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Boom. I called it.

I have to say the climax of this thread was a major letdown. It should've just been closed after the rickroll link
 
What's stopping them are laws which make this behavior a crime, usually a class III felony. You have committed fraud. Nothing more. Just because you say "I'm not out to commit fraud" doesn't mean you haven't. You have. And posted it to a public forum. There's nothing to exploit. If you don't believe me, just try to execute your "flaw" and we'll see how that works out for you.

To take a relevant example, I too noticed a "flaw" in most retail stores. You can personally pickup merchandise, and walk out the door without paying. (Or maybe you're clever, and conceal the merchandise before you walk out the door.) That's not a "flaw", that's shoplifting, aka theft. No different here.
The difference is that I have done nothing illegal. I have not deprived them of property. My watch is actually defective so I didn't lie and say it was broken, for the purpose of obtaining a new unit (insurance fraud). I have 10 days to send back the defective unit, and I'm still within those 10 days. I have not canceled my debit card, and I have not closed my account. I noticed that this process could be exploited, and notified Apple. Nowhere did I say that I exploited the process. I notified Apple as soon as I realized it could be done, and I shipped the defective watch back this morning. But if you want to call the Internet Police, go for it.
 
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Most of you are missing the point. The pre-auth was removed, and he had two watches in hand. It wasn't pending (which negates the restaurant example above).

Explain to me how the merchant can collect funds if the account is closed, rather than a new card being issued? I get that its fun to flame, but the reality is, it was a loophole and he did the right thing. Bravo for that.

I think a big difference here is that it was a debit card and not a credit card. IF he'd requested a new card, the account would still be open and pending charges would still go through. If it was a lost/stolen card, he'd have to verify each charge, allowing him to deny the AW charge. Even if he closed the account, he would still receive a final statement for pending charges.

He definitely did the right thing. Who knows? Maybe down the road someone would've caught the error, maybe not. Personally, seems like too much of a hassle to cancel a card for an AW. Never would've even considered it.
 
This happened to me twice with different products. One was a pair of Nike i d shoes I made. I did two different pairs and they sent me two of the same one. Refunded the money and gave me a label to send back. Dell sent me a collectors edition video game except there was no game disc inside. Refunded the money and sent me return label. I boxed up one but never made it to ups store and the other I kept putting it off and never did send it in.
 
You're original post said you found a loophole allowing someone to receive a free watch from Apple. It's a loophole that's tied to fraud/abuse of a debit card and the way Apple's return system was setup.

Regardless, good on you for pointing it out to Apple. I like it when people see something wrong and go out of their way to help others or make things right. I wish more people in the world would do the same.
 
Reminds me of that whole ski mask/gun loophole that gets you free money from the bank.
 
Yeah, simply fraud. An example of a loophole would be if you said "add a 42mm black Sport band to your cart and the price of the 42mm White Apple Watch drops to $0!" Or if you paid via Apple Pay on the Apple Store app but they don't charge your card. Pretty much anything where Apple would be at fault. In your case, you were the only one at fault.
 
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