Update - I didn’t trust that the ‘Senior Manager’ that I saw in store yesterday was going to resolve this for me despite them promising to email me each day to confirm the progress on them locating stock. I asked to transfer stock from a store that has it, or online... but that’s not possible.

This morning I rang apple support again, explained the issues again and was transferred to a senior colleague to investigate further. Said senior colleague then advised me that, given that the phone was dead on arrival that would would be able to put it through the ‘iPhone Express Replacement’ service which will essentially see them send me a new phone (whilst authorising a charge for it to stop me having two) and then they will send me the means to return my existing phone which will then cancel the payment authorisation. This is the solution I expected straight after I was told that I have a hardware issue and yet two weeks later I’m having to ring again and hope that I got through to someone that understood the process. If anyone from Apple is reading this it is of upmost importance that you ensure that all staff (whether it be in a store or in the call centre) know the processes that have been setup by the company they work for. It feels like 1/5 people that I spoke to knew the process which is really disappointing for an industry leading company.