Among all sorts of "assassins" encountered, one wouldn't expect a "phone repair assassin"! A repair initially priced at over $1,000 ended up costing $14,000, and the phone was only retrieved after an additional sum was paid.
According to media reports, Ms. Wang from Wuhan encountered a screen freeze issue with her iPhone 13 Pro. She searched on Baidu for nearby Apple official repair stores and chose the top-ranked "China (Apple) Repair Service Center," whose online customer service profile featured the Apple logo.
Upon arrival, Ms. Wang was informed that the motherboard was fried, with a repair cost of 2,198 CNY. Later, she was told that the chips were also fried and needed replacement, priced at 15 CNY each, totaling 750 chips. However, after just over 10 minutes, they claimed the repair was done, demanding an exorbitant fee of 14,000 CNY.
Having recently graduated and unable to afford the sum, Ms. Wang was offered a 40% discount, bringing the price down to over 8,000 CNY. However, she couldn't accept it and requested to see a breakdown of the repair costs, which was refused.
After a standoff, Ms. Wang had no choice but to pawn her phone to the store, but was then asked for an additional 2,000 CNY. In the end, she paid 500 CNY.
Ms. Wang subsequently reported the incident to the police, but they claimed it was not within their jurisdiction. They also mentioned that the perpetrator was a habitual offender, having been complained about many times and frequently changing locations to deceive people.
Finally, with the intervention of media reporters, Ms. Wang paid an additional 1,800 CNY for the so-called repair fee, totaling 2,300 CNY, before finally retrieving her phone. Throughout the ordeal, she was threatened and obstructed by the staff.
According to Apple customer service, if it's a motherboard issue, the repair cost should be around 4,000 CNY.
