This used to be my experience, until this year. I had a problem with the battery draining ridiculously fast on my PowerBeats Pro. Called the phone number for support, they told me they’d do a swap if I let them put a $300+ hold on my credit card - more than the cost of a new pair! They said if I didn’t want to do that, I could go to an Apple Store.
Made an appointment (COVID protocol). Schlepped to the Apple store, about 30 minutes away. Handed the employee the PowerBeats, and she did the exact same testing I’d done at home. She concluded that they looked to be working properly, but they’d need to send them out to a repair depot to be sure.
Over two weeks later I got them back from the repair depot. They re-packaged them as if they were new, with a helpful note that they’d checked everything, and my PowerBeats Pro were working perfectly fine. Based on tracking info the depot hadn’t even had them long enough to do a charge/discharge of the battery.
I called and got cranky with the phone people, and eventually let them charge my card the $300+ deposit to send me a new set.
I got a call from the store manager after filling out a survey, and he explained that the stores just aren’t allowed to do as much as they used to be able to do. Don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it definitely tracks with the experience I had.