Apple claims water damage (which voids warranty) but never happened?

I have only had my iPhone 8 for 4 months now. All of a sudden one day I pick it up and turn it on and half of my screen is dimmer than the other half. I immediately turned off the screen and turned it back on and same thing but slightly worse. I turned the screen off again, but this time when I tried to turn it back on it wouldn’t come back on.

The phone had sound and vibration but just a completely black screen. I did a shutdown on the phone and waited about 30 secs and turned it back on. Once again, I had sound and vibration but still just a black screen. I tried to do the hard reset with the volume up, volume down, and power button, but it didn’t work. I can still hear my notifications from email, facebook, etc. Then the phone started making strange danger alert siren sounds repeatedly. That freaked me out so I took the SIM card out of the phone and laid the phone on the table. I still have full sound but only black screen. Suddenly, the phone starts RINGING (but there is no SIM card in the phone)!

This really freaked me out but I picked up the phone and hit the home button which somehow answered the call however, I was still unable to see anything on the screen and then I can hear my local 911 dispatcher asking me if I need help!!!! Of course I try telling them that I’m okay and that there is no emergency, but even though I can hear them, they are unable to hear me at all!! I pushed power and turned the phone off again then waited a few minutes and turned it back on. Still the same…sound but no screen.

Well, this same process continued 3 MORE TIMES, with my local 911 calling me but then not able to hear me answering the phone. At this point I was so frustrated and I just knew that the police were most likely going to show up at my house. I powered the phone off again and this time I just left it off. I figured maybe if I just let the battery run all the way dead overnight and then try to charge it up in the morning, maybe that would work. The next morning I tried to power on and of course the battery was completely dead because I hadn’t charged it. I plugged it in and let it charge for a while and went back to turn it on and there was nothing. No screen. No sounds. No vibrations. Nothing.

This is when I decided to call Apple Support. The support specialist I spoke with was very friendly and she walked me through a series of troubleshooting techniques, including hooking up to my laptop, but none of them worked. The specialist then told me that my phone was still covered under warranty and that most likely it was an issue with the backlight and they would just replace my phone if they were unable to fix it.

She then explained that all I needed to do was wait for my FedEx overnight box they were sending, put my phone inside and use FedEx prepaid overnight shipping to send it back, and they would send me my phone fixed or if they couldn’t fix, they would send a new iPhone 8 the next day by FedEx overnight. As soon as I got the box I put the phone inside, applied the prepaid label, and FedEx picked it up to send to Apple. I waited for 2 days and still had not received anything back from FedEx so I decided I would call Apple Support back to find out what was the hold up.

I was then informed that they had sent me an email (did not try to call me or contact me in any other way) and in this email it said that their expert technician has determined that the phone has had water or liquid damage and therefore the warranty is automatically void so they are unable to send me another phone or fix my phone for free!!!

AT ABSOLUTELY NO POINT IN TIME DID THIS PHONE COME IN TO CONTACT WITH WATER OR ANY OTHER LIQUID!!!

Not before that day, not on that day, never! The only way possible that a water sensor could have been tripped is maybe from humidity which I read about online after I started to research this issue, but I don’t even think that was the case here either. I’ve had water damaged phones before and I simply had to go get another one. My daughter’s iPad got water damage and I had to replace it too. My son’s iPod got water damage and I had to replace it as well. None of them had any similar symptoms to the ones this phone had and seriously, if I had water damaged the phone, I would just go replace it, I would not be calling Apple Support to find out why it isn’t working!

Needless to say I was very upset. Apple offered to repair the phone for $549!!! I just spent almost $700 on this phone only 4 months ago because I did not lease the phone, I just paid cash for it.

Apple Care is not included when you pay cash of course so I don’t have that either. Of course I told Apple Support that I didn’t have $549 to pay for the repair so they simply sent the phone back to me without repairing it or replacing it.

So now I once again have a COMPLETELY DEAD iPhone 8 that will not charge, will not reset, will not show up on iTunes, WILL NOT DO ANYTHING!!! I know I didn’t water damage the phone. Either there is some other reason why the phone started going crazy or else all this was caused by the humidity, which seems very unlikely to me.

Could it possibly be that the water sensor has been tripped by humidity but there is something else actually wrong with the phone? Does it seem plausible that humidity would do this much damage on it’s own?

How can they claim these phones are water resistant up to 30 minutes if the humidity alone will damage the phone and there has been no actual contact with water? My husband has the same exact phone and he dropped his in a mud puddle and it stayed there for around 5 minutes before we found it, it is still working perfectly today and has never had any issues whatsoever.

Anyhow, is my phone even fixable at this point at all? And if so, where should I take it that doesn’t want to charge me the same amount that a brand new phone would cost? Could it be possible that Apple is simply claiming water damage so they don’t have to replace my phone? I MEAN SERIOUSLY APPLE WTF??????????????

These phones, cost way too much for us to be experiencing these type of issues. My family has spent so much money on Apple products over the years but this one horrible experience with Apple Support has seriously got me considering switching back to Android for good!

Please send any advice on this topic. Thank You!