TL;DR: Unbox the product with video even if bought from a store.
I bought an Apple Watch Ultra from Croma on Thursday. Since it was unavailable from them, they said they'll import the stock from another showroom. All billing experience was smooth. They gave the box to me sometime back so I was waiting for the billing to be complete. The box was dusty but I've had this experience before. The salesperson (SP1) insisted on opening the box where there was CCTV surveillance. He started taking unboxing video, although I was not comfortable, he said it's for safety purposes. I open the seal of the box and the watch had dust on the plastic wrap. I said to him (SP2 who is the apple representative of the store) that it's impossible because they're close to air tight seal and dust can't enter. SP2 said sometimes it can occur due to dusty environments. I unwrapped the plastic wrap and the watch was also a bit dusty and I was not okay with that. One more thing I noticed was that the cable box was flipped so the pull tab was under. I had to invert the box to take it out. I brought it to the attention of the SP1 telling him there's no way apple does something like this and I'm not okay with the product. SP2 said we'll confirm it with apple warranty. Then SP1 found that the product was already activated. Then we started taking look at the product and the band insertions were full of scratches. They asked me to leave the product with them and they said they'll contact me in a day or two either with new product or a refund.
SP2 was also shocked and he was looking at the box and found the band box was not sealed completely. He opened it and found there was a duplicate strap with the wrong color inside the box.
Since I bought the watch with Apple Care+, I was asked to open the box inside for the registration process. I've previously bought MacBooks and took it home to unbox. So I learnt that I should unbox the product inside the store even if bought from the store and no courier was involved.
I bought an Apple Watch Ultra from Croma on Thursday. Since it was unavailable from them, they said they'll import the stock from another showroom. All billing experience was smooth. They gave the box to me sometime back so I was waiting for the billing to be complete. The box was dusty but I've had this experience before. The salesperson (SP1) insisted on opening the box where there was CCTV surveillance. He started taking unboxing video, although I was not comfortable, he said it's for safety purposes. I open the seal of the box and the watch had dust on the plastic wrap. I said to him (SP2 who is the apple representative of the store) that it's impossible because they're close to air tight seal and dust can't enter. SP2 said sometimes it can occur due to dusty environments. I unwrapped the plastic wrap and the watch was also a bit dusty and I was not okay with that. One more thing I noticed was that the cable box was flipped so the pull tab was under. I had to invert the box to take it out. I brought it to the attention of the SP1 telling him there's no way apple does something like this and I'm not okay with the product. SP2 said we'll confirm it with apple warranty. Then SP1 found that the product was already activated. Then we started taking look at the product and the band insertions were full of scratches. They asked me to leave the product with them and they said they'll contact me in a day or two either with new product or a refund.
SP2 was also shocked and he was looking at the box and found the band box was not sealed completely. He opened it and found there was a duplicate strap with the wrong color inside the box.
Since I bought the watch with Apple Care+, I was asked to open the box inside for the registration process. I've previously bought MacBooks and took it home to unbox. So I learnt that I should unbox the product inside the store even if bought from the store and no courier was involved.
