Apple + Sprint Apple Iphone 5 from sprint is missing parts  Internet

Apple iPhone 5 + Sprint = Missing parts in phone and a lot of headache.

My wife has a sprint iphone 5 bought brand new on sprint.com  last November. She dropped it and the screen cracked. Set up an appointment with Apple store in Briarwood mall, Ann Arbor. The “genious bar” lady came back in half an hour and asked me if this was a refurbished or used phone. I said that I had  bought brand new from sprint.com. She said some parts are missing in the phone. She cannot fix the screen for $149( I don’t have apple care) because someone opened the iPhone and I have to talk to sprint.

I go home and call sprint. I hour on the phone explaining to 3 people my problem “Sprint shipped me a tampered Iphone”. Sprint claimed that it can’t do anything. It ships whatever it gets from Apple. I need to talk to Apple.

I go back to Apple and explain the run around I am getting from Apple and Sprint. This genious-bar member realized that I was frustrated, got someone else I guess its the manager. They both whispered something in each other’s ears. They said they will take care of this. After 1 hour I finally got my screen replaced (I am sure about the screen because I see it) and supposedly got the missing parts in place ( I am not sure because I can’t see it). Paid 149 + tax.

Moral: Don’t trust Apple/Sprint.

So I just want to let all Iphone5 users to know that you might be carrying an Iphone with missing parts and you don’t even know about it. Apple store will not (at least initially) repair it because “it is a tampered phone”. The phone may function normally until you need some repair. 

Either Apple is shipping faulty phones or Sprint is selling refurbished phones/tampered phones as brand new phones. Please send this message to all your friends. I don’t want other iPhone users to deal with this headache.

The things that bothered me most 

• Is Apple aware of this missing parts issue?
• If Apple knows that Sprint can’t help me, why was I told to deal with Sprint? Just to make me leave the store? This is very un-Apple like experience. 

Thanks to  Samsung, their  phones are pretty good too. This will be our last iPhone + Sprint.