How i lost my iPhone 6S / SingTel Mobile Swop & Mobile SwopUP

24th October 2015, Saturday - The worst day of my 23 years of life

Yes, i lost my brand new 1 month old iPhone 6S.

Yes, i stupidly left it in the Ladies toilet at USS (near far far away)

Yes, that idiot bitch turned off my iPhone straight and it has been kept offline since then

Yes, i'm officially phone-less, $388 poorer before and going to $550 poorer again

I'm gonna share my process with Singtel on getting my replacement phone. Read on if you are interested. If not, it's just gonna be a ranting post.

So 24th October 2015, i went to USS Halloween Horror Nights 5 together with my friends. I brought a small sling bag along and it was proven to be too small, because i couldn't squeeze my phone in with all my stuff and so i carried it on hand. -.-

I went through 1 hunted house and 1 trail before my another friend and i decided to stray off from the group and go for rides instead. 

We queued for the canopy ride in Jurassic Park, walked to queue for the new ride from Puss in Boots. After getting off the ride from Puss in Boots, the plan was to go over to queue for the Transformer ride while waiting for our friends to come out from the hunted house. AND BAM, that's when my nightmare started.

I went into the ladies toilet and because my bag was too small, i subconsciously placed my phone on the ledge and carelessly, i forgot my iphone and went off. Only after that, i realized i forgotten my phone and rushed back to the toilet. In my heart, i was praying no one will look at the ledge area and my phone will be still there. But i was just cheating myself.

Like seriously, it's Universal Studios Singapore and it was Halloween Horror Nights. Basically, the whole place was filled with people.

And so, my phone was gone... Wondering why good karma didn't happen on me even when i was so kind and honest to return a stranger his iPhone 6 just a few months back! ):

I asked the roving staff there if there is a cleaner stationed inside the toilet, but sadly there wasn't any. USS only clean the toilet once every hour or something. And all they informed me was that i can head over to the lost and found counter to report my lost item.

Immediately, i called back home to get my parents to check the Find my iPhone and it was already offline. So chances are zero, that i will ever find my phone back. So all i can do was to call Singtel to temporary cut off my line, activate the lost mode on Find my iPhone and head off to Clementi Police Station to lodge police report because my brother was previously a police officer there.

My last ever photo taken using my iphone )):

Okay, so here's the part where i gets really pissed off with Singtel after accepting the fact that i just lost my phone.

When i bought my iPhone together with my sister at Singtel Jurong Point outlet, the staff there sold my sister and me the iPhone 6S and was telling us about this new 'insurance' kind of package offered by Singtel called the Mobile Swop and Mobile SwopUP.

Basically, at the point of transaction, my sister, her bf and me was there listening to the staff explanation on this new insurance thing. In summary of the information we got from the staff, basically, there is a fee of $8.00 per month for this new insurance and we are entitled for 2 swops and 1 replacement to a new iphone in a year with no questions asked from Singtel. We were thinking, are there such good deals? Because my sister bf was saying that from what he know, M1 is also offering such insurance package, but at a monthly fee of $10.00 and there was some terms and conditions. 

So we asked the staff: 'then this means that we can just drop the phone purposely and come back to Singtel and you guys will change the phone for us with no questions asked lah?' and the staff was saying yah you can like do that lah. So, we thought let's get this insurance package since it's such a good deal! And so, we agreed to get the Mobile Swop and Mobile SwopUP package.

Now, the above is what me, my sister and her bf heard and remember at the point of transaction because the deal was so good that we remembered!

The above isn't the exact word for word.

Thinking back on this, i was somewhat relieved that i purchased the 'insurance' package from Singtel and immediately got my sister to check back on the procedures on getting the replacement from Singtel. And to our horror, we found out that there was a replacement fee of $550!

Immediately the next day, we went down to Singtel Jurong Point outlet to confirm this and also to get a new sim card.

We explained the situation to the staff there about how we were not informed about the swop and replacement fee. Imagine if we just purposely dropped our phone and we need to pay the swop fee for nothing! And so, he said there was nothing he can do and said we just have to pay the replacement fee to get a new phone. We were so pissed off that he didn't even bother to check and we just requested to see the store manager.

So what the store manager told us was that he have to check on the recording clip to confirm if their staff really did not mentioned about the replacement fee of $550 to us and told us to wait or call 1688 to check the status. We were obviously not stupid and requested to get his namecard instead.

After days of waiting, he called us and said that his staff did mentioned the replacement fee. So we requested to also listen to the recording clip and see if he is able to send us the clip. He agreed and told us to wait again. And we waited and then we received the following message from him. 

So apparently, we were asked to pay in order to view the video as we wanted to prove the authenticity of what the manager claimed, which i find was a bit ridiculous and poor customer service from Singtel side. Another weird thing was that, this manager already claimed to us beforehand that his staff did mentioned the replacement fee to us, which was why we requested to view the recording clip. HOWEVER, in the above text message, he was saying that the Customer Experience Team was viewing the video for confirmation findings and will update him.

So the question is, did he even view the recording clip or video at all? Weird, isn't it?

On 6 Nov 2015, i received the following email from the manager.

Basically, i still have to pay for the replacement fee, which i've accepted. But what i could not accept was the poor customer service from Singtel, asking us to pay in order to view the video.

To everyone out there who purchased the Mobile Swop and Mobile SwopUP plan, do take note that there is a swop and replacement fee! Do not think that Singtel is going to replace it WITH NO QUESTIONS ASKED. *roll eyes*

Phone numbers and name are burred out

update 12 Nov 15

So the store manager called and informed us that i still have to pay for the replacement fee, however, they will make arrangements to waive off 5 months of my phone bill.

Okay, so now at this point i'm not gonna complain anymore because at the very least Singtel offered some help in my case. My whole family has been with Singtel our whole life. Our mobile plans, internet and mio plans are all signed with Singtel. And honestly, we are all fairly satisfied customers. 

This is when i really understand why some people complains about customer service. That's because they experienced the inconvenience themselves and others are rarely able to sympathized with them as they are not the one experiencing it first hand and they do not feel the anxiety at all.

But anyway, let me share more on my process of getting the replacement handset.

So i called in their 24hr Mobile Swop hotline on 8 Nov, Sun and requested for the replacement handset because i couldn't wait anymore. They did their usual verification process and proceed to confirm the brand, model number and storage for my replacement handset.

Do take note that apparently, this replacement handset can only be done through delivery and this delivery must be delivered to the owner themselves. AND the delivery can only be delivered to house/private address.

I requested for the delivery to be delivered to my office and i was so excited to get my phone so soon as the service allows delivery by the next working day before 12pm. Then, the officer went on explaining that they can't do delivery to public places for security reasons or something like that. If i want the delivery to be delivered to my office, they need to put up a request form and it takes 3 working days for approval. Meaning, i can only get my phone on Thursday (Tues was a PH) and they only deliver from 8am to 6pm. Obviously, i don't want to waste my annual leave. So the earliest i can get my phone is almost a week later, which is this coming Saturday. 

So that's the END to my nightmare. This will serve as a constant reminder and slap to my face whenever the slightest thought of leaving my phone around comes to my mind. Constantly check for your valuable items and never leave them around.

update 20 Jan 16

The store manager of Jurong Point outlet promised that they will make arrangements to waive off 5 months of my phone bill. However, till date, my phone bill was never waived off. I called in and check with regards to this and the store manager got back to me saying that the waiver is still in process and will update me once it's done.