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iPhone "International Warranty"

deeceetee

deeceetee

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 20, 2013
1
0
The Netherlands
When talking to any Apple rep, be it in an Apple Store or online I asked the question whether the phone is guaranteed outside the USA. The answer is always YES, all you need to do is to take it to the Apple representative in the country and thy would honor the warranty.
My question here whether this is true, do we indeed have an "international" warranty or is this an outright lie. See my story below:
I bought my iPhone 5 from AT&T sometime in October 2012. In Januari 2013, less than 3 months after purchase, while in Europe (the Netherlands) I experienced problems with the phone. There is a brand new Apple store in downtown Amsterdam where I took the iPhone to. It didn't take long for them to decide to replace the phone untill they found out that the phone was purchased in the USA and that therefore they couldn't give me a replacement phone, accompanied by a total BS story that the phones in the US are different from the European version. I begged them to give me a European version because that is the same as far as I'm concerned. No they could not, I should talk to Apple care in the USA. Which I did while explaining the whole situation. Tough "sh.." they said, the could not send a replacement phone to my foreign address, instead they did send it to my US home address for which I had to fork up $27. My son had to forward the phone to me, again at my expense. After receipt I sent the defective phone to my son (at my expense again) and he returned it to Apple in the prepaid FedEx envelope.
I had called Apple and written to them several times to complain. They're very arrogant, they never even responded to me.
Your reactions please.
 
AFAIK iPhones don't come with international warranty. All iPhones come with country specific warranty. Warranty applies only to the country it was bought in

On the other hand, all other apple products except for iPhone have international warranty.
 
I thought the iPad's sold in the US are not covered outside the US either.
Enjoylife1788 said:
AFAIK iPhones don't come with international warranty. All iPhones come with country specific warranty. Warranty applies only to the country it was bought in

On the other hand, all other apple products except for iPhone have international warranty.
Click to expand...
 
deeceetee said:
When talking to any Apple rep, be it in an Apple Store or online I asked the question whether the phone is guaranteed outside the USA. The answer is always YES, all you need to do is to take it to the Apple representative in the country and thy would honor the warranty.
My question here whether this is true, do we indeed have an "international" warranty or is this an outright lie. See my story below:
I bought my iPhone 5 from AT&T sometime in October 2012. In Januari 2013, less than 3 months after purchase, while in Europe (the Netherlands) I experienced problems with the phone. There is a brand new Apple store in downtown Amsterdam where I took the iPhone to. It didn't take long for them to decide to replace the phone untill they found out that the phone was purchased in the USA and that therefore they couldn't give me a replacement phone, accompanied by a total BS story that the phones in the US are different from the European version. I begged them to give me a European version because that is the same as far as I'm concerned. No they could not, I should talk to Apple care in the USA. Which I did while explaining the whole situation. Tough "sh.." they said, the could not send a replacement phone to my foreign address, instead they did send it to my US home address for which I had to fork up $27. My son had to forward the phone to me, again at my expense. After receipt I sent the defective phone to my son (at my expense again) and he returned it to Apple in the prepaid FedEx envelope.
I had called Apple and written to them several times to complain. They're very arrogant, they never even responded to me.
Your reactions please.
Click to expand...



Here is the answer to your question regarding warranty. This is taken going on to apple's website:

IMPORTANT RESTRICTION FOR iPHONE AND iPAD SERVICE.
Apple may restrict warranty service for iPhone and iPad to the country where Apple or its Authorized Distributors originally sold the Apple Product.

Link: http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/iphone-english-uk.html
 
My reaction:

Apple followed their own rule. Someone may have given you bad information (either that, or just told you what you wanted to hear to get you to go away and be someone elses problem).

No international warranty. Period.

If they do work on a "foreign" device it's because you are an extremely attractive female they plan on getting a little "warranty work" from later. Otherwise, take it to the country it originated from and get it warrantied there...
 
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upnorth85 said:
I thought the iPad's sold in the US are not covered outside the US either.
Click to expand...

I guess that's not correct. I have an ipad 2 GSM Bought from the US and I got it exchanged it in India a couple months back. So I guess it applies to only iPhones.
 
Enjoylife1788 said:
I guess that's not correct. I have an ipad 2 GSM Bought from the US and I got it exchanged it in India a couple months back. So I guess it applies to only iPhones.
Click to expand...

i think with phones things are different, because when I went to get my iP5 checked out (lens/dust pblm), the first thing the rep said was that if we needed to replace this phone, the phone has to have been purchased in the US.
 
deeceetee said:
When talking to any Apple rep, be it in an Apple Store or online I asked the question whether the phone is guaranteed outside the USA. The answer is always YES, all you need to do is to take it to the Apple representative in the country and thy would honor the warranty.
My question here whether this is true, do we indeed have an "international" warranty or is this an outright lie. See my story below:
I bought my iPhone 5 from AT&T sometime in October 2012. In Januari 2013, less than 3 months after purchase, while in Europe (the Netherlands) I experienced problems with the phone. There is a brand new Apple store in downtown Amsterdam where I took the iPhone to. It didn't take long for them to decide to replace the phone untill they found out that the phone was purchased in the USA and that therefore they couldn't give me a replacement phone, accompanied by a total BS story that the phones in the US are different from the European version. I begged them to give me a European version because that is the same as far as I'm concerned. No they could not, I should talk to Apple care in the USA. Which I did while explaining the whole situation. Tough "sh.." they said, the could not send a replacement phone to my foreign address, instead they did send it to my US home address for which I had to fork up $27. My son had to forward the phone to me, again at my expense. After receipt I sent the defective phone to my son (at my expense again) and he returned it to Apple in the prepaid FedEx envelope.
I had called Apple and written to them several times to complain. They're very arrogant, they never even responded to me.
Your reactions please.
Click to expand...

iPhones 5's sold in US are different to those sold in EU so it's not a BS story. They support different LTE bands.
 
Was very true with the 4s not so with the 5.

Is also very true with the iPad. I've purchased stateside and swapped in the uk several times.
 
The BS we get in India is that every phone sold in the country needs to have every phone's IMEI number registered in some telecom regulatory database.

since, our phones are bought from outside, they can't get it done and hence, they can't be repaired.

The thing that i have never understood, whats' the direct/indirect relation between getting phone repaired (by paying for it as well) and IMEI number in some regulatory database...
 
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The problem is with iPhone 5 (and iPad 4 also) because they actually are different products from the European versions, with a different LTE band.
The model number are different. It isn't the same phone.

I bought an iPhone 4S in USA two years ago, and they exchange it with a refurbished here in Italy for a problem with the home button.
The only problem is the international warranty is 12 months (while here in Europe the warranty is 2 years).
 
hamiltonDSi said:
The iPhones have international warranty.
I exchanged a broken iPhone 5 from Paris in Romania. No questions asked.
Click to expand...

They only exchanged this because your iphone was bought in the Europe Zone. If you tried to swap it outside Europe they would not do this.
 
If it were restricted to only iPhone 5, I would understand because of different LTE bands. But it is the same case ever since iPhone 3GS days. iPhones have had only local warranties.

And I think it's more related to the rates of iPhone. For example iphone in brazil costs a fortune. So does in India. If they would honour international warranties then Grey market( smuggling) would rise.

Also, ipad rates are not tbst different in different countries. So they have international warranties.
 
abz1981 said:
They only exchanged this because your iphone was bought in the Europe Zone. If you tried to swap it outside Europe they would not do this.
Click to expand...

My OH 4s was replaced by apple in the florida mall when we were on holiday from the UK, the home button got stuck right in, nothing was mentioned and it was a straight swap

(the replacement phone was still locked to orange UK cause i tried my vodafone sim in it)
 
Last edited:
My iPhone bought in Portugal was serviced twice under warranty in Poland without any questions asked of where I bought or even receipt. They only cared what the Apple website said for coverage when putting the SN.
 
silvetti said:
My iPhone bought in Portugal was serviced twice under warranty in Poland without any questions asked of where I bought or even receipt. They only cared what the Apple website said for coverage when putting the SN.
Click to expand...
I guess that's why the warranty days they MAY restrict the warranty to the country you purchased it in.

If you had a US CDMA (Verizon/Sprint) iPhone/iPad, an Apple Store outside of the US is not going have any for warranty swaps.

That's different from Europe, where basically every country uses the same models. Any Apple Store over there should have plenty for warranty swaps.
 
My rep at Apple Online Store has told me that there is no such thing as international warranty for iPhone. The conversation took place quite a time ago, maybe things have changed. To be honest, I wouldn't be complaining having received a new iPhone even without examining the old one: Apple was more than generous for you. Be grateful.
 
Superman80 said:
My OH 4s was replaced by apple in the florida mall when we were on holiday from the UK, the home button got stuck right in, nothing was mentioned and it was a straight swap

(the replacement phone was still locked to orange UK cause i tried my vodafone sim in it)
Click to expand...

Thats really weird. So Apple USA had a Orange UK Iphone in stock for them to swap your handset with.

I never knew Apple from other countries would keep stock of foreign carrier handsets for replacements.
 
abz1981 said:
Thats really weird. So Apple USA had a Orange UK Iphone in stock for them to swap your handset with.

I never knew Apple from other countries would keep stock of foreign carrier handsets for replacements.
Click to expand...

I think all handsets are the same and when they do the swap over the info from the broken IMEI is transferred to the new IMEI (lock status etc)
 
Suffering the same problem at the mo. I have a USA iPhone 5 and presently traveling in Europe for 2 months. Third day in phone would not charge, nothing to do with voltage as all other apple electronics didn't have a prob.
Took it to the apple store in the trafford centre , Manchester UK. They tried rebooting etc before it was finally diagnosed as a hard wear problem and the phone needed to be exchanged. Once they realized it was a USA phone they said it could not be done as Europe and USA run on different bandwidths.
Stuck for 6 weeks without a phone. Have a pay as u go and changing sims for each euro country I'm visiting.
Very frustrating... An international company has international clientele with international problems.
Why oh why can they not express ship some over so that we could pick one up in a couple of days or have some USA phones in stock for this kind of problem.
Next day I was in a store sorting out my P.A.Y.G. Phone. They told me some one was in earlier with exactly the same problem. So it's happening more than we know. Hence I'm spreading the news.
 
Gernicant said:
Why oh why can they not express ship some over so that we could pick one up in a couple of days or have some USA phones in stock for this kind of problem.
Click to expand...
Did you call US AppleCare and ask if they can do that? They ship repairs around the US all the time (as many people have no Apple Store near them).
 
From my experiendce, there is no international applecare for iphone. Applecare for iphone only works on the country which your iphone was purchased from.

I have experienced the same issue. I was travelling to hong kong back in February and my AT&T iPhone 5 had an issue with the camera when i arrive. I visited Apple Store in Causeaway Bay, they verified the issue, made a note, but couldnt replace the phone because of different bands. Then i tried calling US Applecare and they said the same thing, they wished they could do something like replacing the phone or something but unfortunately the system wont allow them to do so. So there it is, i was stuck a week without my iphone til i get back stateside.

Very frustrating..
 
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