4 ms·

> Apple records showed Jiang was associated (by name, email, address or computer) to 3,069 iPhone warranty claims Geeze, you'd think Apple would have some sort

by jak92 8y ago

> Apple records showed Jiang was associated (by name, email, address or computer) to 3,069 iPhone warranty claims Geeze, you'd think Apple would have some sort of internal controls?

president 8y ago
Possible he had an insider who could tell him that there weren't any protections in place?
penagwin 8y ago
This is one of those things were you'd think they'd automatically flag warranty claims for manual review after... what a few? I mean how many individuals (non-business) ever make more then say 5 warranty claims in their lifetime (with one company)?
- themagician 8y ago
  In the last 10 years I've had at least a dozen warranty claims with Apple, maybe more. Usually just one claim per machine, sometimes two. And iPhones… I can't even keep track of that. You get two replacements with AppleCare+ and I almost always use them both. I've probably gotten a dozen replacements on broken iPhones alone. Not exactly 3,000+, but way more than 5. That's also not exactly abnormal. When you see people with cracked screens and ask them why they don't get them fixed the answer is usually, "I already used my replacements." I would think that, among lifetime Apple customers who purchase AppleCare the average is actually above 5.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    There is a pretty big difference between 1-2 a year and thousands. Seems like it would be trivial to use an algorithm to flag the users that are, say, two or more standard deviations from normal, and pay a little more attention to their circumstances.
    - penagwin 8y ago
      You don't even need fancy algorithms. Seems like they they could just look at the current average number of claims per customer per year, there's no way it's higher then say 5. And then just flag everything after that. Not saying they deny the claims after that, just flag them to be looked into.
      - max76 8y ago
        You'd want to flag the 95 or 99 percentile instead of the top 50 percent.
      - Kadin 8y ago
        Not exactly meaningfully harder for a computer to do one than the other. Probably the thing to do is work backwards from the resources that are available to investigate them. Then just skim off that many outliers. Do it until it's not saving the company more money than it takes to pay those people. Of course, that implies that Apple has anyone to look at them, which it may not, and is probably the first problem...
      - kelnos 8y ago
        Heh, looking at something a couple std devs from the mean isn't fancy; it's a pretty standard way of looking for outliers in any process. Besides, flagging everyone over the average would mean flagging roughly half of all return claims. That would require legions of people to look at, and would provide a really bad customer experience.
  - taborj 8y ago
    Those are replacement rates I haven't seen since I worked for a beer & wine distributor. The sales guys would have issues all the time, usually after the weekend. What kind of activities do you do that require such frequent replacements? Or is it just faulty hardware? I suppose once a year isn't super frequent, but still more frequent than I like from expensive equipment. I do, however, see tons of folks with cracked iPhone screens. Makes me chuckle; as an Android user, and one who doesn't need the latest and greatest, my phones are nearly disposable. Crack the screen? Spend $129 on another.
    - penagwin 8y ago
      I work in phone repair. If you're happy with your $129 phone then perfect! I'm not criticizing that at all, and many people would also be happy with it. I will say however that many people will be looking into higher end android devices though, and for the Samsung series they're often over 200$ [0], while iPhone screens are mostly under 30$ [1]. That's for our store to buy the part, before charging for labor+fees, etc. After fees you'd be looking at ~300/350 for an S8 and ~85$ for an iPhone 7/8. Not sure what it's like with the newest iPhones, those don't really come in often for repairs (yet). Just pointing out that android phones are usually more expensive then iPhones to repair. I've personally used cheaper devices and they were just too slow for me, but it's all personal preference. [0] One of our suppliers, https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/samsung-repair-parts/galaxy-s-series.html?part_type=335 https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/samsung-repair-... [1] https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/apple/iphone.html?&part_type=335 https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/apple/iphone.ht...
    - pilsetnieks 8y ago
      A cheap iPhone can be just as disposable - at the moment I see $135 for refurbished iPhone SE on Amazon.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    I work in phone repair so I know how the cracked screens go haha. Either way, it seems like if somebody has 5+ warranty claims in 1 year it'd at least be worth having somebody look into it? Not saying they deny it, just that it may be suspicious. Just a anecdote of my own, I've had my iPhone 7+ for 2 years and my mom's had an iPhone 5S for 4 or 5 years, and we've never broken our screens, nore do we have huge bulky cases, just slim rubbery ones with glass screen protectors. We've both dropped them tons, just depends on luck I guess.
    - bonestamp2 8y ago
      Same. In fact, I've had every iPhone and never even used a case until they started with the camera bump. I dropped them all the time and only broke my first screen a couple weeks ago. Thankfully Wells Fargo credit card covers the $280 apple repair for $25.
      - koolba 8y ago
        > Thankfully Wells Fargo credit card covers the $280 apple repair for $25. What’s that?
        mehrdada 8y ago
        Wells Fargo Cash Wise Visa Card, I believe pays up to $600 with $25 deductible ($575 effectively) if you pay your phone bill with it
        bonestamp2 8y ago
        Bingo. Apparently there is another CC that also has this benefit (according to a CC article I read once) but I was never able to track it down. Anyone know?
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    Set an alert for 10 in a year or 5 in a month. Should be quite easy to winnow the false positives.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    And how many products did you purchase directly from Apple?
    - themagician 8y ago
      All of them? I've never thought of purchasing another way.
      - airstrike 8y ago
        Compare that to how many Mr. Jiang purchased directly
- vkou 8y ago
  Back in the early oughts', I believe the chap that ran... A prominent Mac/Apple review site got to experience what Apple's customer support looked like for someone making too many warranty claims. I think his Mac had an issue with his screen + latch. He sent it in, and made the grave mistake of having sent too many items for repairs. (He was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on various pieces of hardware, that he reviewed for his site. And, naturally, he had a few returns/repairs, among the many, many items he ordered.) The tl;dr of his story was that he had to mail it in three times, Apple didn't fix any of the under-warranty problems, and, as a final cherry-on-top, completely broke his laptop's latch. He, of course, documented this entire adventure, along with a video where he keeps trying to close his laptop, while parroting Apple's response of 'nothing wrong with the latch'. Sadly, the internet being what it is, this has all link-rotted away.
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  Until recently, it was exceedingly difficult for many classes of business to get a "Business" account with Apple service. I've done something like 25 Apple warranty repairs in the past 12 months under a "personal" account. But yeah... triple digits should at least trigger some flags.
lavezzi 8y ago
This is why they are currently trying to beef up their second and third lines of defense.

by jak92 8y ago

> Apple records showed Jiang was associated (by name, email, address or computer) to 3,069 iPhone warranty claims Geeze, you'd think Apple would have some sort of internal controls?

president 8y ago

Possible he had an insider who could tell him that there weren't any protections in place?

penagwin 8y ago

This is one of those things were you'd think they'd automatically flag warranty claims for manual review after... what a few? I mean how many individuals (non-business) ever make more then say 5 warranty claims in their lifetime (with one company)?

themagician 8y ago
In the last 10 years I've had at least a dozen warranty claims with Apple, maybe more. Usually just one claim per machine, sometimes two. And iPhones… I can't even keep track of that. You get two replacements with AppleCare+ and I almost always use them both. I've probably gotten a dozen replacements on broken iPhones alone. Not exactly 3,000+, but way more than 5. That's also not exactly abnormal. When you see people with cracked screens and ask them why they don't get them fixed the answer is usually, "I already used my replacements." I would think that, among lifetime Apple customers who purchase AppleCare the average is actually above 5.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  There is a pretty big difference between 1-2 a year and thousands. Seems like it would be trivial to use an algorithm to flag the users that are, say, two or more standard deviations from normal, and pay a little more attention to their circumstances.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    You don't even need fancy algorithms. Seems like they they could just look at the current average number of claims per customer per year, there's no way it's higher then say 5. And then just flag everything after that. Not saying they deny the claims after that, just flag them to be looked into.
    - max76 8y ago
      You'd want to flag the 95 or 99 percentile instead of the top 50 percent.
    - Kadin 8y ago
      Not exactly meaningfully harder for a computer to do one than the other. Probably the thing to do is work backwards from the resources that are available to investigate them. Then just skim off that many outliers. Do it until it's not saving the company more money than it takes to pay those people. Of course, that implies that Apple has anyone to look at them, which it may not, and is probably the first problem...
    - kelnos 8y ago
      Heh, looking at something a couple std devs from the mean isn't fancy; it's a pretty standard way of looking for outliers in any process. Besides, flagging everyone over the average would mean flagging roughly half of all return claims. That would require legions of people to look at, and would provide a really bad customer experience.
- taborj 8y ago
  Those are replacement rates I haven't seen since I worked for a beer & wine distributor. The sales guys would have issues all the time, usually after the weekend. What kind of activities do you do that require such frequent replacements? Or is it just faulty hardware? I suppose once a year isn't super frequent, but still more frequent than I like from expensive equipment. I do, however, see tons of folks with cracked iPhone screens. Makes me chuckle; as an Android user, and one who doesn't need the latest and greatest, my phones are nearly disposable. Crack the screen? Spend $129 on another.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    I work in phone repair. If you're happy with your $129 phone then perfect! I'm not criticizing that at all, and many people would also be happy with it. I will say however that many people will be looking into higher end android devices though, and for the Samsung series they're often over 200$ [0], while iPhone screens are mostly under 30$ [1]. That's for our store to buy the part, before charging for labor+fees, etc. After fees you'd be looking at ~300/350 for an S8 and ~85$ for an iPhone 7/8. Not sure what it's like with the newest iPhones, those don't really come in often for repairs (yet). Just pointing out that android phones are usually more expensive then iPhones to repair. I've personally used cheaper devices and they were just too slow for me, but it's all personal preference. [0] One of our suppliers, https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/samsung-repair-parts/galaxy-s-series.html?part_type=335 https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/samsung-repair-... [1] https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/apple/iphone.html?&part_type=335 https://www.mobiledefenders.com/mobile-parts/apple/iphone.ht...
  - pilsetnieks 8y ago
    A cheap iPhone can be just as disposable - at the moment I see $135 for refurbished iPhone SE on Amazon.
- penagwin 8y ago
  I work in phone repair so I know how the cracked screens go haha. Either way, it seems like if somebody has 5+ warranty claims in 1 year it'd at least be worth having somebody look into it? Not saying they deny it, just that it may be suspicious. Just a anecdote of my own, I've had my iPhone 7+ for 2 years and my mom's had an iPhone 5S for 4 or 5 years, and we've never broken our screens, nore do we have huge bulky cases, just slim rubbery ones with glass screen protectors. We've both dropped them tons, just depends on luck I guess.
  - bonestamp2 8y ago
    Same. In fact, I've had every iPhone and never even used a case until they started with the camera bump. I dropped them all the time and only broke my first screen a couple weeks ago. Thankfully Wells Fargo credit card covers the $280 apple repair for $25.
    - koolba 8y ago
      > Thankfully Wells Fargo credit card covers the $280 apple repair for $25. What’s that?
      - mehrdada 8y ago
        Wells Fargo Cash Wise Visa Card, I believe pays up to $600 with $25 deductible ($575 effectively) if you pay your phone bill with it
        bonestamp2 8y ago
        Bingo. Apparently there is another CC that also has this benefit (according to a CC article I read once) but I was never able to track it down. Anyone know?
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Set an alert for 10 in a year or 5 in a month. Should be quite easy to winnow the false positives.
- airstrike 8y ago
  And how many products did you purchase directly from Apple?
  - themagician 8y ago
    All of them? I've never thought of purchasing another way.
    - airstrike 8y ago
      Compare that to how many Mr. Jiang purchased directly
vkou 8y ago
Back in the early oughts', I believe the chap that ran... A prominent Mac/Apple review site got to experience what Apple's customer support looked like for someone making too many warranty claims. I think his Mac had an issue with his screen + latch. He sent it in, and made the grave mistake of having sent too many items for repairs. (He was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on various pieces of hardware, that he reviewed for his site. And, naturally, he had a few returns/repairs, among the many, many items he ordered.) The tl;dr of his story was that he had to mail it in three times, Apple didn't fix any of the under-warranty problems, and, as a final cherry-on-top, completely broke his laptop's latch. He, of course, documented this entire adventure, along with a video where he keeps trying to close his laptop, while parroting Apple's response of 'nothing wrong with the latch'. Sadly, the internet being what it is, this has all link-rotted away.
ghostly_s 8y ago
Until recently, it was exceedingly difficult for many classes of business to get a "Business" account with Apple service. I've done something like 25 Apple warranty repairs in the past 12 months under a "personal" account. But yeah... triple digits should at least trigger some flags.

lavezzi 8y ago

This is why they are currently trying to beef up their second and third lines of defense.