Iphone 3gs one month old won't charge & Itunes won't recognize

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I've had my 16Gb 3Gs Iphone for about a month now. Yesterday while traveling it stopped taking a charge with the car charger (sold to me by At&t). I stopped at an At&t store, bought a new charger to no avail. Took the phone into the store and they couldn't get it to charge. Called Apple and they told me that plugging into my computer at home may fix it (which isn't at all practical when traveling). When we returned home I tried that to no avail. Called Apple back, waited on hold 5 minutes, and let them walk me through everything I had already tried, (resetting, plugging, unplugging, restarting computer, etc.) again to no avail. The Apple rep transferred me to an apparently more qualified tech who again walked me through all of these various steps as if in disbelief that there was anything wrong with my phone. He then suggested leaving it plugged into the wall charger for about an hour and then he would call back to check on it. I told him I would be willing to try it just to satisfy him, but as I had previously explained several times, I had been trying to charge this phone for several hours with different chargers (two car chargers and USB to Pc) and therefore I thought it would be a waste of time. He then agreed and explained my options for getting service. He offered to send me out a new phone but only after I gave him a credit card security deposit of $599 plus a $29 fee (for what I don't know). He said after I sent my phone back and they verified there was no damage that my deposit would be released. I did not want this option, as I've been burnt by large bureaucratic-like corporations before (Direct TV specifically, when I was accused of not returning a receiver that was replaced under warranty, when I had the tracking numbers to prove I returned it. It took several letters, many phone calls, and about 3 months to get the money back that they stole (yes stole) from our bank account. Will not go through that again!) I asked if I couldn't just simply drive it to an Apple repair center and get it replaced/repaired on-the-spot. He checked and seen that the closest location was about an hour away from me and offered to make an appointment. When I agreed to make the appointment he then offered to call and make sure they had a replacement in stock. He came back and told me they did not have one in-stock, which I thought was pretty lousy service to not stock a replacement for the most popular phone on the market ANYWHERE in the greater Cincinnati area. So I asked if couldn't just take my phone to the repair center, have them verify that it was defective and ship me a new one. His reply was that "I don't know if they can ship it to you or not". So I went to the store this morning, they verified that the phone was defective but they did not have a replacement in stock. I was told that once they got one in stock they could not ship it to me nor have it drop shipped from the factory (which is what they do if they really cared about customer service). He said that Apple could ship it to me but I would have to put up the $600 deposit since I would have "2" phones until I shipped mine back. I asked why I couldn't leave my phone there and then I wouldn't have 2 phones. He said that it simply could not be done that way (I guess that makes too much sense for the "geniuses" at Apple) I was further frustrated with Apple in the way they handle simple communications. The guy who set up the appointment for me was to email me all the info including store phone number and address. I went to print the email before leaving and found that although I received two emails from "Apple" they contained no info on where I was to take the phone (at 9:30 on Sat. morning). I had to go ahead and leave for the appointment without the info and call around to places like Best Buy on the way to try and find out where in Cincinnati the store was. I tried calling an Apple store (which I later found out was the repair center) but no one would answer the phone and their voice mail said they didn't open until 10:00. My wife meanwhile was back at home combing through emails looking for the info that Apple was supposed to have sent. She finally found it sent from the name "Concierge" and under the subject "Your upcoming reservation"! I guess anyone should know that is an email from Apple??? ***??? Where is the common sense in this company? How about from "Apple" and under the subject of "Your Iphone repair?" They are lucky that email even made it through the spam filters. So I am now waiting for the store to get a new phone in and call me so that I can drive another hour to get this phone that I now regret buying. I have also been reading many forum and can see that it is likely that I will get a refurbished phone instead of a new one. That's just great. In less than a month from buying my new Iphone I'm stuck with someone else's glorified, cleaned, and polished used phone, as that is what refurbished is. Who knows how long my USED battery will last, but then again who at Apple cares?! I was even ambitious to make the jump from PC to a Mac but have now really reconsidered that potential mistake. I don't mind paying good money for a quality product and superior customer service but Apple has not shown me either of these characteristics. I have also found through reading forums (although I did not find any similar post in this forum) that many other people are having similar problems with charging and connectivity. I now feel as if I really have no choice but to buy Apple's extended warranty because I am not confident in the quality of the product (I've never seen consistently high-quality products come out of China anyway). Does anyone have any theories or ideas on what may be causing these charging or connectivity problems so that I can possibly avoid any future problems and all of this extreme hassle? Sorry for the length of the post, but it has been a lengthy process that Apple has put me through for a phone that is one month old.
 
Joined
Oct 10, 2004
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Location
Margaritaville
Your Mac's Specs
3.4 Ghz i7 MacBook Pro (2015), iPad Pro (2014), iPhone Xs Max. Apple TV 4K
Sounds like you may have to wait for Apple to get more in stock in your area. Either way, go to an Apple store and do it.
 

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