The way apple treats your equipment

I purchased a 17" 1.33 GHZ G4 powerbook plus $500 in full insurance coverage back in october when the new models just came out. Well I am a very recent convert to Apple, and I have been extremely happy with my purchase, using it exculsively for development, and just about all my other uses. My suped up 3ghz PC with windows on it and my 2.0 ghz linux box just really sit there, with me no longer needing to use either of them, since now i have the power of *nix and the ease of windows at my disposal. What else do you need?

Back towards the end of march, my powerbook started to truely fail, and I got the dreaded alpha dark blending of death screem, nicely telling me in several languages that my work was lost. Well it kept up, aand I even tried reinstalling the OS, and it didn't work. I finnally called up apple care and I spent several hours with them, and after a complete wipe and systems diagnositics, it came out that it was a hardware problem (most likely with my airport card). So I copy and pasted the kernel panic log on my desktop showing the kernel going crazy, and I took my powerbook on March 27 to the Compusa that I bought it from.

Well that was the begining of my ordeal. I told the guy at the counter, that Apple care was ceratin that it was a hardware problem, and that it should go straight to a notebook certified repair facility. He said it would take 10 - 14 days to get to the "repair bench". Instead it went to "mike" (name chaged for libelous reasons), who decided it was best to make me wait until april 10th to then decide to give it a go, ignoring all the work that had been done and documented on the computer, including the panic logs and the apple care case number, and install all the updates.

I then decided to give a call up to the local compusa I belive on the 12 (16 days at this point) to find out there phone system didn't work anymore, so I had to call the national number just to find out that "mike" hadn't taken it to a notebook repair facility, and that I would have to wait another 14 days to get to the "bench", and that were suppossed to call me days ago. WTF!! you think taking my notebook computer away for nearly a month is a great idea!!! Meanwhile I was suffering depression at the thought of living another 14 days without my beloved powerbook, and being forced to use windows. Its bad enough I have to use it at my job at work, but at home, I expect to be able to relax and use my mac.

After allot of stress, I finnally got my powerbook back, so I go to the compusa to pick it up. I go into the testing room, to see if they fixed it and it works. The repair sheet, says they basically took out everything but the hardware and screen which is cool. It worked, and then I finnally checked to see if they damaged the casing of the mac. Well what do you know.... god forbid they treat your powerbook, which I plunked $3,700 down on after tax ahd scratches all over it, ontop of a thumb print on the upper left hand of screen I can't get rid of.

So in short, though I love my powerbook, Apple/Compusa has really managed to piss me off with their crappy care of MY POWERBOOK!! For god's sakes, this isn't a cheap piece of equipment, but a couple months of savings!! Top it off, they don't care, they said they won't do anything to mitiage the damages to the cases

So I am not sure what to do at this point. and I have a few choices.
- I can take them to court on a bailment case, and probably win very easily
- Write a letter to god knows who at apple/compusa who has oversight over this kind of stuff.

So any of you out there have an idea
BTW my email is brcavanagh@NOSPAM.hotmail.com if you want to make sure I get it

I don't think that proving it is the problem. I am sure the BBB has tons of scratched cases records on file, and I only need 51% to win, which just means "probable", a very low standard to meet. most cases civil and criminal are only won on circumstantial evidence.

Aside from ****ing with the dates and not calling me, and not telling me the truth, Compusa probably didn't do anything. They just held it until the Apple guy name "mike", got took it and then gave it back.

So in that instance, I have recourse, I cand either sue compusa, or apple, in my local court, on grounds of bailment. Whenever you give something to someone for safe keeping or repairs, they are responsible for takeing good care of it, and they are also responsible for what anyone else does to it in thier care if it is given to them.

Macmaniac said:

My company does in house repairs, and CompUSA is one of our competitors in our area, thanks to them we get more business People are always coming to us when CompUSA supposedly fixed their computer. Next time if you have a problem like that try to take it to an independent Apple repair shop, they will probably be able to help you without erasing your data right away. Also they will probably do it in house so you get to see the person who actually touched your computer, so you will know who scratched your computer.
Good luck.

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thanks,

But like I said, I am pretty sure Apple is behind it, compusa sends it to them it goes to thier repair facilities. And its not just 1 scratch, its 4 on the bottom, and 4 on top, all over the place, and then the thumb print was really aggrevating.

BTW, it is all under the limited warranty. Apple did well over a thousand dollars worth of repairs on it.

beg_ne said:

How sure are you? Did you get a chance to look at it after the CompUSA monkeys had it before they send it off? What you went through is not standard protocol at all.

Why didn't the AppleCare guy open up a request and send you a box to send it back to Apple? Did you decline or did they not offer? I had to call to get my iBooks logic board fixed not too long ago. It took about 2 minutes of letting the guy on the phone know that i had the problem and that i thought it was the logic board problem. The next morning a box showed up from airborne express, i had them pick it up at 4pm that day and it was fixed and back to me in less than 36 hours. Not a scratch or mark on it(that i hadn't put there atleast).

This 10-14 days to get to a "repair bench" sounds like complete BS. Sounds like some incompetent PC "tech" ***** with your Mac without knowing what he was doing.

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Well its true, It went a couple of days later, since the apple guy decided to be a day or so late. I know for a fact that have Apple guys there selling apple computers, and the Apple care told me that would be the case that Apples repair facility would handle it.. And no, it wasn't even offered to me have it shipped in a box. Hell I would have even gotten my orignial powerbook box to ship it to them.

I know its freaking crazy, 14 days just to look at it? and then another 14 days to send it to someone who knows what they are doing? absolutely rediculous. I treat my powerbook like gold, not a single scratch, I even keep it on a towel on my desk.

appleretailguy said:

You didn't send your powerbook to apple, you gave it to CompUSA's "trained" "apple specialist". The repair had zero to do with Apple. What you did is akin to taking your Ford into an independent car dealership instead of the Ford repair shop. They SAY they know what they're doing, but, if applecare did not give you a number and send you a box, you didn't get it fixed thru them.

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No, I know for sure it went to apple, not some local tech.

Thirteenva said:

The "apple guy" at comp usa is NOT an apple employee. They are people hired by compusa. They are apple certified (which anyone can be just check here http://train.apple.com/certification/ ) but they are not apple care reps or even apple certified repair personnel. Go to compusa and ask them yourself. They probably attempted to fix it in house rather than(or prior to) shipping it to applecare.

As for the applecare rep that you called. Usually applecare reps will first suggest that you go back to where you bought the computer but should also have offered to ship you a box with a return number if your computer is still under warranty.

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Look part part of the reason I know it was an Apple Employee, is that I have talked to the guy before, and I did have a previous warrenty claim on another apple product -- and even told me he was an Apple Employee, and that although he was responsible for coordinating this, not to mention I got an Apple warrenty reciept from Apple care clearly showing limited warrenty repair charges and credits FROM Apple.

Compusa even refers to "Mike" as working for Apple. Maybe things are done differently around Boston, but thats my experience. When I was talking to the Apple care guy about my problems when all this began, he went over my drop off locations and explained to me that Compusa was just a drop off/pick up location for them. And again NO I was neever given the option to ship as I would have picked that option.

And I did buy the $350 apple care package and the $150 accidential screen damage from compusa (apple care didn't offer accidental damage back then).

Happy Ending!!!

I just got back from a meeting I had set up with the CompUSA store manager, (I had previously only talked to the repair manager) and it was about 5 minutes, and it came down to this,
"if Apple won't live up to its responsibility, I will replace it with a new unit."

So I called up Apple Care, something I was avoiding because I didn't want to get into a "he did it, no you did it" crap, and it took about 5 minutes to get through to an Apple care support Specialist. it took about 3 minutes to describe the problem and what I had been through, and he said "thats so wrong, he was going to get it repaired or replaced". 2 minutes later, I was on the phone with a customer relations person, and 2 minutes later I was off the phone, knowing my apple care shipment box is going to arrive tomorrow, with an "expedite" order on the repair. They said they are going to replace the casing or send me a new computer in return.

You know for the last 2 weeks, I had thought that I had to live with the scratches, Which considering, I rarely can see them since the computer is ussually facing away from me, and the screen damage was the one that was really bugging me. Right now I can see it on the corner of the screen, and it does irratate me. The only thing not in mint condition, is that 3 of the most used keys have the ink thats used to define the letter smudged on the button, but thats not a biggie.

So this story does have a happy ending.

Thank You Apple!!!