Apple Highland Village — Attraction in Houston

Consumer fraud and misleading sales. This is the only negative review I’ve ever written. My phone purchases were fine at this store, but iPads felt more like a scam. I bought a brand new iPad Pro (my first) in 2022 but they gave me an iPad that was two generations old and no longer even in production. They pulled the receipt where it shows Highland Village sold me an obsolete iPad Pro for $1500+/-. I only use the iPad for one app so I wasn’t aware until the screen had dead pixels and I decided to trade it in. It worked fine for my needs but, in hindsight, I overpaid. A lot.

The second iPad Pro that I bought here, was basically me paying another $1500+ to downgrade. I was home visiting family in Houston and short on time. They looked up my previous purchase and said, yeah, no idea what happened but we screwed up giving you an obsolete iPad when you paid for a brand new one. So we will give you 25% off to upgrade to another new iPad Pro. They told me the 13” 256G was a better buy than the 11” 1T for future trade-ins. I said, I have the 11” 1T because I need it for procreate layers. I told them, I’m an expat and flying home abroad tomorrow so I won’t be able to return it. Three employees told me the brand new pro 13” 256G would work the same as the 11” 1T. After all, it had the new chip. The red flag was transferring data for four hours and then when the store needed to close, they kept both the new and my old iPad overnight in the manager’s office to finish transferring.

They were wrong about the layers and all my projects have been cut by 60%. And Apple stores offer procreate classes? Um. Ok.

The store in Amsterdam knew immediately it would not provide the same layers and said they misinformed me. Being a different country, the only option was to go through the US store but that apple was good about fixing these issues and they will most likely exchange it. I emailed the Highland Village store numerous times, chatted with apple support, spoke on the phone with apple and I spoke with the Highland Village store manager. He said, he had to send it up the chain to get it sorted (this was all during the first two weeks after purchase). But now, several months later, he still hasn’t contacted me and I still can’t get anyone to respond.

Sure, it’s on me to check if Apple is actually giving me what I bought and not assume that $1500, $2,000 and a new chip actually means better for my needs. But I so think they should have worked with me to resolve the issue rather than blowing me off.

If you need an iPad for business or something specific like procreate layers, do not ask Apple’s sales personnel for advice. Also make sure that they give you the model that you purchased and you’re not being scammed.

Had they resolved this issue, I wouldn’t have written this review but they have refused to respond to my calls and emails since April 2025. This is my last attempt before seeking legal action and filing a report for consumer fraud.

Not that I should have to qualify myself but I can build a computer and have dabbled with various coding languages for decades. The employees at Highland Village need better software and...

I would advise to drive the distance to another Apple Store for help, I came to get help with my iPhone, I’ve been having issues with all my GPS apps. The First person Jenny was very nice but another guy came and took over for her and it honestly seemed like he was more focused on making a sell from me then actually trying to figure out the issue I was having. My ESIM and Antenna got flagged and I keep trying to explain to him my gps was working fine before I came back to Texas where it messed up immediately (Jenny stated she had the same issue coming back from a flight as well and even explained to him how she fixed it before she walked away) he was more focused on the physical condition ( cracked back / camera ) of my iPhone and I keep trying to explain to him that those damages have been on my phone for years now, and I had no interest in replacing the phone because I planned on buying a new phone in September I just needed help with the GPS system. He keep going back and forth and re explaining the same thing ( since my back/camera is cracked and houston is a very moist place moisture might have got into my phone and damaged the esim ) even after me explaining to I have not been living in houston for 2 months I was in a state 1,600 miles away and moisture had no time to get into my phone in houston and it messed up immediately after I landed. He shrugged it off and keep trying to pin point physical damages to the phone vs helping with the internal GPS issue he keep trying to get me to pay $600 to get the same phone I already had even after I said multiple times I didn’t want to replace the phone or he can reset my phone and completely erase everything (didn’t even mention backing it up for me). He also keep trying to find ways to blame the gps on the esim but I wasn’t having issue with anything else concerning my esim. He even tried to pull up my call signal history and proceeded to lie and say it’s not the best when it clearly read it being in the high 90’s for the call signal. I end up just leaving he had no interest in helping me and I went to a different Apple Store where they workers actually worked to figure out the issue for me. They even gave me advice on when to purchase my phone in September and gave me a estimate of how much my current phone is worth, and instead of trying to shove a $600 replacement phone down my throat they agreed it didn’t make sense to replace the phone since I was buying a brand new phone soon.

The front staff, and Jenny was nice. The guy that helped me 0/10. Will be going to other locations now...

I hate giving bad reviews as it goes against my nature. I have purposely waited 8 days to make sure I was not being rash.

I live in Africa but am from Texas. I brought in an African friend's MacBook Air for the 3rd time in the last 12 months and the Genius Bar worker Matt refused to replace it. (For the record, I love Apple and we currently have 7 different Apple devices and have had almost zero problems with them!)

My frustration was with 2 prior serious issues with this same computer in its first 9 months of life and now a 3rd serious problem and the fact that my friend lives in Cape Town with me, I really needed and counted on Apple to give me their customary excellent service. Instead Matt dug in his heels and acted as if they were being gracious to not charge a repair fee! This on a machine that had been repaired just 5 months prior and which broke again shortly after my returning it to my friend in Africa back in January of this year.

I got Chris, a manager involved but he seemed to have no real authority and kept hiding behind Matt's initial assessment. Chris was much nicer and I could tell he wanted to help but for some reason Matt seemed convinced that helping me with a replacement was 100% out of the question. I challenged them both nicely for a good 15-20 minutes but it seemed to have become a point of pride for Matt. (Note: I may be completely misinterpreting motives here.)

I openly admit I am biased and may be misunderstanding the situation. I just know that I wouldn't want to return to this location. I felt as if Apple had the chance to make a really bad situation great and I explained why calmly and kindly multiple times but they seemed more concerned with the bottom line.

I told Chris that this was the first time I had ever felt disappointed with Apple's customer service despite being a loyal customer now for 10 years. I was particularly upset because it was on behalf of a friend from a country with a much smaller Apple footprint. I explained this all to no avail.

Both guys are probably great men, but in my particular experience on this particular day, I felt disappointed in their attempts to resolve my issue and their unwillingness to just replace a clearly flawed machine. What happens the next time this computer breaks? Bear in mind, in the 17 months my friend has had it, she has already had about 5-6 months of no usage due to it being broken. This is just unacceptable.

I will be sending a similar account to Apple's customer...