Polly L.

For most of the past year, I have been attempting to have a simple pre-employment health screening form completed by a clinic assigned by Ambetter. I have filed a grievance with Ambetter to which they will not respond. They claim to have sent a printed paper response (imagine sending unnecessary paper during the pandemic) to my office address which I have repeatedly explained is closed, as our campus is not in session. Ammeter refuses to address this problem, either with me directly or by mediating with the provider. There is no direct number to call, no direct email. When I called for the initial assignment the first level customer service tech told me to LIE – or rather that she was going to lie – when filling out the clinic/doctor selection form because Ambetter's records are so far out of date they did not include the present rosters of providers who accept their insurance. This is of course a Rick Scott legacy, a total grift, and of not use to patients and consumers. Ironically, my job is with the U.S. State Department – I'm a Fulbright researcher – and I cannot get a government-mandated insurance provider to call the actual federal government to clarify this point. In the meantime Fulbright has come up with an entirely new form. This is just insane. I cannot begin my project until this form is filled. This would take a few phone calls from Ambetter to resolve. In addition to dealing with the delay to the beginning of my scholarship and the stress of the pandemic, there is continual frustration in dealing with the incompetence and indifference of these con artists who are stealing from Floridians during the most desperate of times.

This is simply the worst retail experience I have ever had. This is a French company skirting US laws with privacy and import practices, but it does have a rented storefront in a condo in Brooklyn and an LLC registered in Delaware, so make sure to complain to the departments of consumer affairs in those states. New York City also has a special consumer protection division for businesses exploiting the pandemic, which, with all the Apple stores closed and the Cupertino repair center affected by the fires, this one certainly is.

I am an experienced Apple technology user and also a longtime longhaul traveler, so I am competent to evaluate both an iPhone and, given the way airlines and airline passengers often behave, what constitutes good or bad interpersonal business behaviour (and also to assess how phone batteries function during a day's worth of charge).

Back Market is not a small business; it is an international corporation operated by a group of investors. This is a France-based startup that recently reported raising $120 million for further expansion, and hired COO Raoul Costa de Beauregard away from Amazon. The owner, Thibaud Hug de Larauze, who apparently aspires to be the Martin Shkreli of cell phones, has been profiled by Bloomberg Business and is constantly featured in French media complaining about the COVID-19 quarantine.

In a preliminary communication with the Level 1 and 2 customer service support agents (but after having a payment verified), I received such a blisteringly rude and aggressive response to a question about a discount (which Black Market had offered – I didn't ask for it) that I decided I didn't want to give any business to this company at all. The reason for this was not hurt feelings, but it was obvious from the outset that the agent would not make any attempt whatsoever at mollification or customer recovery. The person could simply have said, "I understand how you read X, but it actually says Y." Instead the response was paragraphs long of condescension and gaslighting. This is never a good sign, because it means that the business knows going in that you're not going to be a repeat customer, so no point in trying to make it right the first time.

I have noticed there have been lots of consumer "slippages" during the pandemic and have overlooked a lot of small ones because small business owners are also struggling.

De Larauze doesn't seem to have much compassion for the American citizens in isolation with him, so I am imploring PayPal not only to take action regarding Back Market which has been so egregiously terrible, but to give these businesses taking advantage of the isolation, expense, and inconvenience of COVID-19 lockdown a really hard look. Given the conditions the pandemic has imposed on us – i. E. it is difficult in most places to get to an Apple store or to interact with any consumer service in person – and that Back Market is a sort of "green grift", presenting itself as focused on reducing pollution and waste when this is not true – is especially wrong.

The delivery of the product (one of the later iPhone 8 Plus models) was scheduled for a Friday and our family agreed to just basically waste the day waiting by the door to refuse the delivery. Instead, it arrived on Thursday, and intending to do us a kindness (as owing to COVID19 carriers cannot let people touch their electronic signature devices), our mail carrier, who has known me for a long time, signed herself and left the package on the porch.

Since the box was here we decided to look at the contents anyway. Having been primed by the rudeness of the customer service agent we were not "disappointed." The box did, nominally, contain the advertised "charger and USB cable." I say nominally because I do not count a non-UL-approved, non-fitting, bootleg charger and cord salvaged from the "going out of business / 80 percent off" electronics shop in "Don't Mess with the Zohan" to fulfill this requirement. When plugged the brick, wire, and phone overheated quickly, even in a power-distributing panel. I have one of the old iPhone 6Ss with the deliberately "chopped and slowed" battery and even it is still at 93 percent!

Perhaps needless to say, and most outrageously, the battery life is only at 83 percent, a contravention of Back Market's own policy. It is almost impossible to understand how the phone could even have got into this condition…this model came out in late 2018. Assuming a normal iPhone battery can withstand 500 full discharges / recharges, this phone would have had to have been fully burnt up almost every single day of its existence. I find that scenario to be extremely unlikely. The company nonetheless sold this phone as being in "mint" condition.

I teach, and will resume travel and research when I can, so the device that doesn't hold a full charge is useless to me. As other complaints have mentioned, this is no time to be forcing people into needless contact or dangerous situations.

So it's a total wash in terms of the purchase. The options are to send the phone back, of course, while Back Market still has my money, and then face an endless hassle over the refund no doubt. I could replace the battery myself, at an additional expense – I replaced an old spin up drive with an SSD recently so this seems a similar level of difficulty – but why should I have to, for one thing…plus I am afraid of what I might find in the screws loose/wires connected department inside this phone.

In terms of a "green" business highlighting its commitment to recycling…how "green" is it, really, to engage in rounds of packaging and mailing (and the related delivery driving), or of having to leave a device plugged into an electric source to get it to work?

Fortunately I paid through my credit union where I have had an account for years, and am just going to let them deal with the chargeback if PayPal cannot resolve this issue, and proceed from there. If you are a committed Apple/Mac product user, although it's a nuisance to deal with Apple sometimes as well, the Apple Care coverage usually eventually works. Although a new product plus insurance is more costly, ultimately, after this experience, I will only deal with Apple directly and consider the savings in time, frustration, and poor business practices. At least Apple store employees are direct payees. I am not naming the refurbisher or the customer service agent for that reason – BackMarket is a third party reseller propping up the gig economy. This is a systemic, not an individual problem. The company needs to assume responsibility for its quality control and contractor oversight.