Man buys Apple Watch Ultra 4, realizes store employee allegedly made a decision without his consent: ‘felt like they did it on purpose’

Getting a new piece of tech like the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is usually an exciting experience, but it turned into a disappointment when a Reddit user looked at the settings. The user, u/NESpahtenJosh, recently shared a frustrating experience on the Apple subreddit, claiming that an employee at their local Apple Retail Store activated a free Apple Fitness trial on their device without any request or consent.

In a post on Reddit, the user wrote, “As with any new Apple device when purchased you typically get a few months free of any number of Apple services – Fitness, News, Arcade, etc. These free trials usually sit in my Settings until I am ready to use them – and what’s different with Apple’s free trials is you can’t “pre cancel” them. Once you cancel, they cut it off immediately. So I usually save mine until I’m ready to use it, so I can control the time I have them.” 

“I got home and after setting up my device, was upset to learn the rep at the store activated my Apple Fitness trial for me during the transaction,” the Redditor alleged. “I was planning on saving that trial to use the free months during the crappy winter weather but now it’s on, and will go to waste.” They added, “Pretty disappointing experience from a brand/store that is usually very customer first. It just felt like they did it on purpose to gain commission or spiff from doing so.”

The post kicked up a heavy discussion

One user who claimed to be an Apple employee noted, “the comments here are correct. using our QR code does allow us to see unused apple subscription and gives us an ALMOST one tap enrollment.” They clarified that “what happened to you is directly against policy and training,” and that there is a terms and conditions step where customers are supposed to agree to the activation. However, they acknowledged that “bad actors can skip this by quickly tapping through it.”

Many commenters believed that this alleged behavior is driven by corporate pressure. One user claimed, “Apple employee here – they did it for metrics because that’s all Apple cares about now. we don’t get commission but sales specialists are measure on number of free trials they can give people. It’s really cringe.” 

Another user echoed this sentiment. They wrote, “None of these people know what they are talking about. Signing people up for free trial services is a tracked metric for performance now. Once you scan the QR code they present to you, you’ve linked your Apple ID to the transaction.”

It’s worth noting that the push for these trials is a well-documented strategy in the business world. According to Medium, companies use these offers to tap into psychological principles like the endowment effect and loss aversion. 

The article noted that when a user feels they own a product, they value it more, and the fear of losing access once a trial ends can be a powerful motivator to keep a customer subscribed. By getting these trials active early, companies are essentially trying to jump-start that habit-forming process.

In the Reddit post, one commenter said that people didn’t really need to worry about the original poster’s experience happening to them. They claimed, “For anyone wondering if this is going to happen to you too: this is only possible for US Retail Employees. Other countries cannot activate these services for you.” It should be noted, though, that there is no way to verify NESpahtenJosh’s experiences, and all we have is their version of the story.

One redditor offered advice on how to deal this kind of situation. They wrote, “if you never saw this, and received a subscriptions activation without consent, GO BACK AND TALK TO A MANAGER. bring your receipt. it will have those subscriptions on it. this is not ok and this behavior needs to be addressed.” One woman recently went viral for getting charges from Apple, without knowing what they were for. 

Another user agreed, alleging, “Email them or go back to the store with a complaint. It’s their current policy to pressure salespeople to sell the free trials. Let them know you don’t like that policy and explain why. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.” In a different case, one man tried to get a smartwatch but was foiled by empty shipments. 

Some users were a bit more blunt about the situation. One person flatly stated, “That is fraud. Opting in to something on your behalf without your consent on your account is fraud.” While others felt the original poster was just overreacting. One user wrote, “Not the end of the world, you will gonna activate them either way at some point, so just enjoy them now.”