Star Wonder Communication

My experience was completely different from TJ’s. When I was in college, I had a phone that would mysteriously turn itself off and on, rendering it unusable. I took it to Star Wonder, and they said I needed a new battery. When that didn’t work, they actually gave me a loaner exactly like my phone and let me keep it for six months until I was eligible for an upgrade.
When I came back to buy my new phone, they gave me a free car charger as compensation for having to sit on a super comfortable couch for five minutes. These guys went above and beyond the call of duty several times, but that was probably back in 2004. So, maybe things have changed?

I dont know if the issue is incompetence or dishonesty, but either way the verdict is the same. DO NOT get yor phone serviced here. I brought in my PDA which was experiencing some power related and stability issues. The head technician/​store manager looked at it for 3 seconds and decided it had some kind of water damage (this phone has NEVER gotten wet). He claimed he needed 2 hrs to look a it and then if he could fix it a minimum of 75 bucks. I needed it fixed and the place had been «recommended» to me by a co-​worker. So I gave a day to think about it and then on a friday afternoon decided, fine, see if you can fix it. They give me a low end Nokia as a loaner to put my SIM card into and make calls. A nice gesture.
I called Saturday to ask if it was done and got the news that they don’t do repair work on weekends (they are open for sales but don’t do repairs).
OK, «maybe» that was my fault for not asking (actually it was not, I think they just wanted to get their clutches on my phone because then they are in control) So the sales chick tells me that I should get a call Monday with the news on my phone. Monday comes, its close to the end of the work day and I have still not gotten a call. I call them and ask what’s the status. I am told he still has not looked at my phone, it’ll be Tuesday. 2 hours has now stretched into 4 days. I call Tuesday mid-​day, since I have not gotten the «courtesy call» I was promised on Monday. I am told he has my phone open on his workbench and he still doesn’t know if he can fix it. Wed the 18^th, 2:08 PM (per the call log on my phone) the store finally called. They informed me that they cannot repair my phone, but they can REPLACE the main board for $ 150. I informed them that there was no frickin’ way I would do that, since I could buy a new unlocked replacement of the same TREO for less than that. (In my opinion this was a classic case of a sales person attempting to extract as much money as possible out of me by assuming I am stupid or a sucker who doesn’t know better. It pisses me off when people try to do this and STAR WONDER tried to do it. Either that or they are lousy at repairs. either way its dishonest. For the record I am a salesperson by profession and I make a lot of money by telling my customers the truth and knowing the technical ins and outs of my product.) I told them no thanks and picked up my phone later that day.
I think they hire hot chicks to work at this place so that you wont notice your getting bad service. I looked at my phone in the car after I’d walked out, the case had a BIG gouge in it on the edge from where this HACK had pried it open with a screwdriver. The case was not put back together correctly so all the parts were not fitting correctly and there were visible open gaps at the seams. My keyboard (this smartphone has a fill QWERTY keyboard) which worked PERFECTLY BEFORE I GAVE IT TO THESE HACKS, now only half works. some of the keys are hard to press and others spit out 3 characters if you push them once. Still others spit out the character next to them when pushed. Obviously they whole thing is now either misaligned or damaged thanks to the expert technical service at STAR WONDER. I suspect that when I declined their sucker offer he just slapped the phone back together as fast as he could since it was no longer going to make him any money.
When I got the thing home I noticed that some of the many symptoms my phone exhibited went away when i removed my SD Memory card. I checked out the card and determined after about 5 min of work that it is defective. These HACKS never mentioned that there was any problem with the SD card or that removing/​replacing it would fix the stability problems (and it does). In my opinion this is further proof that they just wanted to extract as much sucker money from me as possible.
I went online and found a place in ferndale that refurbishes phones and brought it there today. They are normally closed on Saturdays. But made an exception for me today saying, there were some people working over the weekend so they were in and come on by anytime. When I got there, I told them the whole story and they said they could repair the sloppy reassembly and any minor issues they find for 30 bucks. if parts needed to be replaced they would charge for parts. They took me in the back room and showed me a place where 40 – 50 people work on cell phone repairs during the week, and a lot of sophisticated diagnostic equipment. These guys look like professionals and they run a VOLUME operation. But they were still willing to work on my one stinking phone for less than that HACK at STAR WONDER. Sweet.
The new place has my phone now and I will write another review after I get it back from there. I have a good feeling this time since they spent so much time listening to long history of problems I’ve had with the phone and showing me their capability. Wish me luck.