Are Square Trade and Apple Care for your iPhone Ripoffs

Paddle Boarding on Guadalupe River

I was recently paddle boarding in the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels with a group of friends. I had my iPhone Pro 11 in my swim trunks, which, according to Apple, has a water-resistance rating of IP68. That means the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max can be submerged in 13 feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

I fell into the river several times over a few hours of paddling, giving the phone a periodic dunking in 1 to 3 feet of water, and it kept working fine. We were on moving water and light rapids, so everyone fell multiple times. About an hour or two afterward, my iPhone 11 Pro died.

So much for its water resistance, but not to worry as I had purchased Square Trade Allstate insurance at Costco in Feb 2020 when the phone was purchased. I had also immediately registered the purchase with Square Trade Allstate and uploaded my scanned copy of the purchase receipt into my newly established Square Trade Allstate account. I was told that by doing so in advance, a replacement phone would simply require a phone call should anything ever happen.

Instead, it required some of the worst bureaucratic runaround and nightmare suffering I’ve experienced in a while, and several weeks until I finally received a refund.

I had moved on from the indignation and gross incompetence of the experience, but Square Trade emailed me a “How’d we do?” survey request today, which received 1-stars across the board. And it triggered the reminder of just how bad this insurance company is.

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