[spott]

I think it is likely that they are trying to see if the watch you returned was counterfeit before they refunded you. This is probably a difficult process as the counterfeits of Apple products have gotten really good.

When you pushed them, they bumped yours to the front of the line.

[ryanjshaw]

Why would determining the counterfeit status of the returned item delay the refund process?

[rtpg]

Because they don’t want to give you money for a counterfeit, then have you disappear?

[ryanjshaw]

Ah so scammers are ordering real products, paying full price, and returning counterfeit products that cost them less than the real product, getting a refund on the full real product price then selling or keeping the real product - got it!

If the scammers keep the real item, they effectively get a real product at counterfeit prices. If they sell it, they make the difference between real and counterfeit in profit less shipping.

[stouset]

Yep. And counterfeits are good enough that you need dedicated personnel to be able to confirm high-value returns are legitimate and not knock-offs.

[hollerith]

Does a good counterfeit Apple Watch actually do everything a real watch does, e.g., respond like a genuine watch after you install an arbitrary app on it and start using the app?

(If so, I'm guessing they made the cheapest genuine Apple Watch look on the outside like a more expensive one.)

[stouset]

It won’t, but a random person off the street might not immediately notice the difference, particularly if they’d never used one before.

Even booting it to software, it might be enough for a completely-untrained person to assume it was real. Actually pairing it with a test phone might be the easiest/fastest to be certain.

[rtpg]

That seems to be the idea from what I see. I really have no idea how this all works in practice though.

[addicted]

That doesn’t explain their systems showing them not even having received the product for about 10 days until literally the day we filed the chargeback.

[jeromegv]

May be their system is configured to auto refund when it’s received. So they “hacked” the process so that it doesn’t show received up until they complete inspection.

[DougBTX]

Maybe a case of semantic drift, the difference between “received package” and “received product”. If the customers are honest those are the same thing, if not there may be a step in between.