14 DAY TRIAL // Apple launched a battery replacement program for old iPhone models whose performance might be impacted due to battery degradation, and the company offers a discount from $79 to $29 when the servicing takes place in an Apple Store.
One iPhone 6s user who wanted to take advantage of this offer ended up paying $30 for the battery replacement, only to discover that his battery wasn’t actually replaced with a new unit.
Reddit user tenaper explains in a post which quickly caught the attention of the WWW that he was originally told by the Apple Store staff “they ran out of 6s batteries but took an appointment for battery diagnostic anyway.”
Following the test, which revealed that the battery was “consumed and defective” (Apple Store engineers’ own words), the iPhone owner was offered a quick battery replacement during the same day, despite the staff originally saying that no units were in stock.
The repairs cost a little over $30, and a receipt posted online by tenaper confirms he paid for a battery replacement as part of Apple’s new program.
Charged for nothing
Shockingly, however, he discovered that his battery wasn’t replaced with a new unit, as the repaired iPhone was running on the same battery as before.
“I later checked my battery status through Coconut Battery and found it to be the SAME degraded battery as before, with the same number of charge cycles and degradation percentage,” tenaper said in his post.
The more surprising thing is that support chats provided contradictory battery data, and while the Apple Store staff said the battery needed to be replaced, support engineers said it was “in good health.”
In a later update to the post, the reddit user adds that “Apple Store confirmed that my original battery was never replaced by the serial numbers, they replaced it today.”
Apple hasn’t obviously released a statement on this and the company resolved the whole problem quickly and quietly, but this story should clearly serve as an advice for those who want to replace their iPhone batteries as part of the new program. You should always collect and store battery information before the actual replacement process and then compare it with the new unit to see if your iPhone got a new pack or not.
