Apple thought I was maybe scamming them (Patreon)

...well, not me personally, and it's apparently part of a new(ish) process they have when handling repairs at an Apple Store.

So, just a quick update since the last podcast episode about my broken iPad. I had to make a second Genius Bar appointment, as the credit card company wanted an official estimate (including the iPad's serial number) for the repair cost before they'd issue a reimbursement. The tech I met with this time was far more thorough in his diagnostics -- he used the same USB ammeter as previous (and it again showed that the iPad wasn't drawing any current), but also fired up a dedicated diagnostics app on a MacBook Air. The app apparently has additional ability to diagnose board-level problems or read the device serial number. My iPad was so dead, however, it couldn't even detect that anything was plugged in.

Which led to an interesting development. Normally when you get an iPhone or iPad fixed at an Apple Store, they just do a whole-unit replacement (unless it's a bad screen or battery on an iPhone). They keep refurbished devices in stock just for this purpose, so you can walk out with one. However, Apple apparently now requires that the serial number of devices be verified electronically, and not just through the number etched on the casing. But since my iPad was too dead to report its serial number, they had to ship it to a repair depot instead of giving me a replacement on the spot. I've confirmed that the depot did indeed receive my dead iPad, found it to be genuine, and my new (refurbished) replacement has already been shipped.

I think this new requirement about electronically verifying serial numbers is an anti-fraud measure. I seem to recall reading stories about schemes where people would take real or counterfeit enclosures for Apple devices, assemble them to appear like a complete unit, then pay for an out-of-warranty repair. Apple would get a practically worthless empty shell, and the criminals would have a genuine product they could resell and make a tidy profit on. Electronically verifying the serial number would ensure that there's a motherboard inside, and in the event a device couldn't be verified, it gets shipped to an Apple facility that's better-equipped to disassemble and inspect it than an Apple Store.