Comment by arzke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arzke | Hacker News Reader

I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court?

One year ago, I had to contact Apple support because the FindMy feature wouldn't work on my Airpods Pro, which still were under warranty. It looked like they were already associated with another account, which wasn't mine. That made no sense as I bought them myself at the Apple store and only have a single iCloud account.

I went to the store and they acknowledged the issue, and immediately got a replacement which turned out to have the exact same issue. I then had to spend hours on the phone with their customer support. After trying everything without success, the person on the phone told me I'd get a call back in one week to either issue a refund or find a different solution.

That phone call never came. All my following messages to that person were ignored. I finally gave up, but found out I was far from being the only one they had ghosted like that. Reading these stories reinforces my belief that Apple is terrible in terms of accountability when something goes wrong.

Took me a couple reads to put this one together. Based on that you mention being able to see they're associated with someone else's account, you mean that you got a unit that was not factory reset before being given to you right? (And you can't do it yourself because they're Apple-locked for theft reasons.) Not that it got stolen and now you can't find it?

Then you say you went to the store, were given a replacement, and it turned out the same. You didn't try out in the store whether these ones are functional? Which makes sense because why wouldn't they be, but could have saved the trouble. You haven't tried going back to that store, perhaps even at the same time and day of week so that you are likely to get the employee who remembers that they provided support in this situation (by handing out a replacement unit, in this case)? Then you could immediately try out, before taking it out of the store, whether this unit is functional

Either way, they have an obligation to meet the claims put out in marketing statements, including features like FindMy since they say on the website it can do that. If you've exhausted the easy options, you can always take it to something like small claims and get at least a refund that way. Often, a letter saying you intend to suffices

> Based on that you mention being able to see they're associated with someone else's account, you mean that you got a unit that was not factory reset before being given to you right? (And you can't do it yourself because they're Apple-locked for theft reasons.) Not that it got stolen and now you can't find it?

The unit was brand new, however it got somehow linked to some other iCloud account the second I connected it to my phone (which is not an iPhone). Well, the message I got indicated "You cannot use FindMy because the Airpods are linked to another iCloud account" or something like that.

I discussed with the same employee who helped me initially. They called a couple of their colleagues, and because nobody there could do anything to solve the issue, they gave me a phone number telling me this was the only option left.

It was clear to Apple there was an issue on their side, and that they needed to provide a solution. This has never been disputed.

> Either way, they have an obligation to meet the claims put out in marketing statements, including features like FindMy since they say on the website it can do that.

Absolutely, and I made sure to remind them this.

> If you've exhausted the easy options, you can always take it to something like small claims and get at least a refund that way.

Indeed, that could be an option. I just gave up as I was exhausted from spending over 10 hours just for this. At some point, it wasn't worth the effort anymore. But maybe this is what they are expecting us to do.

> I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court?

My naive understanding would be that you entered into a contract with them to supply a MacBook in exchange for a sum of money. The money was paid, but the MacBook was not delivered to the customer, so Apple are in breach of contract. I would imagine that a credit card company charge back would be the easiest solution if it was paid for by one.

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