Hi All,

Just thought I would share my story regarding my faulty Apple Watch.

Anyway, I was out working in the garden at the end of July when I went inside because it was starting to rain. I got inside and went to check my watch, I tapped the screen and it felt loose. I thought, this isn't right so I tapped it again and it "clicked" I took the watch off and noticed the screen had come away from the body by a mm. I thought back and I had definitely NOT knocked or abused the watch, the worst behaviour it had seen was getting a little rain on it when I was outside but never been bumped or knocked in any significant way.

I went online to Apple Care as I had Apple care+ which expired in about 2 weeks so I went on to the online chat, unfortunately the only option that fitted the criteria for what had happened to the watch was "physical damage" which as far as I was concerned was what had happened, the face was physically coming away from the body. They processed the fault and we arranged for an express replacement. They  told me if the fault was caused by me I would have to pay the $119. I assured them it hadn't been anything I had done. While I was on chat I googled and found an existing issue with batteries expanding and causing this issue, I mentioned that I believed this was quite likely.

I gave my work address and my credit card details and everything was arranged.

I received the TNT tracking number a day later, it showed as prepared for shipping, but could take a week, I know Apple and TNT so I expected this in a couple of days but was patient and called Apple up a week later, the status was still showing as preparing for shipment on TNT's system. Apple raised the issue with TNT. Unknown to then TNT Australia had been experiencing some major IT issues, to cut a long story short here, the replacement was sent via DHL. IT was received a few days after dispatched, however no one at work had seen it and the tracking showed being signed by Vinod F. We work in a building with 3 other offices in it, but currently the other 2 are empty. Further investigation showed that Apple had not used the company name and only my name. The courier driver had taken a punt and delivered somewhere else, where no one knows. I suspect that the cleaners were upstair cleaning on of the offices when it was delivered and has swiped it (joke is on them the serial number has been black listed and bricked). DHL and Apple were now talking and trying to work out where my watch was, by this time 3 weeks had passed. I had been passed on to a case manager who was calling me daily to update me but progress was slow.

The next step was that I needed to fill in a stat dec to say I had not got my watch and neither had anyone I knew, I got this done and signed and sent to Sherwin (the case manager from Apple) by this time we were up to 4 weeks. I received a call from Sherwin then to say that Apple was no longer going to send me a refurbished watch but an brand new Series 2 watch in the same format as I originally purchased, this would be provided free of charge, with full warranty rights in NZ etc. (original watch was the 1st Gen and purchased in Australia) He asked would I like to have this sent via express replacement, I promptly refused this and asked for the normal replacement! The one stipulation was that the watch needed to go to a house address where someone needed to be home to receive and the original watch needed to be picked up from the same address.

I arranged for the watch to send to the MIL.

Anyway, 7 week later I have my shiny new Apple Watch Series 2 brand new and with full warranty (and have added Apple Care+)

Over all I have to say, at times I was frustrated with the situation but Apple's constant, daily communication made it bearable, and the resolution to provide a brand new replacement rather than a refurb when everything had gone south, even though part of the issue was out of Apple's hands had left me feeling happy with the over all outcome.