topic I don't understand what is happening with my repair in Apple Devices

I don't understand what is happening with my repair

mia127 — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 15:28:53 GMT

I gave my phone into repair in the Portsmouth EE branch on Thursday. They said it was most likely a software issue, but in the circumstance the battery needed replacing they would contact me before any decisions. I was advised that most likely the phone will be ready to pick up Friday afternoon.

I logged into the portal on Friday and saw this message: "The device needs to be exchanged and the swap device has been requested". I have no idea what this means. It is now Saturday and I have heard nothing from EE or the store, and I am really confused on what is happening.

I have called the store 16 times. I even called surrounding stores just to see if there was another number or if they could pass on a message, but not a single store answered the phone. I am confused why they even have phone numbers if staff do not answer them. I even called at different times of the day.

It is quite far for me to go and I do not want to turn up to the store just to be sent away. Any advice on the message or who to contact would be appreciated as I am feeling really anxious about this whole situation.

Just to be clear, I only paid for the software repair and nothing else.

Thank you for reading!

Re: I don't understand what is happening with my repair

bristolian — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 19:30:34 GMT

@mia127 wrote:
I have called the store 16 times. I even called surrounding stores just to see if there was another number or if they could pass on a message, but not a single store answered the phone. I am confused why they even have phone numbers if staff do not answer them. I even called at different times of the day.

It won't help much, but I had a similar experience with an in-store repair going back several years.

To my mind, contacting the store is absolutely the right thing to do here. I would interpret the swap message as meaning "we can't repair this device, we need to provide a replacement and this has been requested".

Re: I don't understand what is happening with my repair

mia127 — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 22:40:05 GMT

Thank you for your thoughts! I also interpreted it similarly and I am so confused why they would do this when I never agreed on it. It sounds really shady and I would just rather have my phone back. I will have to try go to the store in the next few days to figure this out.