ok, my wife's iphone is dead. I believe that the problem is that we used it with an itrip auto, and it's voltage was too much and fried the battery. Of course, the phone is unlocked and has tons of 3rd party apps on it. In my attempts to fix it, it has become completely inoperable.

I have a genius appointment tomorrow, and i'm wondering if i should go in and level with them about all the hacking, pleading that they take mercy on me, or just act ignorant and say that i got it as a gift and i just opened it and it was dead, thus unable to create a contract with at&t. will they call bs either way? if i go in and they can't get it to do anything either, will they just send me home with a new one without checking on my contract, or are they going to want to send it in for service, thus discovering my lack of contract?

Just hope there not a Genius

i purposely fried my battery when an unlock attempt went wrong and i bricked my phone. I told them it went dead right after I hooked it up to my PC and it never turned on again. They were unable to turn it on so they gave me a new one. They knew it wasn't activated but then I brought it back the day after I purchased it.

how long ago was this? can i still get away with this? from the blog reports it seems like they're much more strict now.

Heck no.. Microwave the phone no joke.. they have signs up behind the bar stating they wont help with modified iphones since apps can cause irreversible damage.

I tried the "gift story" no dice for me. It was 3 weeks old when I tried.
You can try and pleas that you will activate the ATT account right there after they swap the phone and then cancell the account when you get home.

Honestly, it's all about who you're lucky enough to get as your "genius". Most of them don't give half a crap about your situation, they were trained not to accept modified phones. A small percentage probably do sympathize with you, so they will be more lenient in their 'evaluation'. But, no matter who you get, do not ever, ever, ever tell them or admit to modifying your phone. I don't care what you learned in school, honesty isn't always the best policy. There are COUNTLESS amounts of stories on this very forum about people who had it going strong, the geniuses they were working with were about to replace their phones, then they felt like being "honest". Goodbye replacement. Once the genius hears you admit to modding your phone, there is no way he can both give you a replacement and keep his job. News flash: they're called geniuses for a reason, they know, most of the time right off the bat, that your phone is modified.

So, two main rules:
1) You have no idea what the terms "unlocking" or "3rd party apps" mean.
2) Keep your story straight. It's amazing how many people think it would be fun to make up a new story every time they're asked what happened. I'm sure they'll be giggling all the way to the bank.