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iPhone 13 Pro iPhone Upgrade program — return old phone to apple store?

MBHockey

MBHockey

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2003
4,063
314
Connecticut
Are you able to bring back your trade in to an Apple store? last year some fedex employee stole my wife’s trade in. i had to go through a several week ordeal with apple to get it straightened out. would rather not chance it this year.

is this possible?
 
I hope we can return in store bc I’m afraid of sending in my iPhone 13pro max in the mail for this reason!
 
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MBHockey said:
have you done it with ordering the new phone, shipped to your house? then returning the old one to the store? or did you order your new phone to the store and did the trade in there?
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Yes, I have done this for both the iPhone 12 Pro Max and subsequent iPhone 13 Pro Max - order online, shipped to my house and then returned the old phone at an Apple Store a couple of days after I received the new one.

I don’t trust iCloud backup for transferring my info and would rather have the old phone on hand until I am sure the new one is ok. I also have heard the horror stories of mailed in iPhone returns so I always opt for in store return.
 
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jdlnmia said:
Yes, I have done this for both the iPhone 12 Pro Max and subsequent iPhone 13 Pro Max - order online, shipped to my house and then returned the old phone at an Apple Store a couple of days after I received the new one.

I don’t trust iCloud backup for transferring my info and would rather have the old phone on hand until I am sure the new one is ok. I also have heard the horror stories of mailed in iPhone returns so I always opt for in store return.
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Ahhh, thanks so much for confirming!

Do you pack it all up and just drop it off at the store? or do you bring it to them and show them the condition of the phone?
 
MBHockey said:
Ahhh, thanks so much for confirming!

Do you pack it all up and just drop it off at the store? or do you bring it to them and show them the condition of the phone?
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In my experience with the iup trade in, is you only need to take the phone to the store and let them know that you are turning it in to close out the old loan. You keep the charging cable.
 
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They only want the actual phone back. Mine are always in flawless condition though so I am not sure what they’ll do if you roll up with a banged up phone.
 
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So right now I'm on AT&T upgrade program. I called Apple to see how I trade in my paid off phone to enroll and they said they don't take trade in's and to see it privately. Is this correct?
 
jdlnmia said:
They only want the actual phone back. Mine are always in flawless condition though so I am not sure what they’ll do if you roll up with a banged up phone.
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same, mine are in great condition. not worried about that! just wondering how they take them back
 
Corsig said:
So right now I'm on AT&T upgrade program. I called Apple to see how I trade in my paid off phone to enroll and they said they don't take trade in's and to see it privately. Is this correct?
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You can trade in for gift cards or sell like they said. The IUP is a set price.
 
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appreciate all the responses. tried to do this yesterday but two employees at the local apple store could not figure out how to do it. One seemingly didn't understand the upgrade program, he kept trying to process it as a trade in and telling me i would get a $600 credit to the apple store. The other kind of understood what i was trying to do but said i couldn't because "it had an active loan". Both seemingly had no idea how the iphone upgrade program actually works.
 
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MBHockey said:
appreciate all the responses. tried to do this yesterday but two employees at the local apple store could not figure out how to do it. One seemingly didn't understand the upgrade program, he kept trying to process it as a trade in and telling me i would get a $600 credit to the apple store. The other kind of understood what i was trying to do but said i couldn't because "it had an active loan". Both seemingly had no idea how the iphone upgrade program actually works.
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Hm..likely they had no idea. Were you able to then ask for a store manager? Did you mention that your current phone is currently on the Apple iUP?

They should be able to look up your web order on your new phone.

If you did the in-store pick up, usually the point of sales device will tell that it's iup and will ask if customer has trade in.
 
MBHockey said:
appreciate all the responses. tried to do this yesterday but two employees at the local apple store could not figure out how to do it. One seemingly didn't understand the upgrade program, he kept trying to process it as a trade in and telling me i would get a $600 credit to the apple store. The other kind of understood what i was trying to do but said i couldn't because "it had an active loan". Both seemingly had no idea how the iphone upgrade program actually works.
Click to expand...
That’s very disappointing that two employees would not understand such a simple request. I’ve been reading different threads where this question has been raised. My 13 Pro Max is sitting in the return box but I’d rather just take it to the Apple store. I’ve seen different responses on this. Some have said they were successful returning it local but others were not. To me that’s even more puzzling. How could Apple stores not be consistent on this? I’m very surprised.
 
Shadowbech said:
Hm..likely they had no idea. Were you able to then ask for a store manager? Did you mention that your current phone is currently on the Apple iUP?

They should be able to look up your web order on your new phone.

If you did the in-store pick up, usually the point of sales device will tell that it's iup and will ask if customer has trade in.
Click to expand...

yes, explained that we upgrade each year on launch day, that we already have the phones, and i just didn't want to send it back via FedEx again. The second guy who was supposed to know more kept saying they couldn't do it because i already "activated a trade in" since the box was sent. I told him that i didn't do anything special, that it is just part of the iphone upgrade program when they automatically send you a box to send the old phone back. ::blank stare:: He wasn't getting it. They were shockingly uninformed about the whole process.

I had already been there 30 minutes after a long day at work, i didn't want to waste any more time there since nobody seemed to have any idea what they were doing. As i get older i have less and less patience for this kind of incompetence. Maybe i expect too much out of people who work retail.

I didn't buy it for in store pick up. they were shipped to my house. Guess i'll just have to roll the fedex dice again.
 
I literally tried this exact thing at my store, I had 4 separate employees standing around me who could absolutely not understand all I wanted to do was hand the phone back instead of shipping it back through fedex and finally a 5th employee/manager came over and understood me. He said it wasn't possible since the fedex boxes were already delivered to my home. I mentioned how I have done this in the past but he said its new this year? I think they just wanted to be done with me.

Oh well, I shipped them back yesterday, it does make me nervous since you have to remove find my/activation lock so essentially anyone could activate it.
 
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I'm late to this forum but it is possible to hand the phone back in store instead of shipping it back.

This was the exact question I had when I ordered the 13 Pro Max online last year. When you order the phone online and add the phone that you're trading in, it automatically initiates an empty box to be shipped to your home to return the old device to them. I didn't want to wait that long to get my refund so I went to the the apple store and told them I was here to complete a trade in from my online order. They scanned by order and I gave them the old phone. He used his machine to do all the "device checks" on my XS max. All the tests came back successful. Then on his screen, the trade in offer price came up. He asked me if that was the same amount I was quoted online when placing my order. I said yes. He said great and he told me it would be refunded to my card within a few days. For a few days after this I continued receiving reminder emails from Apple that I still hadn't returned (shipped) my device as yet and I only had 14 days to get it to them once I received the FedEx box. When the refund came back to my card (which only took a couple days), the emails stopped. To me this was MUCH quicker and safer than sending it through mail. I didn't want to hear any sad story about the phone not getting to them on time, it was stolen or it wasn't working etc. I personally handed the phone to them and stood there while my refund was being processed.

And for my other device on the iPhone upgrade program, I normally order the new phone for pick up the phone in store and because my phone has about 400GB of data to transfer, I'm not doing that in store so I just tell them I'll bring my trade in iPhone back to them after I transfer my data off (the initial agent was slightly unsure how to bypass the machine asking him for my trade in iPhone but another agent told him what to press and it was fine). You have 14 days to return the trade in iPhone. I go home and transfer my data overnight via the wired option (THE BEST method Apple ever created) and had my dad drop off my trade in iPhone to the nearest apple store a few days later to "complete my IUP order". They only need the order number.

Hope this helps someone. Don't let a clueless person tell you otherwise!
 
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