Unprotected Text: the risky repercussion of breaking your smartphone screen.
Since launching Gazelle’s sweepstakes to end unprotected text, we’ve received nearly 1,000 first-hand accounts, bringing to life the costly hazard that looms over all smartphone users.
Eight lucky winners won an iPhone or iPad, courtesy of Gazelle’s store. These are their stories.
- Kristine R. (Columbus, OH) I went out to the bar and when I was dropped off home, I also dropped my phone out of my purse. The next morning I awoke to finding it in the middle of the street, run over by at least 25 cars.
- Eddie G. (Vincennes, IN) I had the screen facing “out” inside my pocket – at Walmart and a cart rammed into me. ‘Oh no,’ I thought. ‘Oh yes, it happened.’ I was able to receive calls and texts. Luckily, I was able to get a replacement fast. NOW I will buy a screen protector.
- Mary P. (Cleveland, TX) My husband knocked my phone off the nightstand and stepped on it.
- Paul B. (Frazier Park, CA) I broke my wife’s iPad by accident. I didn’t know she had it under a stack of papers and I put my toolbox on the papers and shattered the screen.
- Xavier M. (Atkinson, NH) I dropped my phone on the pavement getting out of the car, shattering the glass. It was too expensive to replace the phone.
- Anjalene W. (Rockville, MD) I forgot that I had put it in my backpack. I added some books and the screen snapped like a twig.
- Vanessa R. (Tucson, AZ) My phone fell out of the car and I had to keep using it because it is too hard to go without a phone! New phones are too expensive, so you have to wait until your two years is up.
- Kailyn N. (Walker, LA) I was shoe shopping for homecoming with a perfectly good phone (iPhone 5c). I dropped it one time and shattered the entire thing, so I had to keep it like that, even though when I talked on the phone, it cut my face and left glass in my fingers. I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, and that’s why I need a new phone so I can stop getting hurt.