Verizon Begins Charging Full Price of Warranty Phones if Rooted?

[pc747]

merged threads...........

[apl3]

Verizon should have done this long ago. If your smart enough to root your phone you should have the intelligence to remove rooting it.

[phalstead]

I'm not sure if this has been covered yet, but, I took my first DX to my local VZW because the ear piece would only work if I pushed as hard as I could with my finger on the hump. The store manager looked around and tinkered with it for a few minutes, then came back and said that he'd put in an order for a replacement from Moto. When I asked him why I couldn't just swap it out for a different model since I'd only had it for like 17 days, he said it was because the phone was rooted. I applaud the guy for having a replacement sent for a factory defect even though the device was rooted. He didnt have to and I didn't expect him to. To this day I'm still not sure how he figured out it was rooted after unrooting, SBFing back to stock, and wiping data/cache. Unless he snooped around the SD card. Sorry for the novel. Just my personal experience with getting a replacement device.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

[bplewis24]

However, a separate report from Droid-Life that was tied to the same story indicates that Droid-Life was contacted by Verizon themselves and that Big Red denies that they even check to see if a phone is rooted. The representatives from VZW said they only check three things when a phone comes in for warranty, and rooting isn't one of them. Here's a quote from the Droid-Life article with the details,
Quote:
Our friends at Verizon saw this post and wanted to reach out to clarify everything immediately. First up, is the fact that their policy says absolutely nothing about checking for root on devices. When a phone is received, a phone is checked for three things and that definitely isn’t one of them. They check to see if the box that the device was sent in is damaged, if the outside of the phone looks awful, and if it powers on – satisfy all of those and they move on to the next phone. So basically, these reports of being charged for a rooted phone simply mean that these people were sending in garbage phone with defects.
Hmmm... we will keep a watch on this to see if anything different develops confirming either position.

Nobody talking about this?

This is the deal:

Your warranty can be void if you root your phone.

Verizon more than likely won't check and won't care, which is what many of us have been saying all along. However, they do currently have the authority to notice that your phone is rooted and say "nope, you rooted and probably broke the device yourself so we aren't honoring the warranty."

Notice in the above quote, though, Verizon claims to not check. But it's nice to know another scare-rumor about rooting is going around

Brandon

[bplewis24]

I'm not sure if this has been covered yet, but, I took my first DX to my local VZW because the ear piece would only work if I pushed as hard as I could with my finger on the hump. The store manager looked around and tinkered with it for a few minutes, then came back and said that he'd put in an order for a replacement from Moto. When I asked him why I couldn't just swap it out for a different model since I'd only had it for like 17 days, he said it was because the phone was rooted. I applaud the guy for having a replacement sent for a factory defect even though the device was rooted. He didnt have to and I didn't expect him to. To this day I'm still not sure how he figured out it was rooted after unrooting, SBFing back to stock, and wiping data/cache. Unless he snooped around the SD card. Sorry for the novel. Just my personal experience with getting a replacement device.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

My guess is he doesn't know what "rooting" even means, he saw something he didn't recognize on the phone, and assumed it was rooted.

Brandon

[czerdrill]

However, a separate report from Droid-Life that was tied to the same story indicates that Droid-Life was contacted by Verizon themselves and that Big Red denies that they even check to see if a phone is rooted. The representatives from VZW said they only check three things when a phone comes in for warranty, and rooting isn't one of them. Here's a quote from the Droid-Life article with the details,
Quote:
Our friends at Verizon saw this post and wanted to reach out to clarify everything immediately. First up, is the fact that their policy says absolutely nothing about checking for root on devices. When a phone is received, a phone is checked for three things and that definitely isn’t one of them. They check to see if the box that the device was sent in is damaged, if the outside of the phone looks awful, and if it powers on – satisfy all of those and they move on to the next phone. So basically, these reports of being charged for a rooted phone simply mean that these people were sending in garbage phone with defects.
Hmmm... we will keep a watch on this to see if anything different develops confirming either position.

Nobody talking about this?

This is the deal:

Your warranty can be void if you root your phone.

Verizon more than likely won't check and won't care, which is what many of us have been saying all along. However, they do currently have the authority to notice that your phone is rooted and say "nope, you rooted and probably broke the device yourself so we aren't honoring the warranty."

Notice in the above quote, though, Verizon claims to not check. But it's nice to know another scare-rumor about rooting is going around

Brandon

I don't think the argument is that if you go to your local verizon store you will be shunned because you're rooted. I think it's saying that they can do it if they want to. Whether or not they will is up to them.

I agree with the rumor bit though. This p3droid guy seems to make a living off rumors, and ridiculous ones at that...he was the one a couple months ago warning people to "unroot now!!!111!!" because verizon was going to crack down. seems just like scare tactics to get hits, but the foundation of his ridiculous claims are true, which is that if they wanted to they could.

oh and also remember, the vzw reps that droid-life contacted are most probably just....reps. i wouldnt take their word as gold...

[NeoandGeo]

Last time I was in a Verizon store, the rep had a OG Droid that was rooted with a custom ROM. Doubt it's a very big deal to them.

[czerdrill]

Last time I was in a Verizon store, the rep had a OG Droid that was rooted with a custom ROM. Doubt it's a very big deal to them.

Again...to ascertain corporate policy from the behavior/words of a rep is an odd thing to do.

[New2u]

Last time I was in a Verizon store, the rep had a OG Droid that was rooted with a custom ROM. Doubt it's a very big deal to them.

Again...to ascertain corporate policy from the behavior/words of a rep is an odd thing to do.

Agreed.

[NeoandGeo]

Correction. If it was a big deal to them, it would be enforced on a local level by corporate. It may become a big deal in the future. But as of right now, it is not.