Not sure about this…

[Ahappymediumlarge]

My iPhone needs a new battery, so I went to a phone repair chap that I’ve been to previously - he’s friendly and very reasonable.

He said it would take about an hour, so I said I’d go shopping and come back later. He then asked for my passcode so he would be able to test it. I felt flustered and gave it to him (he wrote it down), but immediately regretted it. I then made the excuse that I need to step outside and make a quick phone call before handing over my phone, and left the shop.

Like most people my whole life is on my phone, and one click could have given him access to my work emails with potentially very sensitive information on there. I’ve done enough data protection training to know that could be very serious.

But I felt too embarrassed to go back and explain that I shouldn’t have given him the passcode, and to ask him to destroy it. It would feel like I’d be accusing him of potentially snooping, and would have been weird and embarrassing after we’d been exchanging pleasantries. So Reader, I ghosted him - I didn’t go back to the shop and now never can.

Now I still have a rubbish battery and feel like an idiot, but I’m not going to hand over my passcode to anyone. Not sure what to do now…

I had to hand over passcodes whenever a new screen or anything was needed, either my phone, teens phone or their iPad. I’ve been to 3 different people and they all ask for it so it must be needed. I doubt they are that interested in snooping and trying to find info, the majority of people really aren’t that interesting and it would add hours onto their time, leaving them less time for jobs & earning.

I guess your next option would be a new phone, or new refurbished one, that way you can just transfer everything over and wipe the phone with the duff battery & either replace it and sell or just sell it on to music magpie or somewhere and let them replace it.

I refuse to hand over my passcode. They want it so they can check everything is working after the repair. I just said we could check it when I came in to pick it up. Which worked for them but obviously meant I risked making an unnecessary trip to pick it up if something doesn’t work properly and they have to redo it.

You can also back your phone up. Reset it so it doesn’t have any of your information on. Get the battery replaced and then restore your back up to the repaired phone.

Just change the passcode and go back and say you've thought about it and not happy to give the passcode but you can check the phone over when it's fixed with him there?