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AT&T complaint

If this is not an appropriate place to make a complaint about a carrier, I apologize and understand if this post is locked, moved, or removed.
I have a Tilt 2 which recently and suddenly began not sending or receiving on its USB port. The phone would charge, but no data would move. In fact, neither the computers nor the phone itself even made notice that a device had been connected. I also noticed the battery discharging abnormally fast. So fast that even with the phone off, the next day, it would not power on. I called AT&T to get the phone replaced as it's less than a year old.
I was put through the ringer, as expected on a first call. I was then forwarded to business tech support where I was met with a seemingly slightly more intelligent person, who obviously had no experience actually using a Windows Mobile device, but had no issue reading from a guided instruction on using a WM6.1 device, for a phone using a WM6.5.
This person then contacted HTC and put me in touch with them, where I got the most intelligent person I'd spoken to all that day (an I work in a call center myself). After software removal and resinstallation as well as option swapping, I was told to take the phone to a store to see if it was both my laptop running Device Center and my desktop running ActiveSync in conjunction with the 4 cables I used, including the stock one, were at fault... I was told if they were, that the phone needed replacement.
Fine.
The next day, I discover the aforementioned battery drain to the point of no power on. I take it to the store, where they are unable to test it as it won't stay on (due to complete discharge), and am instructed to call AT&T's warranty line. I spent the next 12 minutes on the phone with the warranty rep, who, through my description of the problem, decides the best thing to do is to REPLACE THE BATTERY... I asked the rep something to the tune of 'So, are you saying that a failed battery would cause the data port not to work, when the phone is receiving power through the same cable as the data would be going through?'
To which I am replied something like 'Well, sometimes...' at which point I pulled the phone away from my head to avoid screaming at this person. I do not like being treated like an idiot. I have been using WM devices since 2003, and HTC's since 2007. It would be obvious to anyone on these forums that what this phone is doing is a hardware failure. It's been reported multiple times in the Rhodium forum that this is occurring to all forms of the Rhodium.
Anyway, the rep confirmed my information and told me to expect this battery in 2 days. Upon checking the email confirmation, it's an extended battery. Adhesive bandages for broken necks.... Once I got home, I called again and laid out my contempt for this process and negation of the word of the manufacturer. This person connected me to the warranty line and I was greeted by someone who could actually comprehended the problem and did not attempt to point fingers after accusation had been made.
I will be receiving a replacement soon. But I must say, the 2.5 hours spent talking to the collective uninformed reps at AT&T makes me think twice before buying a new device ever again. On the other hand, the singularly knowledgeable rep at HTC was a pleasant surprise. In my line of work (appliances), the relative show of knowledge and comprehension skills far exceeds anything I've encounted in the whole of the company I work for.
Bravo, HTC. Shame on you, AT&T.

Er... could this all have been avoided if you had contacted HTC in the first place? Because that's what your post sounds like. (Just curious!) Or did your warranty only apply though AT&T?

The warranty was through AT&T, per the HTC rep. If there's a manufacturer's warranty as well, I would have much rather went with them.
As a side note to the fiasco, the replacement battery made it to me. I called and was told to keep it.
Here's the best part:
It's an extended battery. The downside? No replacement back cover, so it won't fit in the case... Way to go, AT&T...

Your story is one of the reasons I found myself moving to Big Red last year. My TP2 (RHOD500) has not seen any of the issues mentioned here.
If you want to read about my "adventure" in AT&T-land, check out this thread from my Tilt days.

How would one go about disabling/enabling when a phone can and cannot be charged?

I have a very unique situation.
I dropped my phone in the trash at work(IT Company), accidentally one day, and a small amount of disturbingly gross liquid managed to make it's way into my phone.
I wiped it down, made sure it didn't smell like crap - etc.
Everything worked FINE at first, I said ah, good. Apparently it was not not good.
Now, the phone gets stuck in a loop where it thinks to itself it's charging for a second, then it's not, keeping the screen on and flashing the charging notification repetitively until it decides to stop for an hour, then come back.
Radioshack screwed me over BIG TIME on my phone insurance, I filed a ripoff report etc, and given I need my phone for work related issues I really cannot afford to have any downtime having it be sent in and repaired. NO, I cannot receive an immediate replacement, and NO, I cannot afford another phone.
So, therefore I come to you, my great friends at XDA.
I've a fairly decent background in programming, I understand the just of it. I've taken classes in ASM(Microcomputer Architecture and Programming), C/Java and Python.
And no, I'm not a college-fed programmer, I've been programming in VB, C/C++, PERL etc. since I was 13(22 now.)
So, to the specifics:
My phone is a Samsung Transform Ultra, Android 2.3, rooted and running a "ROM" if you could call it that, but it shouldn't make that much of a difference(just installed it to get rid of CIQ)
Now, I've never wrote a mobile app before but I have the android SDK (1.6-4.0), and I'm fairly certain I could get a hello world going in a matter of minutes.
I'm willing to do the research myself, I just need some good pointers and some people who might be able to answer a few questions along my journey, and when the app is done I will be releasing it in full, yes, to you XDA.
Programming costs time, replacing the phone costs money. I have more time than money.
Best regards!

Bump.
Any help on this issue would be GREATLY, GREATLY appreciated as this is quite possibly the most angering issue imaginable.

I don't know if this will help, but I had a similar problem with my galaxy S. It turned out to be a tiny piece of silver paper that had managed to get into the micro usb slot. A quick shake later and problem solved.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

thebotnet said:
I have a very unique situation.
I dropped my phone in the trash at work(IT Company), accidentally one day, and a small amount of disturbingly gross liquid managed to make it's way into my phone.
I wiped it down, made sure it didn't smell like crap - etc.
Everything worked FINE at first, I said ah, good. Apparently it was not not good.
Now, the phone gets stuck in a loop where it thinks to itself it's charging for a second, then it's not, keeping the screen on and flashing the charging notification repetitively until it decides to stop for an hour, then come back.
Radioshack screwed me over BIG TIME on my phone insurance, I filed a ripoff report etc, and given I need my phone for work related issues I really cannot afford to have any downtime having it be sent in and repaired. NO, I cannot receive an immediate replacement, and NO, I cannot afford another phone.
So, therefore I come to you, my great friends at XDA.
I've a fairly decent background in programming, I understand the just of it. I've taken classes in ASM(Microcomputer Architecture and Programming), C/Java and Python.
And no, I'm not a college-fed programmer, I've been programming in VB, C/C++, PERL etc. since I was 13(22 now.)
So, to the specifics:
My phone is a Samsung Transform Ultra, Android 2.3, rooted and running a "ROM" if you could call it that, but it shouldn't make that much of a difference(just installed it to get rid of CIQ)
Now, I've never wrote a mobile app before but I have the android SDK (1.6-4.0), and I'm fairly certain I could get a hello world going in a matter of minutes.
I'm willing to do the research myself, I just need some good pointers and some people who might be able to answer a few questions along my journey, and when the app is done I will be releasing it in full, yes, to you XDA.
Programming costs time, replacing the phone costs money. I have more time than money.
Best regards!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One maybe possible solution maybe... (free app) (need root)
Hardware Disabler
The though is, in order to stop that you are going to have to disable the actual USB port. You are going to have to play around and find out what driver corresponds to that USB port ... good luck, let me know if it helped.
(Yes I made that app)

Help I need to protect my wifi, cell and laptop

In March, my sister in law and I found out that we were being “followed”, and that “someone” had it in for her and that her car was marked and there were/are pictures and videos of the both of us. Not too long after we were warned about that, she found a flash drive that was blinking in the computer at her home and took it and went to work and plugged it in and it was recordings of conversations we had in her car. To narrow it all down quickly, her husband was tracking her car, hacked into our cellphones and my home laptop computer, I also had found a recording device under the daybed in my bedroom. I had realized that things looked different in my home when I would come home and once my neighbor across the street told me my dog was out and that he chased him down and put him back, -there is NO WAY he could have gotten out unless someone opened the gate. A spare key was in our garage for our son in which his brother would come in while we were at work (our thoughts is to retrieve the device download it and put it back), but nevertheless we were invaded, seemingly for over a year. So I am trying to find out how to find if I am still being hacked (cell and laptop), how to block help myself from being hacked again, how to protect my wifi (i got my own separate one from our house one), and how to make use of the programs I have purchased as a result of being stalked in such a manner.
I now am in constant paranoia over my electronics and I need help. I have several questions to cover a variety of areas dealing with this situation and I truly and desperately need help. I have downloaded tutorials and have familiarized myself with some things, but I would like to speak to an expert.
If you can help please message me.
Michelle

Mimi44 said:
In March, my sister in law and I found out that we were being “followed”, and that “someone” had it in for her and that her car was marked and there were/are pictures and videos of the both of us. Not too long after we were warned about that, she found a flash drive that was blinking in the computer at her home and took it and went to work and plugged it in and it was recordings of conversations we had in her car. To narrow it all down quickly, her husband was tracking her car, hacked into our cellphones and my home laptop computer, I also had found a recording device under the daybed in my bedroom. I had realized that things looked different in my home when I would come home and once my neighbor across the street told me my dog was out and that he chased him down and put him back, -there is NO WAY he could have gotten out unless someone opened the gate. A spare key was in our garage for our son in which his brother would come in while we were at work (our thoughts is to retrieve the device download it and put it back), but nevertheless we were invaded, seemingly for over a year. So I am trying to find out how to find if I am still being hacked (cell and laptop), how to block help myself from being hacked again, how to protect my wifi (i got my own separate one from our house one), and how to make use of the programs I have purchased as a result of being stalked in such a manner.
I now am in constant paranoia over my electronics and I need help. I have several questions to cover a variety of areas dealing with this situation and I truly and desperately need help. I have downloaded tutorials and have familiarized myself with some things, but I would like to speak to an expert.
If you can help please message me.
Michelle
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it is someone that is close to you, such as your sister in law's husband, it's gonna be hard because they have direct access to your hardware. The only thing I see fixing this situation is to involve law enforcement or some kind of measures to physically keep them away from your hardware. It's virtually impossible to protect the hens from the fox when the fox is inside the henhouse with the hens. It only works when the hens are on the inside and the fox is on the outside, if you understand what I'm saying.
Your biggest security threat in what you describe is a physical real world one, not an electronic or software one.
If he knows what he is doing and has physical access to your hardware, software and electronic safety measures won't help you because he could just bypass it.
If your issue was someone from the outside that doesn't have physical access to your hardware THEN software and electronic measures would give you a decent safety net. But in your situation I seriously doubt those measures will help you any.
Focus on the real problem.....HIM.
I DO NOT PROVIDE HELP IN PM, KEEP IT IN THE THREADS WHERE EVERYONE CAN SHARE

How could this person be locating my devices?

I'm sure I'll get some haters, who think I am simply nuts but this is a REAL problem that I've got to solve.
For the last 6 years I've had a mysterious stalker and hacker, who renders most of my and my family's devices nonfunctional and breaks into my accounts and generally makes my life much harder. It has recently come to light that it isn't a hacker SINGULAR but at least 3 guys, hellbent on destroying me: my daughter's father, her uncle, who is a military hacker and their friend, who managed to ingratiate himself with me, until my daughter's father confessed, when I confronted him with evidence against him and his brother, saying he didn't mean for it to get this out of hand. Well, thanks for the heads up but it's a little late, because it IS this out of hand and the wheels of justice grind slowly.
Meanwhile, I am still hacked, even worse now, because his brother got out of the military and moved back to town and has a lot more time and access now. Calls and texts are being intercepted so frequently, that I now use Google Voice/Hangouts to communicate, knowing that nothing I say is ever private but at least people get my messages and I get their calls that way.
I'm looking for a job and I need a device that he won't be able to spy on, so I went to Best Buy and purchased a phone card and moderately priced android phone and took it home to resume my job hunt. I planned never to call any of my usual contacts with the phone but just use it for work stuff. Within hours, it was acting buggy and when I restarted it, it did not go to the regular black screen that says "your device is encrypted for security" but showed my regular background and said "please enter your password when starting android". On my note 8 and 9, that would often happen and when I went to security options, secure startup would be disabled. I checked and secure startup was still supposedly enabled. In ADB "adb shell getprop ro.crypto.state" returned "unencrypted".
I returned the phone and purchased a Google Pixel, hoping their physical security device MIGHT be more effective than Knox at protecting me from this guy. I purchased a brand new sim card and spent another 50 bucks on a phone card, from a different company.
Since my daughter's father has moved within a half-mile of me (despite having no contact with her and very little with me) 4 times now, I speculated that he was, perhaps, using a directional yagi antenna to scan my area for new device beacons and then (skip forward a few steps) find out what apps are installed on those devices, to determine if they are mine. With that in mind, I never even turned the Pixel on at my house.
That night, I took the phone to a random emergency room with secure wifi, to which I know the password and proceeded to set it up. I made a new google account, as usual and installed a bunch of random apps, such as black dating apps (since I am white, I figured that, if my theory was right, it might throw them off my scent) and games I would never play and apps for banks of which I am not a member. By the first time I restarted the phone, still at the emergency room, it had the exact same problem. It purported to be encrypted but (adb later verified) it was not. Apparently, the cheap phone faired slightly better than the pixel, in this department, because the first one was reencrypted upon reset, while the Pixel was not. I never activated or inserted a sim card in the pixel and while I had my regular phone and tablet along with me, they were powered off, in the car.
I was pretty sure, after the first phone was compromised, that I was onto something with my beacon frame theory but it would not explain what happened at the emergency room, unless there is a tracking device in my car, which IS likely, because I continually find my car torn up in all sorts of ways. They even broke off the panel on the driver's door with lock and window switches and the lid of my center console and I continually find the carpet pulled away from the trim. Then again, they also put something caustic in the wiper fluid tank, which destroyed both tank and windshield, so it could also have all been done simply out of malice.
Having no better ideas, I ran a bug detector over my car and found that there IS a radio signal being emitted from somewhere around the gearshift or cd player. I took apart the area around the gearshift and found nothing. In that department, the only remaining possibility is that they've actually put something inside of the cd player itself, the screen of which quit working a while back. I have the ribbon cable to fix it, so maybe I'll get lucky when I crack it open in a bit. The signal DOES appear strongest at the CD player but it could be anything, even catalytic converters can emit radio signals.
Assuming my bug theory is wrong, does anyone have any other idea of how these guys could have discovered and hacked those phones? I've got to find a way to evade these people or I'll never have anything like a normal life, until they're finally in jail.

Wow!
I have not heard of such hacks, even when it comes to national security.
What is the motive of these three people ?

I have no clue but with there skill in not sure an iphone would fare much better

What to do before turning device over to law enforcement?

A friend's daughter died a couple of years ago. At the time the death was ruled accidental overdose. Long story short, the police and coroner didn't investigate much of anything and what they did, was shoddy. The case was closed and friend was able to take possession of two of her daughters android phones, one was on network, other just used on wifi. Friend does not have any of the passwords and can't get into them.
Since then, new evidence was discovered that shows close to 100% she was murdered. The police however have refused to reopen the case. Friend has tried everything and recently started a Facebook group (#AnswersForMeagan) as a last resort. Group has taken off and much more info discovered. They are getting a lot of attention so today the Sheriff called my friend and they will be meeting soon.
That said, the sheriff didn't know of the two phones. Friend is obviously apprehensive about turning them over, afraid they could botch things up again, or even intentionally mess up the data (there are indeed bad folks corrupted by the money of trafficking and drugs). This is SC. Is anyone aware of a good place that can get into the phones and minimally save off a copy of the data? If you were doing this, what would your process be?
I used to root my android back in the gs3 days. Before that I actually had a palm Pre. I'm IT, I know my way around well, but I haven't fooled with things for several years. Worst case I can help the friend with the right process, but I'd rather a current professional do it.
Strange question and kind of way off topic, but I used to come here all the time and know someone will have advice. If you're interested, come join the group on fb.
Thanks,
Chuck

If on phone MTP mode is enabled and phone supports a USB-C connection then it should be possible to retrieve user-data stored on phone.
MTP functions a lot like USB mass storage. For example, an MTP device shows up in Windows Explorer so you can browse and transfer files.