For as long as I can remember I have heard stories from individuals who went to the Genius Bar and were told ridiculous and fabricated lies in order to get them to purchase a new device. I have had thousands of apple devices on my workbench over the last 10 years and a large portion of them came with similar stories from their owners where Apple either flat out refused a repair or told them it was damaged and they needed a new one. Now I understand that not all the people working for the Genius Bar are clueless and some of them may be well informed. Additionally I also understand that these type of interactions might only be 10% of all the interactions customers have with the Genius Bar. So I am willing to acknowledged there are positive interactions. That being said I am not going to dismiss the negative ones or pretend like its okay that this happens, because its not. Whether the technicians at this Genius Bar took it upon themselves to mislead the customer doesn't change anything. Apple should still be held accountable and responsible for this as they are the ones who hire/train these technicians. The point is there is no shortage of these stories and its hard not to think that Apple and its anti-repair policies don't have something to do with it.

That being said, I think calling what happened a scam is warranted because it is not only dishonesty, but there were flat out lies told.

So this story begins with an individual named John who took an iPhone to the Genius Bar because it wouldn't charge.The Genius Bar from what I was told inspected the phone and then began testing the charge port by trying several cables to see if it would charge. After 4 cables they determined that the charging port was damaged. John asked them if it could be repaired and was told that they needed to talk to another technician to see what they could do. After a few minutes the technician returned and informed John that the phone was burned out and that the lightning port destroyed the motherboard and he would have to spend $350.00 to have it repaired. The technician went on to say that he would recommend john just replace the phone with a newer one instead of repairing it. 

Now there is a lot wrong with what John was told. However the most egregious lie is that the charge port destroyed the motherboard. The phone powers on, powers off, volume buttons work, cameras work. As a matter of fact all features work, the only problem it has is it will not charge. Now anyone who has watched a repair or repaired an iPhone themselves knows that the charge port is not soldered to the motherboard. It is a replaceable component that connects to the motherboard using a ribbon cable. So as soon as I heard this I became suspicious about the validity of these claims. I told John to bring the phone to me and I would take a look at it.

The full details of my inspection/work can be viewed in the following video:

Video will be live 5/18/2024 10AM