Apple refuses to return repaired iPhone to owner - Page 2

As others have noted, proof of purchase means nothing excpt that you purchased it. It does not mean you still own it.
A police report would be used to show current ownership.

look, there's an ESTABLISHED and LEGAL procedure to handle this case.
FILE A GAWDSDAMNED POLICE REPORT.
original sales receipt only proves that you purchased it.
proof of payment of the associated phone contract only proves that you're a flippin idiot.

That's would be a court matter, not an Apple/ATT matter.
Seems it would be much, much, much easier to file a police report or find out why the police did not though te police would have a record of phone calls/visit to station or any actions they took.

Bingo. It all begins and ends right there. Apple should NOT be assigned to be arbiter of legal disputes between someone who claims to own a phone legally, and a previous owner who still claims the phone is there. I bought a laptop from someone on Craig's List. If I took it in for repair, and suddenly the previous owner was attempting to murky the waters... that'd would be extremely irritating. Police report. Moreover, everyone should also remember to get a bill of sale from anyone they buy stuff from.

~ CB

Says who? You Apples number one fanboy

Says customers, troll. Several years in a row.


http://www.focus.com/fyi/customer-se...tomer-service/

2009:

The American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ASCI)* second quarter report indicates that within the Personal Computers category, customers perceived Apple as the best company in terms of customer service. Apple’s baseline score was 77 (on a 100-point scale), and the Q2 2006 score was 83.

Computerworld, discussing Apple’s number one ranking says, “The Company’s focus on product innovation and customer service has won it a cadre of famously loyal customers, unlike any other PC vendor. And why are Dell’s scores slipping? The article elaborates, “Survey respondents complained mostly about the quality of Dell’s customer service, not its products, Van Amburg said… customers were clearly more frustrated with Dell than they were last year, he said.”

This blog post ‘New Virus Found! The You Suck Virus,’ states, “Part of being “excellent” in business is being innovative. If you agree with that one criteria (I know there are more) then Apple is the clear winner when it comes to innovation. Companies like Dell, HP, and IBM make good computers but once you compare them to a really excellent product (like an Apple) it is easy to see the difference.”

This 2003 article indicates that Apple is pretty consistent when it comes to high-quality customer service, “Apple did garnish the number one customer service ranking in the 2001 Consumer Reports Annual Questionnaire, and a number one ranking for desktop repairs in May 2003.” Here are some customer compliments for Apple.


http://www.macworld.com/article/1332.../consumer.html

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...ng-callers.ars

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...vice-rankings/

http://deluxethemes.com/comfy/69/app...tomer-service/

http://www.appletell.com/apple/comme...ervice-rating/

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/08/17/apple...s-upside-down/

http://experiencematters.wordpress.c...er-experience/

May I ask, especially since you don't even live there, why you only post links that are for USA based surveys?

I had my laptop stolen from me 3 weeks ago. Very annoying. Was meant to me releasing software the very day it was stolen. Has put the project back weeks, and cost me a fortune.

Biggest mistake I made was to not encrypt important documents, 10 years worth of personal info and sensitive company data are now out there, somewhere. Chances are the little jerks who stole it will simply format the whole thing, but I will never know for sure, and have spent the whole of xmas doing damage limitation.

Not a nice experience.

I'm now the owner of a nice shiny new Macbook Pro, infact a little too shiny, you can add me to the list of people who dislike the glossy screen.

Oh and a merry christmas to all on Appleinsider! And a very special merry xmas to Time Machine without which things would have been a hell of a lot worse.

Same thing, you purchase it you own it!

A police report does nothing but show that your cell phone has been stolen, and he detials of when, where, why it was stolen. Proof of purchase is something different and stronger than a police report, because a report of an officer, doesn't mean you own it or have proof of you owning it.
What this lady is trying to do is get back for what she paid for, even if it were stolen.

If you purchased your house, out of your own money, and you have your own proof of purchase, who are you going to give your house to, your neighbor?
No! (unless you're nice enough to do so.)

If you purchased, you own it. not to just waist your money for nothing.

It's my personal experience that AT&T allows someone with a stolen iPhone to active and continue to use it, even if that person account activities are otherwise suspicious. They just consider them a customer. Also, an AT&T store employee told me that he had the same experience, found the address and contact information on the AT&T computer, but was prohibited from contacting the thief due to privacy issues.

This is EFFING outrageous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eff You Apple!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gosh. A lot of lawyers here. Ethicists, not so much.

That is true. She should file one now. Even if Apple doesn't give her a replacement phone, the police can use this information to locate the person who allegedly stole the phone.

Quite possibly

So ATT/apple repaired the phone under warranty, does that mean that her monthly account fees are paid eg is she somehow paying for the thief??

I would think that she would have reported the phone lost to att and had the service terminated.

I think we need more information on what is going on.

Did she get a replacement iphone??

Maybe because Apple is a US based company with 50% of its sales in the US? If you have other "international" ranking from independent unbiased source please share it with us. You asked who and he replied to to you with more that six sources.

Imagine that you buy an iPhone off of somebody, One of the reasons you bought it was that the phone was still covered by warranty. You paid with a money order. Now a month later the phone breaks, you want a replacement, and Apple will not give it to you because the original owner has called Apple and claims the phone was stolen. You do not have a receipt of the money order anymore because the seller sold it to you as is and you didn't think there was any reason to keep a copy anymore.

If Apple refused to honor the warranty under those circumstances, you could potentially sue Apple not only for breach of warranty, but also because Apple would be essentially making you prove you are not a thief. Insinuating somebody is a thief is serious business.

Apple's responsibility is to honor the warranty. Further, it is going to assume that if you are in possession of something, you are the owner of it. If you are going to claim somebody stole something, you as the accuser need proof not of your original ownership but of the theft. The proof comes in the form of a sworn statement to a police officer that the item was stolen.

Sucks the lady got her phone stolen, but she has options. File the report now. Talk to police about the email from Apple. Police can contact Apple and request the contact information of the party seeking to have the phone replaced. Apple will likely give it to the police if requested properly (e.g. in writing). The police would likely then contact the person with the phone and inquire how that person came to possession of the phone. Maybe the person with the phone bought it from the thieve.

[QUOTE=dagamer34;1542284]]Your correct, you aren't a lawyer, because if any law student peddled what you just said, you're professor would laugh at you.

I credit you for knowing there're two different ways to spell "your/you're" and for trying to get it right. Unfortunately, you got 'em both wrong this time. An easy way to remember: "you're" is a contraction for "you are": if you could substitute the words "you are", as in "you are correct", then you use "you're", which is what your sentence should have started with. Just like "there're" is a substitute for "there are...two different ways..." and is the proper use, not "their". Hope that helps.


I disagree on your item #2 (and no, I'm not a lawyer either). But if a guy stole my car and it's got my license plate on it, it seems like the burden of proof would be on the thief, not on me. It's mine until someone can show proof that ownership was transferred to them. Which gets back to the need for the police report. And, if you're on the other side of the fence, for bills of sale.

A different example: you're in a crowd, and someone grabs your phone out of your hand, and the police hear you yelling and immediately collar you and the thief. You say, "that's mine, look, here's my original bill of sale" and the thief says, "huh-uh, i bought it from him." Don't you think the he-said/he-said would be resolved in favor of the person with the proof of ownership? But--modifying the example--suppose you just bought the phone from a guy, and he didn't give you a bill of sale, and HE yells, "hey, this guy stole my phone": Should the police simply give it back to him without any question? These situations are sometimes not as simple as they seem. And from my experience with a few much, much more serious crimes, I'm surprised the police would respond to search for the phone, much less call apple on your behalf. I think the victim got more cooperation than most of us would get. I'd suspect small-town vs large? If this story supposedly concerns a theft on the NYC subway, then something smells fishy.

If she called the police (and esp. if she called 911), there WILL be a dispatch record somewhere in NYPD's archives. That should be as sufficient of a report as any.

Hmm... since Apple has (had?) the phone and knows who the thief is, couldn't this be considered aiding & abetting, along with obstructing an officer?

Perhaps a friendly reminder of how this could earn Apple some arrest warrants would help things along...

And with comments like that people wonder why Apple has trouble gaining a more international footing.

The user that posted was a non US person, for him to make such a comment it is fair to get a non US response.

Something doesn't add up in her story. The police were called, and they attended to her twice (once in the subway, and once at her home), but there is no incident report on file?

This is the crux of the issue. It's free and can often be done by phone. That she doesn't suggests that there is in fact a problem with her claiming ownership...

yeah i'm wondering why she just keeps whining and why not just go fill out a missing/stolen item report. duh.

I know that if I bought a phone and sold it to someone (but kept the receipt) does that mean the phone is still legally mine? Nope!

How does Apple know that the victim didn't sell the phone to the accused thief?

Just because you have the receipt for something, doesn't mean you posses it still.

The big mistake here was the lack of a police report filing. It is pretty much require if you want your property to ever come back to you. More importantly it gives the police a basis to go after the current owner. I say current owner because that person is not likely to be the theif.

If nothing else I'm hoping this article reminds people to be agressive when recovering from a crime. Make sure the police reports are filled and do what you can to help them. Find my Iphone is great but other info can help too. Serial numbers and the like need to be squireled away to. The cops can't do much with "my iPhone was stolen" especially now that there are millions of them out there. I also winder if the gal contacted AT&T, they should have been able to help a bit at the time of the crime.


Dave

This story is just a load of BS. The police would never do any of the thing she described.

From the Consumist....

No, the NYPD will not search the area for a purse snatch. The thief is long gone by the time they get there. The only protocol is filing a report.



What happen between calling apple and the police showing up? The police would go to her house just to tell her this? The precinct can just call her.


You do not have to do any of these things. The NYPD makes out a report at the scene, check and write your ID and address in the report. If your ID was part of the theft, they will write whatever name and address you tell them. You can get a copy 2 or 3 days later at the precient after its been file. If you want to go thru the book that's up to you.



This is the most UNBELIEVABLE PART. The police CALLS a manufacturer to give your stuff back? Its evidence in a crime, they will hold it. The police dont know that you actually own the phone. you would have to give the police documents that you own the phone. They will check it with apple and att that the serial numbers match.

If he/she ships the phone they would have a return address. Police then can question the suspect if he/she stole it or bough it from the thief. With the address they can get a warrant to search the suspect's house, car, etc.

Think they'd say the same if someone stole Steve Jobs?

you assume that such a bill of sale would always exist between two individuals. I've sold a number of old computers, ipods, even an old cell phone to friends and neighbors and not once was there any kind of anything other than cash in my hand and the thing in his/her.

And since, as it has been pointed out, there's nothing to back up the report of a theft such as a police report, Apple is in the middle of a no win situation. After all, the person with the phone might have bought it from another party assuming that that person was the rightful original owner. And there's nothing to prove otherwise since the victim couldn't be bothered to have a formal police report done.

Sucks, but what can you do really. Snatch the phone from the person that brought it in who might not be the criminal in the case. Don't and leave the original owner high and dry. Give them both a phone to be nice and have it leak out and suddenly every person that loses or damages a phone is coming in saying it was stolen and they want their free replacement (after Apple has firmly said they don't cover loss, theft or accident).

as I said, no win situation


no they have evidence that she paid for it. not that she still has possession. She could have sold it, given it away, etc.


bingo. i'm not even sure that ATT is given the serial when the phone is activated. and for all we know (since no one has claimed to be a repair tech at an Apple store that I have seen), the only data in the Apple system with the serial is the date of purchase unless the person bought Apple Care. I know a lot of folks that did cause they figured they would early upgrade in a year anyway to get the new model phone. so why pay the money.

I take the sim out of my iphone and put it in another phone and now the phone is blank. I sell it to someone who takes the sim out of his/her phone into the iphone and it could keep working just fine and dandy.

as for the MobileMe and passcode locks. those brick the phone and force you to do a full restore to get it starting again. so the phone can be used. the idea isn't to disable the phone but to prevent access to your personal data.


it might merely mean that the sim, which is what is tired to the bill, is in a different device.


you assume the serial in given to ATT.


there are other ways to buy a phone and they don't always produce receipts. My neighbor bought a Gen1 phone from my roommate and there was no paper other than the cash for the phone.

that a phone/purse was taken. but there's no details. she didn't go down with her receipts and have a report with the identifying marks done. it was an iphone. we all know that there are hundreds of thousands of iphones in NYC, which is a factor in the crap service there (if you buy ATTs sob story)


yes and no. they verify the account holder for the line. but not that you are the one carrying the actual device.

I don't see any wrong on Apple's behalf. Common sense would be to file a police report if it was actually stolen. In a way providing a receipt alone would still be a little skeptical in that situation. How would Apple know that she didn't sell the phone on eBay, craigslist or someone on the streets and trying to pull a fast one of them? I know you could still get away with it even if a police report was filed "if you are a smart criminal" but it would be provide better grounds for evidence.

You mean it sounds like she needs to watch Judge Judy?

AT&T and Apple both profit from a dirty little industry that shouldn't exist, but does.

The stolen cell phone industry.

Apple and ATT are not alone either.

ATT (as well as most if not all cellular carriers) only consider a cell phone stolen or lost until the owner of that cell phone replaces it, which is usually quite quickly.

Upon the owner of that cell phone replacing it with another cell phone, the cellular carrier can and will sell services to ANYONE who elects to purchase services for that lost or stolen cell phone.

Then, the cellular carrier holds itself under no obligation to deny sale of service to the person or company in possession of stolen or lost cell phone property, even in the case of a proper official police report and a proper notification to the cellular carrier.

IMEI number's make no difference here. Why?

That is their business policy, and they are permitted to have such a policy by the FCC.

Apple makes additional money when a person or company that did pay to legitimately obtain an iPhone has their iPhone stolen or loses it and then buys another iPhone at full price, often without the benefit of a cellular carrier's subsidy price.

ATT makes more money also.

Conveniently, ATT gets a NEW contract for the replacement iPhone and for the stolen or lost cell phone.

That is ATT's business policy.

Also, municipalities, through their education agencies, have a formal policy of not allowing electronic devices to be brought onto school property and families have a strict policy of demanding that their children have a cell phone with them for availability in the event of an emergency (in our post 9/11 era).

When a student's cell phone is stolen or lost at school, the school officials reserve the right to officially reprimand that student for violating the formal school policy and having brought such a device onto the school property, but consider themselves free from the hassle of taking or investigating that student's report of a crime of cell phone theft occurring on the school premises.

Local police are not in the habit of responding to schools in order to investigate the theft of a student's cell phone either, especially on the day of the theft when the device may be discovered to be on the person of someone on the school property.

The effect of these business and municipal policies is that thieves in the schools continue to prey on other students by stealing cell phones, because the schools have a policy that denies that these crimes are occurring in the first place or that this is a wide-spread issue on school property that is fueled by the policies I just outlined.

Any person who knows the zip code of the owner of the stolen or lost cell phone can simply call 1-800-331-0500 and report that ATT subscriber's cell phone as lost or stolen.

This can be done without the consent of the cell phone owner, unlike any municipality standard of reporting theft for personal property. Municipalities require the owner of such property to make a report of stolen or lost property.

This conveniently can be done to defeat Apple's MobileMe service for locating and wiping a subscriber's cell phone clean of all data without the consent of the owner of that cell phone - this service requires cellular service or a wifi internet connection.

ATT's written contract does not inform a contract holder of these business policies and ATT's customer service representatives say that customers can opt out of the 1-800-331-0500 automated system for reporting cell phones lost or stolen if they figure that out on their own, yet that does not seem to be easily done if at all possible.

***

If the FCC required all cellular carriers to keep a record of all IMEI numbers for cell phones that are reported stolen and lost and to DENY sale of cellular services to holders of devices with these numbers, then the entire dirty little stolen cell phone industry would be largely eliminated, IMO.

Cell phone owners could then be allowed to prove their ownership with receipts and have such device's IMEI numbers removed from the FCC list, if they wished upon recovery of their cell phones.

But don't hold your breath, because that dirty little industry sure is very profitable to companies like Apple and ATT.

No it's not the same. You purchased , you did own it at time of purchase. You could have sold it or given it away.
How do you prove you still own it? You file a police report stating that you still own it. If you don't own it and file a police report stating you do, that would be a criminal offense.

Maybe she gave it to her boyfriend and they broke up and he got ticked of at him.

What?

Unless you sold it, gave it away or threw it out.
You still own anything/everything you have ever purchased?

This is the first post on this subject that makes SENSE! It is not hard to prove who the owner is in this case. This person can prove ownership from her AT&T bill. She is PAYING for service on a phone registered to her the police are saying yes this phone was stolen. Apple is not being genuine here. She can prove ownership and she can prove through police involvement that it was stolen. I am the biggest Apple fan in the world but this was not good customer care......

It's news because AI needs hits. Simple.

While I do think this is a stupid story I think there is more here than the obvious and its how Apple AND AT&T handle stolen phones (and other GSM carriers in the states)

If you register your phone as stolen via police report it should be killed via itunes so and added to a global blacklist via IMEI. While I know you can switch IMEI with dummies, your average thief won't know this.

Verizon kills phone labeled as stolen or not paying their bills (Bad ESN) while I don't agree with VZW locking phones for non-payment atleast there is no market for these phones unless you know how to switch ESNs (illegal)

Your denial of the FACT would be classified as Sigmund Freuds "Denial of Awareness" if in any other forum.


.......


Good Job Q610

he lives in the United States?

I mean, why do some people always treat this as some kind of offense? iTunes exists in various countries, but there's a different legal regime in various countries due to having to sign up different media companies, deal with different -- close, but not identical -- copyright laws and the like. You can't make the observation based on something you know, and back up, with a survey. If you have a different experience, and different surveys, etc., then by all means speak up. That would add to the general knowledge. Always whining about the supposed US imperialism of the fans from the US is kind of nasty and pointless.

I'd like to watch the BBC streaming video with the iPlayer. But I can't, because it's only available in England. Don't tell me why, I just want to complain about it, and I'm quite sure that the Beeb is just being mean to me because they like to make people around the world unhappy!

Think about this story. There are all kinds of holes in it. I'm not saying Apple (still less AT&T) are right, but for instance, there's the fact that the woman didn't WANT to go down to file a police report and look through a photo lineup, because it was (pout) too FAR. That would have established that the phone was stolen. A former policeman writing on one blog says her story doesn't make sense. If she had an investigation done, there's a police report. It might not be a full report, but cops file them whenever there's some kind of investigation.

What's most likely is that she didn't bother filing a complete report. She may not have her original bill, or she didn't guard the serial number in a safe place. If she had Mobile Me, she could locate the phone and/or wipe all data from it. So when she called Apple, there was nothing on file anywhere.

A lot of former Apple employees -- they learn not to comment while they're working there -- said that this could look like a frequent scam. You sell someone your phone, then ask for a new one because it's "stolen." They all said they've heard a thousand stories. Not to say that this women is one of them, but...

What I really think this story is a model of is the crap journalism we have so much of in the modern world. There's no legwork. The writer talked to the girl. Maybe to the cop. Did he talk to Apple? AT&T? In the old days, this would be thrown back by a city editor until the reporter dug out enough details to be a story. But this story is simply furthering the agenda of the woman, and of the various Apple bashers that the tech press is becoming thick with. It's a "good" story, but it's not necessarily "true." That is, you don't need many details. You just ignite a slugfest between people who love Apple and defend it and those who hate Apple, for whom this story confirms what they think.

In small, that's what's happening to our larger journalism, too. It's so much easier to assess truth or falsity if it confirms your prejudices.

Well, say it was stolen three months ago. We don't know when from the story. Has she paid for it since? If she wants to cancel, there's a charge that can be hefty.

I mean, you're just imagining things that might have been to make the case you want to: Apple Bad.

I don't agree. "Play by the rules" or risk being disappointed. As soon as word gets around that there are loopholes to any legal agreement, it can spread like wildfire and cost Apple plenty.

Apple should not make exceptions unless there is sufficient evidence to support claims as described. Your first line of defense is to file a police report if something is stolen.