Brand new iPhone 17 Pro died in just 3 days. Being told to accept a repair instead of a replacement. Is this fair?
I bought a Silver iPhone 17 Pro (256GB) for around ₹1,33,000 on 29 June from an Apple Authorised Reseller (iDelta).
Everything was working perfectly until the night of 3 July.
I charged it for more than an hour, but it was still completely dead. No Apple logo, no vibration, nothing.
I called Apple Support and explained the situation. The representative told me that since I purchased it from iDelta, the replacement policy depends on the reseller. She also mentioned that if the phone had been purchased directly from Apple, they could have arranged a replacement (depending on the case) and even provided a temporary phone during the process.
I then visited the iDelta service centre, where I was told that the motherboard is dead and the phone will need a motherboard replacement.
This is where I’m frustrated.
Why should I have to accept a repaired phone when I paid ₹1.33 lakh for a brand-new flagship device? I didn’t drop it, there is no physical or water damage, and it failed in just 3 days. They are also refusing to provide a temporary replacement phone while mine is away for repair.
What worries me even more is the long-term reliability. If the motherboard has already failed within three days, how can I be confident that the phone won’t develop more issues later? I bought a new phone expecting peace of mind, not a major repair almost immediately.
The experience so far has been:
iDelta says: “Talk to the service centre.”
Service centre says: “Talk to your dealer.”
Apple Support says: “The phone will be sent to Bangalore for repair.”
Everyone is pointing me to someone else, but nobody seems willing to take responsibility for the fact that a three-day-old premium phone has already suffered a major hardware failure.
Has anyone else experienced something similar? Were you able to get a replacement instead of a repair? I’d really appreciate any advice on what my options are.