Genius Bar broke iPhone

Question

Genius Bar broke iPhone

Hello!

Wanted an opinion on what happened to me this weekend.

Went in to the Apple store downtown Montreal Canada to replace the battery. Wanted to do this before the discount ends in January.

Prefacing this with the fact that the phone is just over a year old, has never been dropped or had more water on it than using in light rain.

The genius took the phone and said to return after 2 hours, standard practice. Upon arriving back to pick it up, was met with a quick shot of water damage (some rust) to the underside (phone frame) of the Taptic Engine but no tripped sensors. They said they can’t work on it, this is fair so left.

Upon arriving home it was realized that the Taptic Engine is now broken! There are no vibrations, no home button or force touch feedback, nothing. They did not tell me this when I left the store.

Calling Apple support ends in a redirection to the store. Going to the store, a manager was all too happy to accept $500 for a complete replacement.

Am I out of options? If it had not of been brought in, the phone would still be fully functional. They are hiding behind the fact that this “could’ve” happened with time, though clearly them opening it significantly sped up that process.

What are their policies on leaving with a phone in worse condition than when it was brought in?

Thanks!

iPhone 8

Posted on Dec 11, 2018 12:36 PM

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Answer 1

deggie

Level 10

167,525 points

Dec 11, 2018 2:11 PM in response to The Man with the Plan!

Yes, you are out of options other than paying the out-of-warranty replacement fee. The water damage to the haptic engine went critical (i.e. the rusted connection failed) when they opened the screen to replace the battery. There would be no way to avoid this. You can try talking to the service manager at the store or calling AppleCare and asking to be transferred to Customer Service. Have a compromise proposal in mind when you do this as they aren't going to offer to replace your iPhone as they have photo proof of the rust inside your iPhone. And avoid using it in the rain in the future.

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Answer 2

Dec 11, 2018 8:43 PM in response to deggie

Thanks for the input!

Went back to the store and spoke with a manager. He placed me with a genius while he finished another task. This genius ended up “sabotaging” the situation. To our faces he said there’s nothing he can do, but the manager has discretion. But when the manager came back he would discourage any alternate course of action other than a full phone replacement of $500. Whenever the manager started to think of a solution the genius reiterated that we only had that option... Genius even said we could trade it in at full value for an XR, despite the “water damage”.

We almost had the manager accept us paying the Taptic Engine replacement OOW fee but instead replacing the entire phone (because they can’t replace one part of a “water damaged” phone, fair). Then the Genius shot that down, as the manager left the Genius reiterated that it’s at the discretion of a manager to make special decisions.

This was exhausting so we left. I remember the days when real issues were handled well at the Apple Store. Now it just feels like I’m at BestBuy.

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Genius Bar broke iPhone

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