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I got gypped .What do I do now?

K

KSBOOM

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 12, 2008
16
0
Recently I sent my machine in for servicing to an Apple Authorized Service Provider as my hard drive crashed when I was capturing movie clips into iMovie 08. I could not log into my account. But there were no BLANK Screen boot issues(this is important - as you'll realise in a bit) - I was able to reach the Password log in screen but once I type in my password it said user account unavailable. I called up the Authorised Apple Service provider, took my machine in. Left it there. No issues except for the unable to log in bit. Every single time the machine boots up with the apple logo and reaches the "Enter your password" screen. This is exactly what I write on the service report the Service Provider gave me to fill in when I left my machine with them. (Unable to Log in - NOT unable to boot up) After a few days the tech support guy calls me and tells me he's unable to boot up and getting a blank screen 2 out of 3 times. He can't see anything on the screen.(this is after he has reformatted my hard drive) He say's maybe something is wrong with the videocard. I say no ways - I've used the machine for 3 years and 4 months and I've never faced this issue. He say's he'll look into it. A few days later I go visit the Service center and ask what's up? He say's your machine has 2 faulty ram slots. That's why it blank boots 2 out of 3 times. First I tell him that he said my Video card was bad. Then I tell him I never had this problem before I bought it in to you guys. He's like yeah it happens sometimes during routine testing. I'm like "Ram slots go bad during Apple Hardware tests?" So anyways I left my machine there, told him I'd talk to Apple about it. I emailed Mr. Steve Jobs. It was nice enough of him(or whoever reads his email account) to tell Mr K Massey( Apple Executive Relations Asia Pacific and Japan) to get in touch with me. Mr Massey and me spoke on the phone, he told me he'd investigate and call me back in 48 hours. He did call me back and told me Apple India had conducted a local level investigation and that everything checked out. At that point on the phone I did agree with him - but the more I thought about it - the more I felt that the situation did not make sense. So I've sent him a 3rd email detailing my issues with his explanation and why I am still unhappy with the situation. No reply yet. Nothing. Just silence from his end.

At this point,for Apple, the best case scenario would be for me to go buy a new Mac pro and forget this issue. From my side, however, I cannot back down because the answers do not make sense from a logical standpoint. A machine that demonstrates no boot issues due to faulty ram slots when used regularly by it's owner for 3 years and 4 months (it would be 3 years and 5 months if I count the 25 days in the service center) months suddenly develops faulty ram slots once it enters the Service center for 15 days? Does not compute. Also, this issue of faulty ram slots will definitely affect the resale value of my machine. So I still haven't picked up my machine from the service center yet.

So asking any of you'll - any advice on what I should do next? Anyone dealt with a similar situation? Where an AASP suddenly comes up with an issue in your machine that you've never dealt with before and they push it on to you. Any advice - legal or otherwise would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
 
Yer off base.

First, the machine is well and truly out of warranty. Apple has no warranty responsibility for it breaking down.

Second. you DO NOT KNOW what went wrong with your machine, other that it failed. Therefore you have no basis to say that the AASP 'broke' the machine.

It's entirely consistent that hardware failures have multiple symptoms that develop over time. Or that there may be multiple failures - for example if a RAM socket is failing, it will often corrupt data on the hard drive in the process, so it initially looks like an OS or a hard drive problem.

I have a customer's G5 1.8 DP sitting beside me right now that boots once every 10 attempts. Occasionally I can even get it to load the Tiger DVD, and I even got 90% of the way through an OS install. But most of the time it freezes before it starts loading, or freezes after 30 seconds open in OF. It's down to the CPUs or the logicboard now when it initially looked like a bad boot drive. Intermittent hardware failures are like that, they can be inconsistent in their symptoms.

Face it, your machine is old and it broke. It means nothing that it worked for 3.3 years -- it's a random occurrence, and not predictable on an individual machine level.
 
i don't think you were gyped. if anything the tech did a thorough job of analyzing your system. They have to run the right tests b/c it could be a variety of things.

we understand that you haven't had faulty ram or video card issues, but sometimes these things just break down. I think it's a pure coincidence that it happened while at the tech's place.

unfortunately, it's past warranty or applecare. Your choice is to have it repaired or to buy a new machine.

Also, if English isn't your second language, then please disregard the following (but if it is, please listen):

use paragraphs please! It's much easier for those of us trying to help. It helps us understand what you detailing.
 
Keebler said:
Also, if English isn't your second language, then please disregard the following (but if it is, please listen):

use paragraphs please! It's much easier for those of us trying to help. It helps us understand what you detailing.
Click to expand...

I thought every language is supposed to have correct sentence and paragraph structure.
 
I agree with the others, I don't really see how you have anything to beef about.

And you certainly haven't been gypped - you have used the computer for 3.5 years, pretty good innings for technology nowadays.
 
You are out of warranty. Suck it up and buy a new machine, or find a good deal on a refurb one.
 
Alright. Whether I agree with you'll or not is immaterial at this point. All I wanted was to see what the different viewpoints on this issue might be.

As for the English lesson on paragraphs provided by Keebler. Thank you. I'll make sure I keep that in mind next time.

And apologies to Wild Bill but I'm not going to "suck it up" I have no issues if you do however.

Thank you everybody for the replies. I greatly appreciate the time taken by you'll to respond and provide differing viewpoints.
 
Although from a technical standpoint I agree with most of the posts here, it's likely your issues were linked, I strongly object to people's reactions.

The bottom line here, is this guy/gal has taken a machine to Apple, the machine has now (in their care) developed an issue the customer has never seen before. There is nothing else to it as far as the customer is concerned (playing ignorant), this is unacceptable. If this was me, I would try every route possible to get something out of Apple. I think it's disgraceful that people here have so blatantly taken Apple's side, like they do nothing wrong. I love Apple computers, mp3 players and accessories, however this does not give them the right to supply bad customer service, like this story.

When you deal with a big company like Apple, and you have purchased a pro machine you gain a lot of power in the customer service department, it's the same as someone who has had a mobile phone contract for 10 years with the same service provider. They do not want to lose you as a customer. If this was me, I would threaten to take my business elsewhere and also contact a solicitor and get a copy of the documents you signed when you handed your machine over to them.

I know some of you will say 'well they have billions of $'s of turnover every year, why would they care about you?'. This is the foundation of customer service. Companies have to be very careful, and they will do everything they can to keep you happy, even if that means replacing a faulty memory slot for free. If one person leaves Apple unhappy, they might tell close family and 10 friends, who then all tell their close family and 10 friends and if this happens all over the place, very soon you have yourself a bad reputation.

From my experience, Apple have always given me great customer service, so don't give up. Best of luck.
 
I don't think it's so much as defending Apple as saying it's not necessarily the repair center's fault that it stopped working. I used to work for a university IT department, and we would get computers every now and then that would work one day, and not the next. Did we break them? No. Did they break while under our care? Yes.
 
Mackilroy said:
I don't think it's so much as defending Apple as saying it's not necessarily the repair center's fault that it stopped working. I used to work for a university IT department, and we would get computers every now and then that would work one day, and not the next. Did we break them? No. Did they break while under our care? Yes.
Click to expand...

I completely understand where you're from and appreciate a flame-less response :)

In your situation a customer/student has much less room to complain, especially since you won't necessarily be making a great deal of money off the students themselves. What I was trying to demonstrate was that with a company as big as Apple, a customer has a lot of room to get what they want. For a machine that expensive, i wouldn't give up, regardless of the age.

It is an unfortunate situation for Apple to be in (well, not in comparison to their profit margin), but it is non the less a danger of the business.

ADDED: I think Apple are unlikely to turf this machine back to OP, threatening their relationship with a customer (who possibly spends thousands if they have purchased a Mac Pro) all for the price of a repair. I think they are more likely to be stubborn with someone who has a one-off iPod purchase than a >£1750 machine.
 
tom. said:
The bottom line here, is this guy/gal has taken a machine to Apple, the machine has now (in their care) developed an issue the customer has never seen before. There is nothing else to it as far as the customer is concerned (playing ignorant), this is unacceptable. If this was me, I would try every route possible to get something out of Apple. I think it's disgraceful that people here have so blatantly taken Apple's side, like they do nothing wrong. I love Apple computers, mp3 players and accessories, however this does not give them the right to supply bad customer service, like this story.

When you deal with a big company like Apple, and you have purchased a pro machine...
Click to expand...

It wasn't Apple the OP took it to, it was an Authorized Service Provider (-- an independent shop)

I still fail to see where Apple has any obligation on a 3+ year old machine that failed out of warranty -- Pro machine or not.

Now, there is the slim possibility that the AASP is incompetent, or malicious. But I just cannot see a service shop deliberately damaging a customer's machine. The first thing any AASP does with an incoming machine is to boot it from their service diagnostic CD and test the hardware. If the machine was failing to boot from that 2 times out of 3, then it is NOT a simple login issue with the hard drive, it's a hardware problem of some type.

Apple investigated and replied to the OP that there was nothing out of order with the AASP's handling of the machine.

Here's an analogy: "I have driven my car for 5 years with no problem at all. I took it in for a tune up, and they tell me I need a new muffler too. I haven't had any problems with the muffler in 5 years. They must have done something wrong. I want compensation"

Hardware breaks down and will fail at some point, guaranteed.

There's this myth that if a computer component lasts 1 week, then it will work for a lifetime because there's no moving parts. That's a crock. Heat is the enemy of electronic components. Electrical spikes and noise and static electric discharge degrade solid state components. Heat and corrosion degrade solder joints and connections of all types. Dust collects in G5 and G4 machines in a big way and causes overheating.
 
As someone said before, symptoms develop and differ. I put a new hard drive into my PC back in February, and tried loading the OS on it. No go. I had also installed a sound card, some new ram, and a third hdd, so when it wouldnt do anything, I figured the board got fried. After 4 weeks of symptoms changing and repeating in random patterns, I finally decided to take out the first hdd i'd installed earlier that month, and it booted up and loaded with no trouble.

It wouldn't even POST some of the time, which led me to believe that it couldnt be the hdd.

Hopefully you figure out what's actually wrong with it so you can get it fixed.
 
CanadaRAM said:
It wasn't Apple the OP took it to, it was an Authorized Service Provider (-- an independent shop)
Click to expand...

I had misread, my mistake. This does change the situation, however OP may still have room to work with. CanadaRAM I agree with what you have said, especially now i know this is an 'independent retailer'.

However, at no point did I say that they had an obligation, it is just good customer service, and as I have said, that is in Apple's interest but probably not for an 'AASP'.
 
An update.

Mr Massey(Executive Relations for Apple) did call me today morning and he told me that Apple would be willing to replace the motherboard. I just have to pay for the labor. I just wanted to thank all of you'll for taking the time to reply and give me your different viewpoints. However I still stand by what I said earlier and apparently Apple agrees with me too.

Mr Massey has been great to deal with right from the start. He has always been willing to listen and has followed up on my complaints. He authorised an investigation also, to check what exactly happened. All our conversations have always been open and fair.

The story's still not over until everything actually goes through but for now - I'm 60 percent more happy than I was a day before and that's thanks to Mr Massey and Apple.

I'd like to specially thank you, Mr Rickard for your helpful advice. You didn't take any sides but just provided sensible/logical advice without adopting a condescending or demeaning tone.

Others like Wild Bill have been less helpful. But atleast his attitude matches his name.
 
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