SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: A Rs 74,325 iPhone 17 that froze, lost focus and stuttered during video playback within days of purchase has cost Apple a replacement order and Rs 35,000 in penalties, after a Hyderabad consumer forum found the company never fixed it.
According to The Times of India, the district forum directed Apple to swap the handset for a new one and pay complainant CV Anil Kumar Rs 20,000 as compensation and Rs 15,000 towards costs.
The bench found that neither Apple nor its service provider, Aptronix, could say why a brand-new phone developed faults so quickly, or why it needed repeated troubleshooting. Telling the forum the problems had been dealt with was not enough, it said.
“A purchaser of a new product/device cannot be expected to be saddled with unresolved issues,” the bench said.
Repeated troubleshooting
Kumar ordered the phone online on September 28, 2025. Within days, he said, the camera would not focus, the screen kept freezing, videos would not play properly and the connection was unreliable.
He called Apple’s customer care on September 30 and kept reporting each fault, showing them live over screen-sharing. By his account, Apple blamed software each time and took him through fixes, including a full erase and reset of the phone. The problems stayed.
He was then sent to an authorised service centre, where software and hardware diagnostics found nothing wrong and the operating system was reinstalled. The faults came back the same evening, and he contacted Apple again. Kumar told the forum that the ordeal left him stressed and out of pocket, and cost him time.
Apple’s defence
Apple Inc argued that its US-registered entity is separate from Apple India Private Limited, which it said was the right party to answer the case in India. It also said its staff had helped Kumar whenever he asked.
Aptronix, an Apple premium reseller and authorised service provider in Banjara Hills, said it only carried out servicing and diagnostics under Apple’s protocols. It said the phone worked normally after testing and the software restore.
SOURCE : SIASAT
