Smart Phone; Smarter Buyer

Apple is both a phenomenal company and a bunch of ass hats.  So, a month ago, my iPhone 4s busted.  The top button (sleep/wake) ceased to depress.  Oh, it still worked, but in order to ensure that contact was made you had to press really hard and, and not reliably.  What to do with a broken phone?  Why sell it on Craigslist, of course.  Now, I understand that all sorts of unscrupulous transactions occur on Craigslist.  Hell, the personals are…to put it mildly…unsavory to a more refined individual than myself.

It took about 20 minutes from the original posting, and I got about 8 e-mails, some in English, some with poor typing or grammatical errors.  I picked the one where the request was written well and a reasonable price offer and called him up.  We’d meet the next day in a Target parking lot and make the exchange there.  Please note that I didn’t offer up that the phone was compromised in any way.  I indicated that it was “perfectly functioning.”  And, to tell the truth, the button worked, but obviously not in the way it was initially intended to.

Well, we met, he turned on the phone, checked everything out, and then on putting the phone into his pocket, pressed the sleep/wake button, and slipped it into his jeans, not noticing that it didn’t work (because he didn’t press firmly enough).  My heart was beating a mile a minute.  I’m not necessarily trying to take advantage, just hoping that he would continue to overlook the issue.  As he was counting out the agreed upon amount, his friend reminded him to check the cameras on the device, just to make sure they worked.  And, as you can imagine, that’s when the cat, out of the bag, sunk the deal.  Cameras work fine.  Button, upon its second test depression, did not.  Deal over.  They were no longer interested.  Done and done.

So, it serves me right.  But, so that I don’t have a repeat experience, I found an Apple-product repair place, which, when they repaired the phone, killed any kind of warrantee claim that can be made on the device, but whatever.  At least now the phone works as described, and I’m now in the process of finding another buyer.  However, now I have to buffer against the repair expense in my asking price.  Again, it serves me right…but I was this close!  Would you believe this close? [Maxwell Smart]