14 DAY TRIAL // Intermediary salespeople represent a risk Apple is faced with when dealing with resellers. Even in the case of official partners such as Carphone Warehouse things are no different and bad things can happen in the name of commissions.
In the US, there were all sorts of stories about the AT&T salespeople and the various methods they employed either to persuade people to buy an iPhone, or not to. In the UK, things are slightly different. Here, the focus is on not trying to sell people the phone, but rather an insurance package for it and the reports are not coming from actual buyers but from the BBC.
BBC One's Watchdog show undercover that researchers caught Carphone Warehouse staff misleading customers in an attempt to sell them costly iPhone insurance. Customers were told that should their iPhone be lost or stolen, with no insurance, they would have to acquire not just a replacement device, but also a new 118-month contract, all in all another ?630. This is simply not true. Similarly, customers were told that the insurance offered by O2 wouldn't cover as much as the one from Carphone Warehouse, which is also not true.
Watchdog visited only five stores, but was told the lies in three of them. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, and last year, Carphone Warehouse was fined ?245,000 for breaking the law on selling insurance. Not surprisingly, the company stated that it believes that the complaints were not "a fair reflection of the experience of thousands of iPhone customers who have received insurance advice in our stores." While it is entirely possible that this was a limited occurrence, the fact that Carphone Warehouse staff get commission on all the insurance they sell makes it unlikely.
UK buyers might be better off reading up on the insurance offered, and, where possible, to purchase directly from Apple.