Like the title states, I bought a second hand pair of AirPods Max headphones as I can no longer wear in ear earphones due to an infection leaving my ears ruined (long story) anyway, I was recommended these headphones as they have Live Listen in them like my in Airpods 2nd Gen do so I can hear people when they speak to me otherwise I'm totally deaf.
I bought them from a shop called CEX which, if you don't know, sells used tech which is refurbished, cleaned and resold back to the public at a cheaper cost. These particular ones were the cheapest I could find at £220. I needed them at short notice so decided it was worth it.
As soon as I got home I took off the headphones from the headband then the ear pads, wiped them with an antibacterial sprayed cloth (damp, not wet), I cleaned the inside of the headphones with a few Q tips to make sure it was sanitary. I then put everything back together again once they had dried.
I charged them up, the light was showing green so I tried to pair them to my iPhone 16, got nothing. I tried to do a forced restart and was met with 3 flashing amber lights but no white light following. I have now been researching this and seemingly it appears to be a well known issue! Wish I had known beforehand to be honest.
As soon as I realised there was an issue I contacted Apple Support, talk about useless. They said it would cost me £280 to get them sent off and possibly repaired, I said no.
Should I bother trying to fix this or just go back to the shop I got them from and demand a refund (even though they don't issue refunds, only store credit!)