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I bought an iPhone a couple of days ago, and was planning on using the weekend to finally migrate from my old Android phone. Luckily, I haven't even opened the

I bought an iPhone a couple of days ago, and was planning on using the weekend to finally migrate from my old Android phone. Luckily, I haven't even opened the box so I should be able to return it for a full refund. No way I'm spending over $1000 for this kind of experience.

cal85 2y ago
Apple lets you return anything, opened and used, within 14 days.
- PedroBatista 2y ago
  Apple doesn’t really “let”, the law demands.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    They do eat the restocking fee that others would charge, taking the haircut on refurb sales
  - cal85 2y ago
    Interesting, is that in the US? I’ve never heard of that being required by law in the UK. I think it’s just an Apple thing here. I mean we obviously have laws about refunds etc but I don’t think we have any law saying you can open any product and start using it and then return it even if you have no complaint with it.
    - PedroBatista 2y ago
      There is no uniform law. In the EU most countries have this type of laws but they all vary in the duration and scope. In the US is more or less similar as it varies by state and many don't have any laws regarding this. But even the more permissive laws have many exceptions, like not applying to perishable goods, underwear, lipstick, etc. and it's heavily tilted for unused products or very light us that doesn't affect the value of the product when re-sold. When the product doesn't work like in the case of this Apple situation, it's not even a question. As long as the hardware is not damaged and everything is return, "the law" completely sides with the consumer.
cddotdotslash 2y ago
Google has done the exact same thing in the past, deleting Google accounts without warning (which is arguably worse because not only can you not access your phone backups but your email, calendar, drive, etc. is gone too).
- oops 2y ago
  > which is arguably worse because not only can you not access your phone backups but your email, calendar, drive, etc. is gone too Some people use iCloud for email, calendar and storage so for them I imagine losing access to Apple ID would be just as bad.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Yeah, and to stress the point: this is not "can't send vacation pictures to my grandma" bad, this is "might lose my company/my job and my house" bad, as everything else in life treats one's email (and increasingly, app 2FA) as infallible backup.
- bdw5204 2y ago
  Companies that wrongfully ban or delete email or phone accounts need to be civilly liable and this civil liability needs to supersede any arbitration agreement or terms of service agreement. An Apple or Google account is far too important to people's lives to let them hide behind the "we're a private company and can do whatever we want" canard. They do need to have the right to ban spammers or people using YouTube or Drive to infringe copyrights but just randomly shutting off somebody's email or somebody's ability to make video calls should be against the law. The same would also apply to a text chat company like Slack or Discord banning somebody's work account for no reason. Certain tech companies have government-like levels of power over people's lives so they need to be restricted in how they can treat users like the government is restricted in how it can treat citizens.
jjallen 2y ago
What are the odds of having this experience? Shouldn’t they affect your behavior?
- recursive 2y ago
  What's your recommendation? Try it 1000 times to get statistics? Likelihood should affect your behavior in the same way it affects whether it actually happens and it did. "Fool me once..."
  - 1123581321 2y ago
    One in a thousand wouldn't yield anything. Because it's such an unusual experience (just a few of these happening around the same time would create a news cycle), one in ten million is probably closer since there are around a billion active Apple accounts. That's similar to the odds of dying in a non-Boeing plane ride. Even if the odds were one in a million, that's about the odds of being struck by lightning over a lifetime. I'd think someone returning a phone over this was regretting the switch for other reasons. It's fine to keep using Android.
    - recursive 2y ago
      This is a reasonable point of view I guess. But there's not really a reliable way for the consumer to get the real probability. If it happened to me, it's likely enough to consider. Maybe there's a hidden variable about my usage pattern that makes it more likely. Since it's totally opaque, there's no way to know.
      - 1123581321 2y ago
        Sure, if actually happens to someone, they're rightfully not risking it again. If for no other reason, it'd be likely that a fresh account would be detected and associated with the old one. Plus, whatever unusual situation of yours triggered the ban, such as border crossing or how you route your Internet traffic, would probably still apply. (I'm not saying someone is doing the wrong thing if those things are the case for them.)
yannis 2y ago
Black swan events can happen to you. Recently I traveled to a European country from my base (Middle East). I normally take my phone and laptop with me and they are synced. I forgot the laptop charger and could not get one locally not at least for about a week and then dropped my phone and it got damaged. I bought another phone (Adroid) and tried to log in to by google accounts. It recognized the email and the pswd but then wanted verification from the original device! Despite having the original sim in the new phone. On my return everything went smoothly through my laptop. Scary though. My conclusion - have two physical phones + laptop all synced, plus hardcopy of important pswds etc. Data is easier to protect by offline and online back-ups, but your online identity is hard.
- andersa 2y ago
  This is standard Google behavior. Logging into Google on any new device always asks me to confirm it on one of the other devices that are logged in (i.e. phones, tablets). Suppose it's some kind of 2FA.
  - yannis 2y ago
    I understand the security concept of it. Luckily my trip was short. As I also use wechat to communicate with some Chinese friends, my experience was different. First it send me an OTP on the new phone, then asked for two friends to send a number to the phone. Luckily I had the phone number of one and I managed to restore and to be honest having humans in the pipeline was a plus. Negative this had to be done over 5 minutes otherwise you back to square one.
- layer8 2y ago
  Don't bind your online identity to Apple or Google or Microsoft, in particular not the email addresses you use for accounts. That at least limits the damage they can do.
  - CatWChainsaw 2y ago
    Which is why they make it so hard to avoid doing this.

cal85 2y ago

Apple lets you return anything, opened and used, within 14 days.

PedroBatista 2y ago
Apple doesn’t really “let”, the law demands.
- adamomada 2y ago
  They do eat the restocking fee that others would charge, taking the haircut on refurb sales
- cal85 2y ago
  Interesting, is that in the US? I’ve never heard of that being required by law in the UK. I think it’s just an Apple thing here. I mean we obviously have laws about refunds etc but I don’t think we have any law saying you can open any product and start using it and then return it even if you have no complaint with it.
  - PedroBatista 2y ago
    There is no uniform law. In the EU most countries have this type of laws but they all vary in the duration and scope. In the US is more or less similar as it varies by state and many don't have any laws regarding this. But even the more permissive laws have many exceptions, like not applying to perishable goods, underwear, lipstick, etc. and it's heavily tilted for unused products or very light us that doesn't affect the value of the product when re-sold. When the product doesn't work like in the case of this Apple situation, it's not even a question. As long as the hardware is not damaged and everything is return, "the law" completely sides with the consumer.

cddotdotslash 2y ago

Google has done the exact same thing in the past, deleting Google accounts without warning (which is arguably worse because not only can you not access your phone backups but your email, calendar, drive, etc. is gone too).

oops 2y ago
> which is arguably worse because not only can you not access your phone backups but your email, calendar, drive, etc. is gone too Some people use iCloud for email, calendar and storage so for them I imagine losing access to Apple ID would be just as bad.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Yeah, and to stress the point: this is not "can't send vacation pictures to my grandma" bad, this is "might lose my company/my job and my house" bad, as everything else in life treats one's email (and increasingly, app 2FA) as infallible backup.
bdw5204 2y ago
Companies that wrongfully ban or delete email or phone accounts need to be civilly liable and this civil liability needs to supersede any arbitration agreement or terms of service agreement. An Apple or Google account is far too important to people's lives to let them hide behind the "we're a private company and can do whatever we want" canard. They do need to have the right to ban spammers or people using YouTube or Drive to infringe copyrights but just randomly shutting off somebody's email or somebody's ability to make video calls should be against the law. The same would also apply to a text chat company like Slack or Discord banning somebody's work account for no reason. Certain tech companies have government-like levels of power over people's lives so they need to be restricted in how they can treat users like the government is restricted in how it can treat citizens.

jjallen 2y ago

What are the odds of having this experience? Shouldn’t they affect your behavior?

recursive 2y ago
What's your recommendation? Try it 1000 times to get statistics? Likelihood should affect your behavior in the same way it affects whether it actually happens and it did. "Fool me once..."
- 1123581321 2y ago
  One in a thousand wouldn't yield anything. Because it's such an unusual experience (just a few of these happening around the same time would create a news cycle), one in ten million is probably closer since there are around a billion active Apple accounts. That's similar to the odds of dying in a non-Boeing plane ride. Even if the odds were one in a million, that's about the odds of being struck by lightning over a lifetime. I'd think someone returning a phone over this was regretting the switch for other reasons. It's fine to keep using Android.
  - recursive 2y ago
    This is a reasonable point of view I guess. But there's not really a reliable way for the consumer to get the real probability. If it happened to me, it's likely enough to consider. Maybe there's a hidden variable about my usage pattern that makes it more likely. Since it's totally opaque, there's no way to know.
    - 1123581321 2y ago
      Sure, if actually happens to someone, they're rightfully not risking it again. If for no other reason, it'd be likely that a fresh account would be detected and associated with the old one. Plus, whatever unusual situation of yours triggered the ban, such as border crossing or how you route your Internet traffic, would probably still apply. (I'm not saying someone is doing the wrong thing if those things are the case for them.)

yannis 2y ago

Black swan events can happen to you. Recently I traveled to a European country from my base (Middle East). I normally take my phone and laptop with me and they are synced. I forgot the laptop charger and could not get one locally not at least for about a week and then dropped my phone and it got damaged. I bought another phone (Adroid) and tried to log in to by google accounts. It recognized the email and the pswd but then wanted verification from the original device! Despite having the original sim in the new phone. On my return everything went smoothly through my laptop. Scary though. My conclusion - have two physical phones + laptop all synced, plus hardcopy of important pswds etc. Data is easier to protect by offline and online back-ups, but your online identity is hard.

andersa 2y ago
This is standard Google behavior. Logging into Google on any new device always asks me to confirm it on one of the other devices that are logged in (i.e. phones, tablets). Suppose it's some kind of 2FA.
- yannis 2y ago
  I understand the security concept of it. Luckily my trip was short. As I also use wechat to communicate with some Chinese friends, my experience was different. First it send me an OTP on the new phone, then asked for two friends to send a number to the phone. Luckily I had the phone number of one and I managed to restore and to be honest having humans in the pipeline was a plus. Negative this had to be done over 5 minutes otherwise you back to square one.
layer8 2y ago
Don't bind your online identity to Apple or Google or Microsoft, in particular not the email addresses you use for accounts. That at least limits the damage they can do.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Which is why they make it so hard to avoid doing this.