First off, if you dont like someone complaining about apple then I suggest you stop reading now. Secondly this post will refrence the same problems that I have already posted about before and you can read here,(
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/627026/).
I guess ill start at the beggining, about a month ago now my iMac G5 was brought into the sagemore apple store for a genius bar appointment. I suspected that the harddrive was failing and the genius confimed it was. At this point he said my options were for them to put in the same size hdd for about $300.00, since the computer is now 4 years old and the applecare has expired, or I can buy one online and install it myself. Obviously i chose the latter.
After waiting a few days for the hdd to come from newegg it arrived and was ready to install. After installing the hdd, the computer would not boot. No grey screen, no way to boot from a cd, just a black screen, the power light, and after a few minutes the fans would kick in at full force. I thought maybe it was a bad hdd, not a big deal ill just rma it. To be sure i tested it in my cousins iMac G5, the same as mine, and it was recognized and booted with no problems. So I made another appointment with the genius bar.
After bringing the comp in the genius reset the pmu and tried to flash the pram. He then took out the harddrive and tried to power it on but nothing would happen. After examing the computer for a few minutes he noticed a busted capicitor on the logic board, which apparently he failed to notice when he took off the back panel the first time to show me how to replace the failed hdd. Now it seemed like i was going to have to wait about week to get the computer back, it is worth mentioning that this would be the third logic board in my imac now as the orginal was replaced about eight months ago. Now i was concerned about the cost because the program that my mac had fallen under to get the logic board fixed the first time had expired on December 15, 2008 (
http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/)and the logic board is a $900.00 repair.
The genius then informed me that they had in fact extended that program if your imac met the criteria (specific serial numbers, busted capcitor) which mine did so it was going to be replaced free of charge.
Now it has been about a week and half since i orginally brought the imac in for the failed hdd and i get a call from the apple store. I thought great maybe they had the part in stock and it's done. Unfortunalty my luck, which is going to get even worse later, was not that good and they needed to order in another part for the imac. They said that the heat monititoring cable for the hdd had been damaged and that they had ordered it to be replaced with no problems aka. i would have to wait a few more days. At this point i was starting to get slightly annoyed because i was moving down to Virginia to start a job and it is about a 4 hour drive up to south Jersey just get my computer. But again they said everything would be covered so i couldnt really complain.
Now it was about 2 weeks since the initial visit to the apple store and i get phone call from them around 10am Saturday morning. They had gotten all the parts in and had replaced everything that needed to be replaced, or so i thought.
This is where my faith in Apple really died and where the heart of my story is. After installing the new logic board, power supply(its part of the logic board replacement) and hdd cable... the computer was still not booting. They then said that the video cable was corroded (i think thats the term they used) and that on my particular model the video cable was attached to the lcd display and now that whole part had to be replaced. I
specifically asked the man on the phone with me if it was going to be covered, he informed that it was all covered. Great it was all covered i would just have to wait another week or so and it would finally be done.
About a week later i called to see if the computer was ready yet and they said it wasnt but it was at the top of the queue, ok fine not really much i can do about it. This was two days before MLK day (January 17). On MLK day they call my parents at 830am saying that my computer is finished and ready to be picked up.
They then call me a few days later and tell me this, " Okay your mac is all ready to go there is just a charge of $296.32 for the display repair." I was instantly confused and polietly explained to the lady on the phone that the apple rep that had called about the lcd replacement intially had said that it would be covered (logically why would i authorize a 300.00 repair, the comp is only worth about 600.00 now). She then said that it came right down from coporate and that she was looking at the case notes right in front of her and it was not going to be covered. I told her would call her back after i called corporate, obviously there was some confusion. When i got corporate on the phone they explained to me that even though everyone that works at apple is part of a single team, each individual store is given free reign to run itself. So the sagemore store was saying it was corporat's fault and corporate was saying its sagemore's. Now i was getting pissed, they were giving me this run around bs and i had done nothing but try to explain my situation, so i called the sagemore store back. The manager i spoke with on the phone ( her name was trina) was very very rude, these were her exact words, " Sir we can have this conversation all day. You can either pay the charge and get a computer that works, or we can put the old display in and you can get one that doesnt." They gave me a ****ing ultimatum.
After this i filed a grievence but the guy has yet to get back to me and i dont think he will, after all what can he do? This really comes down to my word against thiers. I just want to know what happened to good business practices and the customer is always right? I thought apple prided themselves on thier customer support, obviously i was wrong. The fact of the matter is they never informed me of the charge, not when they intially told me about the repair, not when the called my parents, only after it was done.
I am just really really dissapointed, this is coming from someone whose faimly has spent thousands of dollars in that store( a dual powermac G5, 23 ACD, 3 ibooks, and my imac most recently not to mention all the others over the years.) and to be treated this way is just unacceptable. Not to mention the smugness of the genuises at that store, i realize that the average consumer doesnt know what a graphics card is or that the new imac's use laptop parts but that doesnt give them the excuse to act like everyone that doesnt work there is an idiot.
Hopefully some of you will read this story and think twice about buying that new mac. They are great computers when the work but dont expect not to get screwed hand over fist when, not if, they break.
And when they do break DO NOT GO TO THE SAGEMORE STORE. Trust me.
Also there are probably some spelling/grammer errors i didnt catch so i apologize in advance for those.
I don't get that one! The OP already explained,
