2023-11-14 08:50:46
A user ordered a defective refurbished Apple Watch on the Boulanger website. If the product has been refunded, this practice is not without questions with Apple’s tightening of screws in place for more than a year.
The Apple Watch Series 9 for illustration // Source: Chloé Pertuis – Frandroid
Updated 11/14: Added Boulanger’s answers
Article from 13/11: Purchasing reconditioned products does not always have a good reputation. It must be said that large differences can exist between two reconditioned products, whether in terms of the software means used to achieve this or the parts used for the reconditioning, in the case of a screen or battery replacement.
This weekend, a user of the social network X (formerly Twitter) paid the price. Geoffroy Ondet, journalist at 01net, indicates in fact that he purchased a refurbished Apple Watch at the beginning of August before noticing two major problems with his connected watch. First of all, the screen used would be a counterfeit model: “ no shock on the watch, the screen cracked all around the dial over the weeks before walking aroundr”. Then, when he opened the watch case to remove the two parts and access the components, he noticed that the connectors to accommodate the Force Touch sensor cable were empty. Enough to prevent the use of this functionality, without this being indicated on the product page of the website.
Source : X (formerly Twitter)
On X, Boulanger responded to his customer by inviting him to contact his following-sales service in order to “ take stock of these anomalies “. He was subsequently able to receive a refund for the watch. “ All’s well That ends well », concludes Geoffroy Ondet. « Boulanger monitors following-sales service returns very regularly and takes appropriate action with its partners and customers in the event of disputes. In the case of the watch, only 2 cases of screen breakage have been reported out of all sales to date and have been resolved by a refund. They have already been arrested», Tells us the e-commerce site.
The Apple Watch in question was indeed sold directly by Boulanger, without going through a reseller on amarket place . However, Boulanger is not at the origin of the reconditioning and, for this step, uses the services of a supplier: Upcycles. However, if Upcycles is Boulanger’s service provider, it is still up to the reseller to ensure the quality of the reconditioning carried out by its supplier, since it is he who is in direct contact with the customer. When questioned, Boulanger also told us that he had “56 control points on a smartphone and 21 on a connected watch, 4 of which concern the screen”.
Apple increasingly strict on repackaging
This mishap might pose even more problems in the future as Apple has drastically revised its repairability policy with its latest iPhones. Since the iPhone 14, Apple has been matching parts, meaning that the components now have a serial number and an authentication system ensures that the batteries, screens or integrated motors are indeed validated by Apple upon repair. By using third-party components, refurbishers might prevent devices from working, with iOS recognizing that they are unreliable parts. For the moment, this serialization system is only integrated into iPhones, but it might also arrive on Apple Watches.
A subject all the more sensitive as Boulanger tells us that the reconditioning is carried out using “compatible and non-original spare parts ”, since these remain “the sole property of the manufacturer».
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