false advertising

Hello, my name is Fabio, I am from Brazil, and I was in New York last month and I bought an Iphone 5S. When I was in the store, I asked the seller if the 4G would work in Brazil, and he confirmed that I would have no problem with it. So, when I got in Brazil, I find out that the 4G does not work in Brazil because the device sold in USA (model 1533) does not work here with the 4G, just the device sold in Eurpe (model 1457) would work in Brazil properly. A few days agora I got in touch with Apple through website https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started, but Apple replied me informing that they can not do anything because of some contractual issues. My question is, the seller tells me that the product will work perfectly in my country, I spent $ 750 to buy it, the product does not work perfectly here, and Apple says it can not do anything? Here in Brazil we call this false advertising, and it is possible to enter a lawsuit against the company, and generally the consumer wins the case. Can anyone help me?

I take it that the store you mention was not an Apple Store because they are familiar with what each country has for service and what devices will and will not be compatible.

osxx said:

I take it that the store you mention was not an Apple Store because they are familiar with what each country has for service and what devices will and will not be compatible.

Click to expand...

That assumes for a moment that each and every employee knows the difference between LTE bands and frequencies (which I doubt). I walked into an Apple Store once back just before SL was released, asked something about it (can't remember what) and was met with dumbfounded looks. It's very possible something similar happened here or worse, the employee assumed that LTE is universally done in the same way.

According to Wikipedia (source), Canadian and US phones operate on the 700, 850, 1900, 1700/2100 and 2600mhz frequency, and South American telcos on the 2500mhz. According to that article, SA is the only places that operates on the 2500mhz frequency. The European model likely won't work either as Europe operates on the 800, 900, 1800 and 2600 MHz frequency.

famanzoli, you don't have much of a technical option here. However, you could return the phone and call customer service at Apple to complain such that they give you a full refund (which they should since this their error). Then, buy one in Brazil.

By the way, the Better Business Bureau has no teeth. All the BBB can do is forward your complaint - they have no actual power.

This would also not be false "advertising" as there is no "advertisement" involved here.

You have not told us what "store" you purchased the phone from. If purchased from a 3rd party reseller and not Apple, then Apple likely can do nothing about your particular predicament. This issue would need to be addressed with the company you purchased the device from.

I would never assume any Apple employee would have that knowledge but they can look up model specific for the country its to be used in or at least the Highland Store here in Houston has done it for clients that have children overseas.

As a good reference here, Apple has a chart indicating which countries have supported LTE networks. Bear in mind that there are multiple models of each phone, depending on what bands are used in each country.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

Even here in the US, there are a large number of regional carriers that are using bands for LTE that are not compatible with the iPhone model used on the big carriers like Verizon, AT&T, etc.

Anywho, I agree that the OP should call Apple rather than deal with a local Apple store. As always, be polite but stress that an Apple employee at their own store (if this is where it was bought, that is) gave bad advice and you shouldn't have to pay the penalty for it. Insist that you just want a trade so you are able to use the iPhone in the manner you intended. If you insist on a refund or start making threats of legal action, they almost certainly won't help.