Apple Lost my $600 Headphones

So a couple weeks ago, I started noticing that my AirPods Max were frequently dropping connection. And not only that, but they started exhibiting symptoms of a logic board issue when they weren’t connecting to any Apple devices either. So, like any reasonable person would do, on the night of October 21st, I struck up a chat with Apple Support. Little did I know that this one chat would be the start of one of the worst experiences ever I’ve had with Apple. This is the story of that very repair experience, and how Apple ultimately lied about and lost my AirPods Max, their most premium headphones they’ve ever sold.

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. On October 21st, I fired the Support app on iPhone, filled out “pairing and connectivity issues,” and in just a couple seconds, I was speaking to an Apple advisor over iMessage. I explained my situation, and asked if there was a way that I could swap them out for a replacement for a slight fee, just like how I did with my iPhone. He said that “AirPods Max don’t have an Express Replacement Program, but I’ll be more than happy to help you with setting up a repair.” I was frustrated, because not only was this a widespread, known issues with these headphones, but also because I knew a repair would take a minimum of 3–5 days. So, I reluctantly agreed because I needed the headphones, and soon enough, I received an email confirming my mail-in repair. The email stated “Within two business days, you should receive a shipping box at this address…” Due to the fact that the email states “within two business days,” I was expecting a box to show up at my house on Monday, which means that they would have needed to ship the box by at least Saturday. Well, Saturday passes, and I receive a FedEx delivery manager notification that states that Apple has prepared a package for me and sent the information to FedEx, but with no ETA. I was fine with this since it wasn’t a business day, so I just let it slide. So on Monday morning, I check FedEx delivery manager, anxiously hoping that my package is out for delivery. Well, short answer is that… it wasn’t. Everything still remained the same. But then, I saw that 3 MORE packages were added to the delivery manager, all with the same information. Okay? So I thought to myself that the package(s?) would arrive later in the week. Tuesday passes, nothing. Wednesday passes, nothing. Only Thursday did I receive a confirmation that a box was going to come the next day. Finally. Friday morning comes, and I see that the package which is due in 6 hours hasn’t even been picked up by FedEx. What? So, I wait another day only to find that FedEx says my package has been “potentially delayed.” Whatever that means. So I wait another day, day 9 of this “2 business day” delivery, and my package was delivered. I immediately put my headphones in there, and sent the package off right away, and it was headed back to the repair facility. Great. So on Monday morning, I receive a signature from FedEx confirming that the package has indeed been delivered. Great news. Now, the repair took 3 days, and everything was fixed in a jiffy. Right? No.

I waited all day for confirmation that the headphones have arrived at the facility from Apple themselves. Well, all of Monday passes with no information. So I call Apple Support on Tuesday afternoon stating that I haven’t received any updates. Well, I was then placed on a 45 minute hold while the advisor was “looking for information.” She came back to me with… information. She said “So I’m looking at [our database] here and I see the repair has been placed on hold and we are waiting for parts…” I asked if she knew when the parts would arrive, and she said that the didn’t. I then asked why the repair page didn’t say this, and she said that “nobody can update [the system], it does it automatically.” This is a nonsensical statement and surely just a reflection of how nobody knows what’s happening. She said that if I wanted more information down the road, I’d have to contact Apple Support directly by phone so that they could tell me what was going on. So I hung up the phone and sat there refreshing the repair website for more information. Wednesday passes, nothing. Thursday passes, nothing. So I call Friday morning, day 15 of this “3–5 day repair,” and I was told the following, “the repair has been placed on hold, and you have to contact us on Monday so that you can file a claim…” First of all, why should I be calling to set a claim up? Doesn’t Apple have the resources and backend to update the repair information on the customer’s end, and file a claim if there’s no update? But whatever, I hung up the phone, and waiting until Monday. And boy, was Monday’s news not good.

So I call Monday afternoon and I ask to know what’s up and to file that claim that I heard about on Friday. It’s been nearly 3 weeks since I set the repair up. The advisor puts me on hold for half-an-hour, and she comes back to me after speaking with a “senior advisor with customer relations.” Whatever. She says that again the repair has been on hold. I say I know that, but WHY are they on-hold, why is it taking so long, and WHERE ARE MY HEADPHONES? They haven’t even been charged according to Find My. She says that “[their team] doesn’t know where they are yet, but [they] are monitoring their status.” At this point, I’m coming to a conclusion — Apple either A, broke my headphones and doesn’t know what to do, or B, lost my headphones. Either way, nobody at Apple knows what’s up. I express my displacement, and she says that if I call NEXT MONDAY, they would send me a new pair ASAP. What? This is what the last person told me about on Friday. Why would I have to wait another week? I told her that Apple keeps pushing this date back, and that I would need to speak to higher authorities in order to figure out where and why my headphones have disappeared from Find My, and how nobody at Apple knows where they are. And I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound very “Max” to me. You should share this article with your friends, on the internet. More people need to know about how Apple doesn’t even take accountability for their own faults. Hopefully next weeks brings some news, but for now that’s it. Mask up and stay home, and take care.