Apple Refusing Refund/Replacement – Wrong (Possibly Counterfeit) iPhone Supplied – Where Do I Stand?

tixilixvix

Ergates said:

Woodstok2000 said:

screech_78 said:

It’s a weird story. 

Whilst I’m sure there are many honest people in the world, I reckon a lot of people who received an iPhone 17 Pro Max instead of a 16 would be thinking they’d won the lottery

Until they found out, as OP noted, it's a cheap knockoff which will work for a day or teo if it works at all.

If I thought a phone company accidentally sent me a phone costing twice as much as the one I paid for I'd still not be happy *even if* it was real.   Because I'd be fully expecting them to say "Oops sorry, can we have our phone back please" when they realised their mistake which would then cause me extra hassle and delay.  Not to mention the burden on my conscious if I kept it.

Yes I can say I enjoyed carrying around (what i thought was) a £1200 phone every day for 12 days incase they called!

visidigi

tixilixvix said:

visidigi said:

The common theme on these issues are where DPD (or any courier, but Apple primarily use DPD for phones) claim they could not get the delivery done first time, and this allows the driver/scammer hours to make a very convincing go of a sealed package. Which to the untrained eye will look factory sealed but has infact been very cleverly opened, or label replaced. DPD really need to get a grip of this problem as its especially rife with them it seems.

A few things to ask Apple....

Does the IMEI of the phone they shipped match the one you got?
Was the IMEI on the phone box the same as the phone inside?
Does DPD show a label was reprinted for your delivery (making it VERY easy to swap boxes) - DPD will know if a reprint was done if Apple ask them.
Does the IMEI number that apple shipped you show as connected to to iCloud and if so with what email address - e.g. does it prove its not your email.

Finally...

Tell Apple you are more than okay for them to block the IMEI they sent you as you don't have it. No sane person would ask Apple to do that if they had stolen it!

Hello, I just wanted to come back on and say a BIG THANK YOU for your reply.

I went back to Apple Barclays Finance with what you suggested and they overturned the original decision - just like that!

Offered a refund (i guess back to the Finance Company) or a new phone.

Days of stress, phone calls and emails finished in one email - thank you so much again!

Great to hear, thanks so much for coming back and letting us know

MyRealNameToo

Ergates said:

MyRealNameToo said:

molerat said:

Until these suppliers and couriers admit there are organised crime syndicates working within them at all levels and actually do something about it the customer will carry on getting stiffed. 

Other than in many cases its the company that gets stiffed because the customer ultimately gets a refund

In the short term - but in the long term it's still the consumer that suffers - the cost of the losses will result in higher prices.  No way will the accept a drop in profits, that would impact the share price and those 200m yachts don't buy themselves.

That only really works if the claimed fraud rings are targeting all vendors in which case everyone's prices move up similarly. If they are only embedded in certain vendors then that vendor can't really increase their prices notably else they lose market share. 

In my world there are statisticians and/or actuaries spend a lot of time analysing pricing sensitivity and therefore predicting the impact of lowering or raising prices. Sometimes the better line will be better by lowering prices at which point the profit per unit drops but the volume of sales increase and more than offset it. Similarly increasing the price reduces the number of sales but the profit per sale increases maybe or maybe not enough to offset lost sales. 

There are other market forces at work, if businesses could simply raise their prices to cover whatever operating expenses there are we would never see a business go under.