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Toddlers and expensive electronics rarely mix, especially when someone hands them over willingly.

One broken iPhone suddenly becomes a family bill.

But the phone’s history looks suspicious.

See why replacing it gets complicated.

AITA for not buying my brother in law a new iPhone after my 2yo daughter broke his?

My family and my brother and his partner spent the 4th of July at my parents’ house.

But it didn’t take long for disaster to strike.

It was fun and festive until: my brother’s husband was playing with my toddler daughter, he let her hold his phone, which she immediately dropped, and the screen broke.

It didn’t crack, but the display became striped and distorted and unusable.

Turns out, he really needed this phone in working order.

Brother-in-law (understandably) freaks out. The phone was new and given to him from work as a perk of his job. He can’t be without it for even the rest of the afternoon.

Fine, I say—I’ll take it to the Apple Store to see if they can fix it on the spot.

But they didn’t have much luck there.

At the Apple Store, they look at it for like 2 seconds before determining it has an aftermarket screen on it, so they can’t do anything about it. They won’t even touch it.

I get home and relay this news to my BIL, who then insists I buy him a whole new phone. I refuse.

But this isn’t what they agreed on at all.

I was willing to pay for a repair, not buy him an upgrade. I think the reason it even broke so easily is that the screen wasn’t high quality to begin with.

He insists the phone was brand new, but according to the store, it clearly was not.

Now the rest of the family is divided over who’s at fault.

My parents think I should just buy him one just to keep the peace. But at most, I think I should have to buy a cheap aftermarket phone, not a better device.

Besides—I didn’t give my daughter the phone, HE let her play with it.

AITA for not buying him a brand new iPhone?

They gave their brother-in-law an inch, but he tried to take a mile.

What did Reddit have to say about all this?

Something doesn’t smell right here.

Future lesson for the brother-in-law: don’t willingly hand a toddler something valuable.

This user doesn’t buy the brother-in-law’s story.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a friend who is upset they missed out on cheap festival passes due to her pal’s indecision.

Toddlers are destructive — it’s just a thing.

Her brother-in-law handed the phone to the toddler himself, then demanded a brand-new replacement after the screen broke.

Apple found an aftermarket screen on the supposedly new work phone, making the whole replacement request feel even shakier.

Turns out “brand new” was doing a lot of heavy lifting.