Apple (don't)Care

[Jaime_]

(Sorry for the above typo it was meant to be BUY)

Just to add to that, I got ripped off severely by Apple. I bought a laptop and a couple of weeks later they dropped the price by $900 for the same thing. I wouldnt have gotten any resolution from that - THAT is a valid gripe. Perhaps I should go to the media and tell them I bought something only to have them reduce the price so much just a couple of weeks later. Maybe Ill get my money back???

[Jaime_]

"It's cost Apple more than the cost of replacing it with a new 15" Macbook Pro."

So thats what you wanted out of it...


Im sorry but Apple care is there for a reason. If you feel it was a rip off and didnt want to spend the money - too bad. I wouldnt have honoured your warranty either. 500 documented cases out of hundreds of thousands of machines they sold?? Im sure plenty of products have hundreds of machines that die for even the same reason out of hundreds of thousands they sell.
I havent got apple care on my macbook, if it dies after 12 months - thats my problem.
Next time either take out the extended warranty or deal with it yourself. Youre not going to get a free ride here. Id say Im astounded that the herald would write about a case where you didnt take out extended warranty and you expect a warranty repair (2 yrs later at that) but nothing the media classifies as news shocks me anymore.

Unlike other warranties or "money making schemes" Apple care really is worth it if you want their time and help. They will go over and above to help you if you have it. Had the machine died out just after 12 months, Id say sure maybe they can offer leniency. But it is a 2 year old machine.

I am quite honestly shocked that this is considered a valid gripe and youre lucky they gave in to get rid of you and tried to get it fixed because its more than you would have got from anywhere else because YOU CHOSE NOT TO BY EXTRA WARRANTY.

(No wonder we pay so much for apple products if theyre cleaning up after people who think they deserve more than the warranty and terms state)

[watchdog]

UPDATE:


After protracted negotiations, and involving the Sydney Morning Herald in writing an article about my experiences, Apple have relented and authorised warranty repair of my laptop.

BUT.... I was authorised to take it to "any Apple Authorised Service Centre" to have the repair done, so I took it to The Laptop Centre (one of a chain of 4 stores) at Parramatta, closest to my work.

Got it back "repaired" a few days later. Booted up OK in the store, but would only give me a white screen at home, and then refused to boot at all.

So I took it back and their attitude was "you brought it in for a screen change, that's what I did". Their excuse for a "technician" then yelled at me when I asked him to get someone at Apple on the phone, and said "I fixed what you wanted fixed, this is not my problem".

When I asked them to test it, they wanted my OS/X disk and power supply because they don't have any - an "Authorised" service centre doesn't even have a basic power supply ?

Apple were "concerned", so had me take it to Next Byte at Baulkham Hills, who looked at it and told me that Laptop Centre had done the repair so badly they had shorted the display inverter to the case, which took out the display, the logic board and possibly my 2Gb RAM.And there was "the smell of burning" from it !!

So a simple screen repair is now two screens (up to $1500 each), a logic board (around $1000) and possibly a couple of hundred worth of RAM.

It's cost Apple more than the cost of replacing it with a new 15" Macbook Pro.

[mwato79]

It had a 1 year warranty on it which it completed. You say yourself that you declined the extended warranty. And out of the 50,000+ (a guess) people who might have bought that model, a small percentage had the same issue and decided to put it out on the net.

Sorry, but I think the only way your going to win this one is probably to take them to court.

[watchdog]

I switched from using Windows machines to an Apple G4 Powerbook 17" approximately 27 months ago. At the time, the machine came with a 12 month warranty, but Apple tried to upsell me on the "Apple Care" 2 year warranty extension ($500+ on a $4000 laptop). As most of these are pure profit for the company, I declined.

Now, just over 2 years later, my expensive leased laptop is almost useless due to verticle lines of dead, or rather ALWAYS ON, pixels on the screen.

Faced with a $1000 repair bill, I did my research (I work in IT after all !!) and discovered that almost ALL 17" Powerbooks with a serial number starting with W85 were made in Shanghai and that this is A KNOWN PROBLEM. Apple have extended warranty repairs for the 15" laptops with this problem.

There have been over 500 documented cases reported to Apple, including mine - most of them being out of warranty, and Apple Australia refuse to do ANYTHING about it. Their "Director of Customer Service" actually had the gall to say that "just because people blog about it doesn't mean that Apple will take any action. Bloggers will write about anything that upsets them".

So now I'm one of 500+ Powerbook owners with useless machines because Apple can't be bothered to acknowledge that they had a bad batch of screens.