If you can get to a public library, these often (though of course not always) can and will go to heroic lengths to help people with device and service issues. They may also be able to help with charging problems.
Repair shops should also have some capacity to help as others have noted.
I'd also open a consumer-rights issue with your state's consumer-affairs agency, usually the state attorney general or equivalent office. For Washington State:
(This tends to be oriented toward utilities and comms providers though it addresses general concerns as well.)
Washington State's AG specifically notes:
The division’s Consumer Resource Center provides an informal complaint resolution service. The informal complaint resolution process includes notifying businesses of written complaints and facilitating communication between the consumer and the business to assist in resolving the complaint.
Otherwise, this is a major and escalating problem. The present privately-operated, corporate, for-profit systems we have come to rely on address the problem quite poorly. It's bad enough for techbros and the generally affluent. It's literally life-or-death for the poor, indigent, and handicapped.
I'd like to see organisations such as the EFF, mental health and social welfare organisations, the AARP, and others, put this issue on their priority lists. Ultimately we're going to need some sort of legislation to address the question.
Repair shops should also have some capacity to help as others have noted.
I'd also open a consumer-rights issue with your state's consumer-affairs agency, usually the state attorney general or equivalent office. For Washington State:
<https://www.atg.wa.gov/consumer-protection>
(This tends to be oriented toward utilities and comms providers though it addresses general concerns as well.)
Washington State's AG specifically notes:
The division’s Consumer Resource Center provides an informal complaint resolution service. The informal complaint resolution process includes notifying businesses of written complaints and facilitating communication between the consumer and the business to assist in resolving the complaint.
Otherwise, this is a major and escalating problem. The present privately-operated, corporate, for-profit systems we have come to rely on address the problem quite poorly. It's bad enough for techbros and the generally affluent. It's literally life-or-death for the poor, indigent, and handicapped.
I'd like to see organisations such as the EFF, mental health and social welfare organisations, the AARP, and others, put this issue on their priority lists. Ultimately we're going to need some sort of legislation to address the question.
Good luck, Doreen.