pickup, so 4 days later I went in inquiring about it, they check and had it there the entire time... $5 for the exchange of phone cost, also it's a refurb... I asked if the battery was new, they said it was... then told me the transfer backups will take more than 6 hours, had to come in next day in the morning, because they don't allow you to take the phone home to do the transfer... So after leaving my personal phone for like 6 hours there, they call me up the transfer completed and you can pickup the phone... Got there, checked everything out only to realize the refurb battery health was only at 78%... 1% better than my phone! I was shocked, a bit angry, and couldn't believe I wasted this much time on this BS process... I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs, but held it in store, my face was probably super red... I asked the Tmobile rep, why is the phone battery not new... why couldn't they replace the battery of my old phone with a new one instead, and if I could just annul this whole process and keep my old phone... Their policy is they can't do that and that they can only order another phone (refurb probably again) and that I would basically have to count my luck on the lottery that the battery will be better than both these current phones.... They can't help with anything else, besides me having to call 611 or corporate to grieve about my issue... Which I had to and the options I have are either they can replace the phone again, get an upgrade (i don't want to till the 15 comes out), or go to a 3rd party repair shop to get an estimate... a weekend past and I'm still waiting for a call back... and I'm asking myself why I paid $18/mon for 4+ years just so I have to go through this BS process and do all this work myself?!... Oh on top of that my google authenticator info didn't transfer over when they asked me to erase my old phone... I spent the last two days trying to get apps (tesla, banking & financial, etc) and accounts (email, software, etc) to get resolved and log back into them... (Don't do Google Authenticator! Go with SMS text (they say less secure, you'll thank me as it's much easier in life and I think with all the hacking, it's still plenty safe) otherwise, those who won't let you do phone #/SMS, go with Microsoft 2FA or 2FAS for iPhone).
Next phone upgrade, will be Applecare+ w/lost & stolen option directly with Apple! I apologies for the long TLDR post/rant!, I just had so much stress and things going wrong over a week, just over a simple battery replacement... Besides all this mumbo-jumbo, I still think with my grandfathered plan, T-Mobile has an excellent phone plan pricing for my family and I, but their customer service in store sux and same with their upgrades (need to upgrade to the latest plan +add lines) went downhill over the pandemic!
