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"Apple's so called warranty"

A

adamsworld

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
5
0
TToday, the 28th of March 2008, I got my MacBook back from repair. From the time that I first called Apple with my first issue it has been a constant battle back and forth. My first issue was that I was not able to copy files to any external HDD when ever it would find a duplicate it would say "continue" or "replace". I usually click replace but that never worked it would just stop copying then I would click continue but it did the same thing.

Apple's so called support center were no help they said "try an archive and install". Now this is not a windows machine if I was going to resort to reformatting then I would have bought a windows machine. Anyway I did reformat but it didn't work...

Next problem was my sleep light. One day it decided to just stay on all the time no matter what I did it never turned off and Apple said "try these few tests safe mode, holding c at start up etc". That still did not work and they said "its a hardware issue take it to an apple repair centre"...

Next problem was my airport would not for the life of it connect to a computer to computer network. So I rang Apple again and they said "try a reformat it sounds like a software issue". Again if I was going to reformat because of every issue I would have bought a windows computer...

Next and final issue which really pissed me off was my superdrive. One day I wanted to burn a cd so I put a blank cd in and it spits it back out and I tried it a few times but it did the same thing. Then I tried some other cd's, dvd's etc but it still spat them out. So I rang Apple yet again and they said "try safe boot, hold c at start up do a pram reset etc". That did not work (not so super now are you) so I finally took it to an Apple repair centre and it was there for 2 days before I got a call saying "we can not go ahead with the repair of the sleep light because it is not a part covered by Apple warranty everything else is".

So, me being human, I was a little pissed and I went to the repair centre and they said we need a so called "cs number from Apple". I rang Apple and had another argument with them for over an hour while I explained my issues not only to the tech rep but also to customer relations. I argued with them cause I did not pay $2000 for something that would break with in three months and then he said "its not three months old someone has extended your call centre support". I was shocked but its Apple's way of saying "lets hide the truth about our warranty".

Now the service tech said there is a huge secret about Apple warranty, the part that is the bottom enclosure is not covered by Apple warranty, the customer relations officer said "reason it's not covered by warranty is because when someone drops the machine the first place it hits is the bottom enclosure" in other words its where everything is held and if that breaks its the most expensive part of the laptop.

Well the story goes on I argued and argued about getting a new MacBook but he gave me lectures about cars and gearboxers... and I said "if Dell can replace a whole laptop because someone spills a drink all over it why can't you replace a laptop because of your crap design?" He had no answer for that. Now to reveal the secret about apple warranty, they are tight asses in the states there DOA (Dead on arrival) period is 6 months, in other words if something goes wrong you get a new machine and the latest machine that has been released.

Now in Australia we have a DOA of 2 weeks; WHY APPLE?!?!?!? Why are we any different from USA? I can not believe that they do not cover the bottom enclosure of a any laptop that is made by Apple, the customer relations officer said that it is where the logic board, airport, cd drive everything is and we have to replace all of that. So I said "wouldn't it just be easier to give me a new laptop save all the trouble and hassle of paying someone to fix it? He replied "I have no answer for you".

I eventually got it fixed with a new mother board, cd drive, airport card, speakers as well (OMG! WOW)...come on Apple if you're such a great technological company why have you left Australian's and other countries in the dark about your warranty? I love Apple no doubt. I have been a Mac user for many years but this is the first time I have had this sort of problem and I hope its the last.
 
A Quick Fix

There you go I've fixed the paragraphs for ya. Phew! I could've spent longer on the punctuation and grammar than I did but it would've taken me way too long so I opted for a quick fix instead. (Couldn't help but capitalise all the "apple" words to "Apple". But that's a personal, obsession based thing! :D)

At least I understand it all now.
Cheers :)

P.S. So this is what it must feel like to be an editor on a school newspaper ...

EDIT: I've deleted my edit (no need to read the same thing twice!) now that WinterMute has copied my version over the original OP's (which didn't originally have any paragraphs).
 
Neutral Gamer said:
I argued with [Apple] cause I did not pay $2000 for something that would break with in three months and then he said "it's not three months old someone has extended your call centre support".
Click to expand...
Are you saying that Apple claims your MacBook is not in fact three months old, but that it's much older and therefore out of warranty? I didn't follow this part.

Whenever I've had problems with my Apple notebooks in the past (defective RAM on a PowerBook; defective battery on a MacBook) Apple always made it right, no questions asked. I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with them.
 
I read it, and I'm sorry, but some of that stuff just isn't true. They can replace the bottom enclosure, and they can replace individual parts within that enclosure if it breaks (eg: logic board, hard-disk, etc). If you crack the enclosure but don't break anything inside, they can replace it. They can replace things like the HDD, the RAM, logic board, and Combo Drive or SuperDrive if they break.


Also, I got a new MacBook to replace my old MacBook from Apple Australia. Why? Because it was a lemon. I had it in repair around 7-8 times, and out of 1 year/52 weeks of ownership, it was in the repair shop for around 8 weeks. That's not good. Every company can produce a lemon machine, and I understood that. Get an Apple Case Number from Customer Relations. If you call Customer Relations and tell them that you've had your laptop repaired X times, they'll surely give you a Case Number. They'll give you preferred treatment if you get one. It means Apple Inc. actually recognizes you as a customer with a more significant problem than most. After a few more problems, I had my case escalated. If you take it into a repair shop, you're not up on the list yet of people with recurring problems. Don't just take it into the shop a few times.

They gave me some crap about how they don't just replace just any computer, I said that's fine. I'll wait for it to break a few more times and ask you again. Then one day, it just stopped working. I emailed the manager (who was specifically handling my case at this point), and I said nicely,

--------------------
"I understand that it's your job to take care of customers with problems, and the last thing you want to do is to just give away free computers. I understand that you have your job to do. However, please understand that I also have a job to do. Unfortunately, the world does not stop moving when my computer breaks.
I'm currently emailing you from my office at the university. It's 1:30 AM, and I drove here to use email. I drove here so that I can email you. Why? This is because my MacBook will not boot up anymore. It will turn on, but I can't actually get it to boot into the OS X Tiger. After fixing my computer for 8 of the past 52 weeks, I'm now asking you for a new machine. I'm not asking you to give me a free machine because I want a free machine. My current machine is fast enough for everything I do, and a newer MacBook won't make my work faster or better. It's not the specs I'm interested in. I just need a working machine. What I need is a laptop that works, whether it is my current machine, or a replacement unit. I don't believe I'm asking Apple for too much, nor do I think a functional machine is an unrealistic expectation."
---------------------------


That's completely paraphrased, but I said something similar to this, and they immediately told me that they're sending a replacement MacBook, and apologized.
 
I am very sorry you are frustrated and feel cheated by Apple, but maybe you might need to call back and use a different approach to your problem. I am thinking that either you or the customer service rep was misheard or misrepresented due to frustration on someone's end. I believe that Apple has and always will maintain their products and make sure that their customers are happy. At least that is how I have been treated in the past...
 
Talk to them long enough and judging by the amount of problems you have they'll probably replace the computer. Its annoying though if you talk to an Indian Customer Relations person because its like talking to a wall. If thats who you are talking to ask to speak to their boss/manager and eventually you'll get transfered to an American.

I am trying to deal out some iPod issues that haven't been resolved after 1 month (reinstalls, replacement iPod, software logging, etc). Now apple wants me to spend x amount of time trying to see if the problem is with my PowerBook. The customer relations lady said on wednesday a powerbook repair person would call me at 5:30pm on Thursday and that "the problem should be resolved by tomorrow". Its now almost 5:00 on Friday, no one has contacted me or left messages.

Just giving themselves more string to hang themselves with...
 
Ah the joys of reading the classical reason why apple users are full it and fan boy.

They refuse to accept that it is a complete OS and at times things get a little messed up. Messed up file or 2.

They refuse to try simple things like rebooting to solve problem (90% of all computer problems seem to be fix that way)

Reformat is normally a last resort but a good solution. Particlly when it having issues after a new install.

But using the argument it is not windows is well plain dumb. OSX has a lot of issues in it. Just most people refuse to see them thinking it is the best thing since slice bread.

Suck it up and reformatte your computer. It will solve. Or you can go on acting like a fan boy saying it is not windows so I will not do it. I really do not care.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Ah the joys of reading the classical reason why apple users are full it and fan boy.

They refuse to accept that it is a complete OS and at times things get a little messed up. Messed up file or 2.

They refuse to try simple things like rebooting to solve problem (90% of all computer problems seem to be fix that way)

Reformat is normally a last resort but a good solution. Particlly when it having issues after a new install.

But using the argument it is not windows is well plain dumb. OSX has a lot of issues in it. Just most people refuse to see them thinking it is the best thing since slice bread.

Suck it up and reformatte your computer. It will solve. Or you can go on acting like a fan boy saying it is not windows so I will not do it. I really do not care.
Click to expand...

Really full of it? I don't think so I used to be a windows user and in fact I reformatted my macbook over 5 times and it never solved any problem's it only made things worse like now I got my laptop back and now the HDD is corrupted so you think the solution is reformatting? Well I was told in the real world that reformatting a corrupted drive only makes it worse.

I personally used to hate mac anything to do with them but then I bought one cause I needed it for college. I have had many many windows machines and to be honest have you ever had a windows computer regardless of whether it has vista, xp etc it gets so slow and barley usable then you reformat it and it works like new well mac's were designed to not have to do that get your facts right first before calling someone a "fan boy" cause I am totally beyond that.

P.S sorry for not adding paragraphs when I wrote this I was still pretty pissed off no my laptop is not out of warranty in fact it has just gone over the 6 months mark, but my old school has had macbook's for over 2 years now with insurance and extended warranty and only returned one for repair due to someone spilling water on it.

As for apple replaced the bottom enclosure NO! it is not covered by apple warranty that was the reason why I argued with them. There excuse was the fact that if you drop the laptop the bottom enclosure is most likely the first thing to break.

Also I have only had my laptop back for a few days now and my HDD is shot to pieces I am trying a zero format to see if that works my last resort also my airport card is constantly dropping out. But I will see how things work out.

Don't get me wrong apple is a great company they have done some pretty great things with technology but sometimes they can be tight asses. I guess I am just unlucky with technology in the sense, I have had three ipods all of which were replaced.

I may come across as a cynical and snobby person but I am not I just do not have the time and patients to travel around ringing people about getting my laptop fixed. I remember apple's statement "It just works" well I think in my case I have proved that wrong, I am just disappointed that a company that put so much promise into a product have failed to give a customer what they want when they assured them that it would work when it got fixed but in fact it has new problems with it again three days later.
 
I've been having trouble with warranty issues lately and it's just getting beyond a joke. I've come to the conclusion that all Apple products are ticking time bombs that are set to go off 2 days after warranty expires (actually programmed to do that lol). I am a graphic designer and love working on macs hate pcs but seriously my mpb just broke and its out of warranty i was planning on getting a Mac Pro instead but now i'm not too sure if i want another apple death product. I think i'm probably gonna head back to PCs where the parts are not as expensive and better than mac hardware and just put up with vista / xp
i'll probably get an alienware that company seems to know what they are doing unlike apple
 
Alienware is Dell, enjoy the south asian techline, no support, no local stores experience of a Dell with a higher pricepoint in Alienware.
 
3runjosh said:
i'll probably get an alienware that company seems to know what they are doing unlike apple
Click to expand...
Alienware is Dell. The last Dell I had suffered 15 catastrophic failures in as many months (multiple LCD panels, logic boards, video boards, and so on). It was a replacement for the previous Dell that had chronic overheating problems causing it to shut down without warning all the time. The final replacement Dell gave me (Precision M90) has been fine, but that's probably because I never use it since I replaced it myself with a MBP.

So while Apple products are not 100% reliable, don't expect to find it better in the PC world.
 
7 breaks

I got my Macbook in september last year and its was running smoothly as it should be, i did a normal restart and then the HD logo flashed on the screen and took it to apple store said you need a new HD and i asked why does it do that and he says its just one of these things o goodie so this is going to do it again, then it went running smoothly then i bent the dvd drive dont know how thats even possible got that repaired, then the hd broke another 2 times, then spilt something on the keyboard got that repaired and all the innerds as well because they were shot so overall ive had about 6 repairs and now my warrant has ended and i really dont want it to happen again because it costs me £300 to repair it

oh please dont let it break again..
 
I get the feeling that alot of people come here specifically because they're unhappy and want to have a vendetta against Apple. Its a rough fight when you're trying to take on a multi-billion dollar corporation that could solve all your problems with one email to steve@apple.com if ya had just taken the time to calm down and wait it out. Its just a damn computer.
 
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