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water damage - frustrating experience

Zmmyt

Zmmyt

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 6, 2005
1,759
877
hola!

I thought I share my frustration here.

my wife's watch was water damaged while swimming. Apple asks her now to pay £190. Watch is less than a year old.

We now learned that water damage isn't covered, but it is under UK consumer law.

Why doesn't Apple fix it straight away free of charge if it's covered under UK consumer law, why the fuss?

Today I went to the apple store pretending to buy a watch. I specifically asked how it performs during swimming and if the watch would be covered under warranty in case of liquid damage. The sells lady assured me it was. It was then that I told her about my headache with apple support and that I wanted to speak to a senior.

the store manager told me the sells lady had given the wrong information. He refused to help me with my concerns.

this is bonkers!
 
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I called apple earlier because I took out apple care+ and wanted to know if it covered accidental damage and how the plan worked because I’ve never had it before, the woman told me it didn’t, I told her it states it does on your website, she put me on hold and came back and emailed me a copy of the apple care+ info that stated it covers 2 incidents of accidental damage. I said this email says it covers accidental damage but you said it doesn’t, she said sorry yes it does.

I find it unsettling that apple support themselves don’t know what apple care+ covers.

The Apple Watch is shown in adverts being used for swimming, don’t know know they can deny warranty for water ingress?
 
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ijon01 said:
I called apple earlier because I took out apple care+ and wanted to know if it covered accidental damage and how the plan worked because I’ve never had it before, the woman told me it didn’t, I told her it states it does on your website, she put me on hold and came back and emailed me a copy of the apple care+ info that stated it covers 2 incidents of accidental damage. I said this email says it covers accidental damage but you said it doesn’t, she said sorry yes it does.

I find it unsettling that apple support themselves don’t know what apple care+ covers.

The Apple Watch is shown in adverts being used for swimming, don’t know know they can deny warranty for water ingress?
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worst for my wife, who is very careful with her devices. she didn't take out apple care+. if someone told us that swimming is okay, but any water damage isn't covered she would have thought about it twice. it is an absolute disgrace.
 
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Tymmz said:
worst for my wife, who is very careful with her devices. she didn't take out apple care+. if someone told us that swimming is okay, but any water damage isn't covered she would have thought about it twice. it is an absolute disgrace.
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What series is it, is there any other damage to?
 
ijon01 said:
What series is it, is there any other damage to?
Click to expand...
SE and no other damage.
Screenshot 2021-09-11 at 19.37.44.png
 
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Tymmz said:
SE and no other damage.
Click to expand...
Something is seriously not right here

Your SE is fine to use in water as long as your not exploring the wreck of the titanic.

Call apple support and ask to speak to someone higher up, don’t drop it.
 

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If you have AppleCare+ think the water damage would be covered as accidental damage and get you a new Watch for a small charge.
 
ijon01 said:
Something is seriously not right here

Your SE is fine to use in water as long as your not exploring the wreck of the titanic.

Call apple support and ask to speak to someone higher up, don’t drop it.
Click to expand...
done all that.
 
Tymmz said:
hola!

I thought I share my frustration here.

my wife's watch was water damaged while swimming. Apple asks her now to pay £190. Watch is less than a year old.

We now learned that water damage isn't covered, but it is under UK consumer law.

Why doesn't Apple fix it straight away free of charge if it's covered under UK consumer law, why the fuss?

Today I went to the apple store pretending to buy a watch. I specifically asked how it performs during swimming and if the watch would be covered under warranty in case of liquid damage. The sells lady assured me it was. It was then that I told her about my headache with apple support and that I wanted to speak to a senior.

the store manager told me the sells lady had given the wrong information. He refused to help me with my concerns.

this is bonkers!
Click to expand...
I went into the Apple store looking for a remote to use with my Fathers MacBook Air ( which has no IR sensor anywhere on it). I was greeted by the sales reps who scanned the wall of goodies and put a regular apple remote in my hand, to which I replied; "The MacBook Air has no IR receiver, are you sure this will work?" They assured me it would and that I had no other options. I walked out of the store without it, and went to Best Buy and found a Bluetooth remote with a USB receiver which worked flawlessly. it was 1/3 the cost of the Apple remote.

So later after he had given his presentation I bought the remote they said would work for another mac that had IR on it, and I decided to see just if they were right, and I was wrong. No they are not too knowledgeable about the products they sell.

Apple has a water policy on their stuff it used to be 100% no liquid damage of any kind. Now some items have it, but they can decline if its filled with water, in some cases. Best of luck to you.
 
ijon01 said:
I called apple earlier because I took out apple care+ and wanted to know if it covered accidental damage and how the plan worked because I’ve never had it before, the woman told me it didn’t, I told her it states it does on your website, she put me on hold and came back and emailed me a copy of the apple care+ info that stated it covers 2 incidents of accidental damage. I said this email says it covers accidental damage but you said it doesn’t, she said sorry yes it does.

I find it unsettling that apple support themselves don’t know what apple care+ covers.

The Apple Watch is shown in adverts being used for swimming, don’t know know they can deny warranty for water ingress?
Click to expand...
Apple is now like the shady guy that runs the portable 3 card Monte (also known as Find the Lady) table game in Washington Square in NYC. Lots of trickery involved and the house almost always wins.
 
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As someone who swims with the watch daily using Apple Fitness to count my laps, etc. I would totally expect a watch w/ water damage (w/o any other structural damage) to be covered under the standard warranty. I would really focus on how the water damage occurred if the case was free of impacts i.e. defective seal as stated above..
 
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sumarlidason said:
As someone who swims with the watch daily using Apple Fitness to count my laps, etc. I would totally expect a watch w/ water damage (w/o any other structural damage) to be covered under the standard warranty. I would really focus on how the water damage occurred if the case was free of impacts i.e. defective seal as stated above..
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We did all that. We are waiting to hear back from a senior advisor.

I am saying this without trying to be revengeful:

If we don’t get this fixed free of charge my wife will turn to Garmin.

The Garmin is already ordered (and send back of the Apple Watch drama finds a positive ending).

Without an Apple Watch we will change back to Spotify and we wouldn’t have any need for Fitness+ either.

There goes the £30 Apple One package.

Upcoming speakers for study and bedroom won’t be a HomePod Mini, since not tied to Apple Music any longer.

If they won’t fix the watch free of charge it will cost them way more in the long run. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
 
sumarlidason said:
don't say all the crap to the person helping you. they don't care. Ask how you used it incorrectly in the water.
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It’s not crap. Someone should do the math since this is exactly what’s going to happen.

the senior advisor doesn’t care how water got into the watch.
 
update:

my wife went to the shop where she originally bought the watch and where she had her first "genius" appt.

they are not able to override the repair centre's decision.

My wife now has to wait to have the broken watch send back to her, then she needs to go the same shop again where they will send it to the repair depot again. when they come back with the same conclusion the store then has to authorise the repair and "cover" the costs.

its absolute bonkers.

they offered my wife a free watch band after hours of wasted time and travel. and she'll be without for the watch for 2-3 weeks altogether.

And yes, Apple Warranty doesn't cover it, it will be covered under UK Consumer Law.
 
How exactly have you tried to execute the consumer law rights? - In my previous experience of this I have gone onto which.com created a template letter and then emailed this to Apple they have 14 days to respond. They can't refuse the formal letter, whereas from experience not all advisors even senior advisors have understood how to trigger the consumer law claims internally. Good luck.
 
update:

apple's proposed resolution:

Issue: Customer has come into store as their watch is currently at the depot for service. They received an email requoting them for out of warranty cost due to liquid damage. It was sent away knowing the device was liquid damaged under the warranty as it happened when swimming on the surface of the water within usage seen on the website and TP1963.

I have went through the questions again under the above article and this liquid damage would be covered under their consumer law rights.

The customer is frustrated by the fact that they cannot contact the repair centre to speak about this and was surprised by the repair cost. They have since had conflicting information about liquid damage coverage within AppleCare and different Retail stores.
Proposed Resolution: Advised customer to decline the depot to customer repair. Then bring it into store to send away again. To process this correctly, make sure it is coverage under liquid damage through consumer law coverage. Instructions on this can be found in article RS282. Set this up as a depot to store repair just in case depot decline the coverage again so we can discount the cost at POS under consumer law coverage.

As a good will gesture Brendan has agreed to gift a Apple Watch band to the value of £49 of the customers choice from the PZ.
Resolution: Service Solution
 
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Yikes. This makes me nervous since I would like to actually use the Apple Watch’s swimming features in (wait for it) the water.

Worse, I live in the U.S., which has no similar consumer protection laws.
 
update:

picked up the replacement from the shop today including a free watch band. after encountering some useless phone support folks, almost useless a senior support advisor and arrogant store manager everything went super smooth. everyone involved towards the end came across helpful and empathetic for my wife's "ordeal".

-happy end
 
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Glad you got it sorted !

It’s a shame you had to go through all that just to get a replacement.

I will think twice about going near water with my 50m wr Apple Watch with built in swim work outs that’s advertised being used in swimming pools but isn’t covered for water ingress. Just saying that makes my head hurt.
 
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