Can I pretend my iphone is not broken in order to increase the trade in value?

So I went to the apple store last night to see if they could fix my phone. It appears to work fine, looks like it is in mint condition. However, I can only talk on the phone if I put it on speaker, otherwise the person I'm talking to can't hear me talk. I can hear them, but they can't hear me.

So the tech looked at it and then went thru a series a questions… Like 5-6 where he had to check yes or no to the phone's functioning. One of the questions was "Does the phone power on?" He checked yes, because it does in fact power on. He checked yes to all the other questions bc the phone met the criteria. It is an iphone 4 by the way. He said your phone has been evaluated at $101, you can trade it in for an iphone 5c for free, you just have to speak with a sales associate.

The sales guy comes over, goes thru the same 5-6 questions. He hesitated at "Does it power on?" But he checked yes because the answer is yes lol… He got the same evaluation at $101. But he said, I have to ask my manager. While he was away, the tech guy came over to me and said "Hey I see that you got the strictest sales guy to help you, He'll probably downplay the value of the phone and he might not do the trade in for you, try at&t if he doesn't help you. It's too late to get someone else bc he is already helping you"

SO my question is: If I had gone into the apple store and simply said, I would like to trade in my iphone for a new one (without mentioning the phone's problems) would they do it? Would they be able to tell the phone does not function 100%? If I don't tell them it doesn't function 100%, they will check yes to all the questions and the value will be $101. Do you think I can do this?

I'm due for an upgrade but I'm pretty tight on cash right now, I would love to get the iphone 5c for free by trading in my phone. The phone just turned defective btw, I'm very careful with it and had it in an otter box, no water damage. I don't see why they can't help me out.

That's illegal. And they would have checked your phone anyway.

They should test it further, because if they didn't, people would do this all the time. If you know of a problem and don't tell them, you're committing fraud.

My recommendation is that you just keep using this phone. If you're tight on cash, why spend more money you don't have on a new phone if this one works? Yeah, it's not the newest and fastest and sexiest one on the block. Big deal. It works, it's paid for, it only costs you the monthly fee to connect. Live with it, and use the money for other bills.

Why not cancel your contract and take another one out with a different company.

I think Apple gets a lot of money for they brand, which is not that good. Go ahead ant tell everything is alright and if they find the problem tell them you have always used handsfree and never noticed that.