iPhone 12 Pro Max FedEx lost / stole my trade in iPhone 12 Pro Max - How screwed am I?

[newellj]

Update: After chatting with customer service, they escalated it to an investigation. This morning they called me asking if I had any clue what the tracking number in the trade-in kit was, and of course I couldn’t answer. She said it was deleted from their system too.

Luckily, she said they’re going to take care of me because “of course I returned the phone.” Waiting for confirmation email now.

Could there be some widespread fraud happening? Or just the Mercury Retrograde wreaking havoc on their systems?

This probably gets auto-merged with my prior response - which is the same here. Apple CS on these trade-in theft incidents is really outstanding, for reasons that even a five-year old could figure out.

 

[newellj]

Minor example here. Went to an authorized Apple repair center. This was for a recall replacement of an iPhone XS Apple charger case. The new one, sent by Apple to the repair center was lost in shipment. Not the end of the world, but shipping woes continue to rise in these crazy times!

You are very right - and the worst of all, by a huge margin, is USPS. They have not gone downhill, they have fallen off the edge of the canyon into a black hole. It's really sad, almost tragic. I used to prefer FedEx to UPS, but FedEx has really had some terrible problems in the last year or so. Just wait until the holidays.

 

[frostrambler]

I wonder if this is all because of FedEx ground, they use a lot of local contractors and private business own routes, FedEx ground is not employees of FedEx.

 

[StarShot]

The reason -not- to sell it yourself is that you run a reasonable chance of being scammed by an eBay buyer and a lesser chance but not non-zero chance of being scammed by a Swappa buyer. Craigslist/cash is safe but you will get a lot less in most cases. With Apple trade-in, you hand them the phone and...wait for it!...you are done.

I've upgraded every phone since the 3G back in '08. With the iPhone 13, that means 13 previous phones of mine were sold, mainly on eBay, 2 of them on Swappa and I think 2 on Craigslist. The only place I've had trouble is on eBay because of failure to pay after repeated chance. This happened twice including this year for my previous 12 Mini. In both cases, I just relisted and sold to someone else. Back in the early days, I was getting around $50 less than what I paid the year before.

I would estimate that after the first seveal years of selling, I was getting about $150 less than what I paid for the later phones. Last year's Mini (128gb) was $750 and I only got $500 for it. If I didn't get screwed because of the failure to pay, I would have recieved around $550 net.

My sales technic is to advertise the previous phone around 30 days before Apple's roadshow. This way, I can advertise the phone has another month of Apple Care. As soon as I sell, I break out my trusty SE and back it up to the status of my iPhone that I'm selling. As soon as my new iphone arrives, the old SE goes back in the drawer.

I think Applecare for a new phone is about $190. If I kept the old phone for another year and bought AppleCare for the 2nd year at $190, it's almost a wash buying a new phone every year and selling the old one.

 

[Work4results]

Bought a new 13 Pro Max and Apple offered me 790 for my old 12 Pro Max. I got the box, packed the phone into it, and being an idiot… just dropped it in a FedEx Dropbox next to where I work. This was last Tuesday, a week ago. Since then, it has never been scanned in. Package tracking only shows the label was printed.

I’ve spoken to FedEx customer service who claims to have sent a driver to the box, which was empty when they checked it. Driver picked up packages on Tuesday at 6pm last week, but my package was never scanned in. Customer service also confirmed with the local warehouse that my package wasn’t sitting around waiting for ground to grab it from express.

So, I called Apple a few times, and they have opened a shipping investigation, but I’m not holding out hope, FedEx told me it’s lost, but since it wasn’t even scanned in…I have no proof I even dropped it off. Apple promised to call me back in 48 hours, that was yesterday, but I’ve read that Apple can’t help much here. I filed a police report with the NYPD and told my carrier so the phone is blacklisted.

How screwed am I? I’m assuming Apple won’t make an exception and let me keep the credit? What’s worse is I have AppleCare Plus, which covers Theft and Loss, BUT it requires Find my IPhone to be on, and Apple asks for you to turn it off when sending it in as a trade in, so I followed apples instructions and lost my insurance coverage through their insurance…. Oh boy.

THIS HAPPENED TO ME JUST NOW!! What ended up happening to you?

 

[aok75]

Getting a receipt from a FedEx location is NOT good enough guys.

I got an email from Apple this morning saying there was a problem with my order and to call them. Long story short, I got the trade-in kits for my iPhone 12 and my wife's iPhone 12, packed each box with an iPhone, dropped off at the manned FedEx location across the street, and got a receipt for the two boxes with tracking numbers.

When Apple received the boxes, one was empty, and according to Apple, "showed no signs of tampering." I told them that both boxes had phones in them, and Apple is doing an investigation. The receipt I have is worthless if Apple receives empty boxes from FedEx.

I did my own investigation after my phone call with Apple. Turns out that even though I dropped off both phones at exactly the same day/time (they're both on my FedEx receipt), one was delivered to Apple (near Sacramento) on Monday, October 4th, and the other (I'm guessing the empty box) was delivered to Apple two days later -- on Wednesday, October 6th.

Not sure yet how this is going to turn out, but I do know that in the future I will ALWAYS take my iPhones to my local Apple store and have them do the inspection/trade in.

The receipt is not worthless. It’s shows you dropped off the package.

 

[pateljj04]

The same thing happened to me waiting since October 12 on a resolution to the investigation. They said they would call within 48 hours, and almost week and half later nothing, called again and setup a call back so frustrating.

 

[Gypsy36]

Usually when I get a FedEx receipt it has the weight of the package included. If they say an empty box was received, you can use the weight to show that it certainly wasn’t that way when you dropped it off.

 

[g800]

Bought a new 13 Pro Max and Apple offered me 790 for my old 12 Pro Max. I got the box, packed the phone into it, and being an idiot… just dropped it in a FedEx Dropbox next to where I work. This was last Tuesday, a week ago. Since then, it has never been scanned in. Package tracking only shows the label was printed.

I’ve spoken to FedEx customer service who claims to have sent a driver to the box, which was empty when they checked it. Driver picked up packages on Tuesday at 6pm last week, but my package was never scanned in. Customer service also confirmed with the local warehouse that my package wasn’t sitting around waiting for ground to grab it from express.

So, I called Apple a few times, and they have opened a shipping investigation, but I’m not holding out hope, FedEx told me it’s lost, but since it wasn’t even scanned in…I have no proof I even dropped it off. Apple promised to call me back in 48 hours, that was yesterday, but I’ve read that Apple can’t help much here. I filed a police report with the NYPD and told my carrier so the phone is blacklisted.

How screwed am I? I’m assuming Apple won’t make an exception and let me keep the credit? What’s worse is I have AppleCare Plus, which covers Theft and Loss, BUT it requires Find my IPhone to be on, and Apple asks for you to turn it off when sending it in as a trade in, so I followed apples instructions and lost my insurance coverage through their insurance…. Oh boy.

FedEx just stole mine out of the box (Apple emailed me saying the box was empty). I dropped off at a FedEx location, but their employees clearly recognize the orange tape you're asked to put on outside of box ... these people should be put in jail, it's not ok to steal. But with woke as a joke DAs and prosecutors, we couldn't possibly imagine hurting the feelings of these thiefs