The problem with waiting until it’s totally and completely borked is then you have to panic scramble to get another phone instead of planning out a purchase. And I had difficulty doing this because my bank wanted to verify it was me making a large purchase…but my phone wouldn’t work so I couldn’t authenticate myself because that’s how everyone authenticates themselves. It’s a whole ordeal.
Granted, this can even theoretically happen with a new phone if you drop it or something. But at least with an old one, there are often signs before it goes completely kaput. My beloved cheap ass Motorola phone would bootloop occasionally and started doing it more and more often toward the end of its life. One morning before work it just totally died and would never turn on again, not even able to get the boot screen. (Troubleshooting revealed unfixable eMMC failure.) That was a fun couple of days trying to figure out how to buy a more expensive item without authenticating myself on my phone lol.
I had only ever purchased cheapo phones. Decided I wanted to splurge with a flagship at the local Best Buy and got a hard stop from my bank who wanted to verify it wasn’t a fraudulent charge. I wasn’t being ripped off. It was the normal price of the phone. I splurged on some new tech lol.
Funny thing is after giving up on that route, I made the purchase for the exact same amount on Amazon instead and it went through no problem lol.
It’s really not that deep. It was a charge of $1000 from a retailer I don’t normally purchase from. That’s not a regular occurrence. The only other time I had my bank ask me for verification was when I was withdrawing a large amount of cash from an ATM, which I also don’t normally do.
I usually sell my old phone and buy a new to me used phone. The cost for upgrading is usually only $100-150 for me and I typically end up getting a pretty massive upgrade hardware wise. I haven’t had a brand new phone in over a decade now.
Why upgrade when it still works?
The problem with waiting until it’s totally and completely borked is then you have to panic scramble to get another phone instead of planning out a purchase. And I had difficulty doing this because my bank wanted to verify it was me making a large purchase…but my phone wouldn’t work so I couldn’t authenticate myself because that’s how everyone authenticates themselves. It’s a whole ordeal.
Granted, this can even theoretically happen with a new phone if you drop it or something. But at least with an old one, there are often signs before it goes completely kaput. My beloved cheap ass Motorola phone would bootloop occasionally and started doing it more and more often toward the end of its life. One morning before work it just totally died and would never turn on again, not even able to get the boot screen. (Troubleshooting revealed unfixable eMMC failure.) That was a fun couple of days trying to figure out how to buy a more expensive item without authenticating myself on my phone lol.
If it starts to show problems I would prepare in advance of course but so far I have my S10 for over 4 years and it had zero problems so far.
How much do you spend on a phone that your bank tries to stop you? I think you have been ripped off
I had only ever purchased cheapo phones. Decided I wanted to splurge with a flagship at the local Best Buy and got a hard stop from my bank who wanted to verify it wasn’t a fraudulent charge. I wasn’t being ripped off. It was the normal price of the phone. I splurged on some new tech lol.
Funny thing is after giving up on that route, I made the purchase for the exact same amount on Amazon instead and it went through no problem lol.
Damn, your bank seems to have an awful lot of control over your bank account.
I bought my S10 for 350€ on Amazon when it was on sale. Might have even been my last buy from Amazon
It’s really not that deep. It was a charge of $1000 from a retailer I don’t normally purchase from. That’s not a regular occurrence. The only other time I had my bank ask me for verification was when I was withdrawing a large amount of cash from an ATM, which I also don’t normally do.
I see, I just never heard of that before. After looking it up I saw that I could transfer 100 000€ without my bank saying anything.
I usually sell my old phone and buy a new to me used phone. The cost for upgrading is usually only $100-150 for me and I typically end up getting a pretty massive upgrade hardware wise. I haven’t had a brand new phone in over a decade now.
These days phones don’t even make those big jumps anymore and these huge camera arrays really put me off anyway.