Sour Apple Repair has seen its share of controversy. Following are a few of the College Station shop’s most notorious statements and actions.

“I took in My MacBook on Feb 4th for some water damage. Paid $200 up front … was told it would take a couple weeks. Two months later – I called to check in and they said there is more things wrong and now it doesn’t even turn on.” Yelp review of Sour Apple Repair

“Sorry they sell the off branded apple screens which leak and don’t last I’ve returned the phone 3 times not because it was dropped but it simply started going black and blue…” Yelp review of Sour Apple Repair

“Some of the worst customer service i’ve ever experienced. I went in this week to get my screen fixed and he seemed very annoyed that i came in.” Yelp review of Sour Apple Repair

Beware of Scammers: Sour Apple Repair did not honor legally valid, prepaid vouchers

Ripoff Report: Sour Apple Repair did not honor legally valid, prepaid vouchers. Deal company stepped up, offered customers easy refunds.

Ripoff Report: Sour Apple Repair, LLC replaced my iPhone screen with subpar parts College Station TX

Aggies, Aggie Parents operating College Station business falsely labeled “Longhorns” in Sour Apple Repair’s disinformation campaign

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“Our plan as Longhorns is to come to Aggieland and rip-off a locally owned and operated Aggie tradition by stealing their branding and confusing their customers,” is a false quote invented by the creator of the above graphic. It is sarcastically attributed to Sour Apple Repair’s newest (Aggie-owned) competitor.

Howdy! Gig ’em! The Aggie Ring! Aggie traditions. Those who love maroon and white hold tradition dear. Faced with a new competitor, local phone repair shop Sour Apple Repair attempted to tap into Texas A&M’s well-known love for tradition by declaring itself a “locally owned and operated Aggie tradition.” The same messaging also cast the new College Station phone repair shop across from Texas A&M University, as “Longhorn” usurpers of that tradition. One post even called on locals to boycott the new shop.

I reached out to the new shop. Turns out the accusation that they root for the Longhorns, a serious one indeed in Aggieland, is totally false. One of the partners who wishes not to be named in this article responded to our inquiry regarding their Aggie bonafides. While he did not claim to be an “Aggie tradition,” he set the record straight that he and his business partner bleed maroon. They are Aggies (’96, ’97) and Aggie parents (’13, ’18).

Background: Sour Apple Repair calls new competitor “Longhorns,” but there are “Four Aggie Rings” in the 1up Repairs family

Soon after the 1up Repairs chain opened a College Station phone repair shop across from Texas A&M University, Zachary Morgan of Sour Apple Repair tagged KBTX reporter Rusty Surette in a public facebook post: “Want a good story? Call me!”

While Surette never reported on anything related to it, Morgan and one of Sour Apple‘s vendors were simultaneously posting elsewhere on social media about the “good story” they wished to propagate. It concerned the the shop’s newest competitor who were called “Longhorns” intent on “stealing [Sour Apple’s] branding and confusing their customers” in one post.

The vendor created a graphic and posted it to facebook, sarcastically articulating the new competitor’s plan: “Our plan as Longhorns is to come to Aggieland and rip-off a locally owned and operated Aggie tradition by stealing their branding and confusing their customers” the graphic read. A prominent, red #BOYCOTT1UP stamp was also included. Sour Apple Repair’s Morgan added a comment: They are changing all of their Facebook pages to look like ours…”

“Every person who crossed me is a bit*ch…” Sour Apple Repair shop owner tweets about business, life

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“You’re gonna have to be that heartless a**hole.”

“Every person who crossed me is a bit*ch and cried before they did it”

“Keep going to church, it gives me more time to outwork you.”

Do these words inspire and motivate you? One local “entrepreneur,” who also purports to be a “motivational mentor,” seems to believe them to be solid business advice.

Zachary Morgan, owner of Sour Apple Repair in College Station, also promotes services as a “business and marketing consultant that,” according to his website, “can help you take your lifestyle to the next level.”

Left out of the “Z-MOtivation” page on the site are the ongoing tweets from the Sour Apple Repair founder that seem to reveal more mean-spirited motivations.

Perusing the Sour Apple Repair founder’s tweets shown below before deciding to become a mentee of Morgan’s might be a prudent exercise in due diligence.

Sour Apple Repair did not honor legally valid, prepaid vouchers. Deal company stepped up, offered customers easy refunds.

“BrazosVIP.com was recently informed by our customer service team that Sour Apple Repair is not accepting vouchers for iPhone Screen repair purchased from our site. We respect and value our customers’ time and trust. Brazos VIP had compensated Sour Apple as agreed, in full, months in advance for iPhone Screen repair vouchers which were recently dishonored.

We never sell our customers vouchers which we do not fully expect to be honored as printed. However, if that ever happens for any reason, refunds are easy,” says a spokesperson for Brazos VIP, a popular local website that serves as a platform for local businesses to sell and get paid in advance for discounted products or services.

“Our company paid in advance for the vouchers,” the spokesperson for the daily deal site continued. “Brazos VIP sold the vouchers to our members in good faith that they would be honored. Refunds were issued immediately to customers complaining Sour Apple would not honor the vouchers they purchased.”

The deal company’s customers with Sour Apple vouchers have reported the following scenario: Sour Apple representatives tell the customer that Brazos VIP sold them the voucher erroneously that they had not agreed to honor. Then, they instruct the Brazos VIP customer to request a refund online for the voucher from the deal company’s customer service. Sour Apple employees then accept payment directly from the Brazos VIP member at the same price the repair was offered for on their voucher.

“Having our customers be told their voucher was improperly issued hurts our business and hurts the customer. Fact is, we paid in good faith, in advance for Sour Apple to honor every voucher we have issued,” states the Brazos VIP spokesperson. “Brazos VIP has paid Sour Apple Repair over $10,000 in both cash and credits and we have the paper-trail and checks cashed by Sour Apple to prove it.”

Brazos VIP does not want customers to experience any inconvenience. “The company maintains a very liberal refund policy,” the deal company’s spokesperson says. “The customer service team that helps people login to their accounts or deal with other technical issues is empowered to issue customer refunds immediately in most cases. Sour Apple is aware of this because we sometimes a phone was un-repairable and several of the hundreds of customers we sent them who couldn’t use their voucher for that reason were given a quick, no-hassle refund. Now, they are using that knowledge of our easy refunds, telling customers with valid vouchers whose phones they can and should fix with the voucher as payment to instead request a refund from Brazos VIP and pay them directly.”

When the company learned of the issues Brazos VIP customers were having, they immediately ceased sales of Sour Apple iPhone Repair vouchers on BrazosVIP.com

The site encourages any members still holding an un-redeemed Sour Apple Repair, LLC vouchers to visit BrazosVIP.com and click the “Questions” link in the upper right-hand corner of the page to contact service and request a full refund. “Refunds will be processed quickly and courteously,” a statement from the company concludes.

Easy Phone Repairs will beat Sour Apple Repair on price… Guaranteed!

Easy Phone Repairs will give you the lowest price in town for any product or repair service we sell as long as it’s fundamentally equivalent in quality and you have a written quote from any competitor. Most of our time, pricing beats Sour Apple Repair (except when they may opt to use cheaper replacement parts). If anyone presents us with a quoted price from Sour Apple Repair for repairs using same-quality materials as ours, then we’ll match and beat the Sour Apple quote.