Likewise terrible customer service and Apple Germany lack of support

As an owner of over 10 apple devices and having always have had an excellent customer service from Apple, the day has come where I must sadly file my first complaint.

I recently traded in an apple macbook pro 15 in excellent condition, I would have wished to have traded it in directly at the apple store, however in Germany this is not possible. I then went on the Apple.de website and discovered two options were available to me:

-Trade in for another device

-Trade in for an estimated amount to be confirmed upon inspection

I opted for the second option as I wanted to wait for the new releases in September and maybe put the money towards another device then. This was my first mistake.

Even though Likewize is a partner of Apple and have a directly link to them in their website, I later found out Apple has its “hands tied” and cannot contact likewize to solve a customer complaint UNLESS the item was involved in a trade in for another apple product (how convenient). Basically either you use the money to buy something from us or otherwise we don´t care (i spoke to three different customer support assistants who all told me “they understand”, “it´s very unfortunate” but provided no concrete solution to my problem.

The problem: I sent my device to likewize using a UPS label they provided, two days later the item was received and immediately approved for payment (it was in excellent condition).

As of today, it has been 3 weeks and. I have yet to receive my money or my device back.

After a long succession of technical issues regarding tranfers to two bank account numbers I provided I have lost complete trust in this partner and my previous unwavering confidence in Apple has also been affected as a result.

I have filed a complaint with apple which i suspect will amount to nothing, its number is 101 764 598 536.