Apple Reportedly Addressing Fraud by Third-Party Service Centers

[VicMacs]

Neither 3870 nor 8800GT are sold by Apple. They were discontinued while my MP was still under warranty.

part no. 661-4642 is for the 8800GT and it is still sold by apple, you can get it at any AASP or Authorized Dealer, like mine. 90 days warranty as its a part and not an actual product now that there are newer models out there. Kinda unfair but they do sell it.

As for the topic, good to see Apple coming down on its rotten Apples. I for one can sleep carelessly as my Apple business is thriving due to pure hard work and honesty. We give the best service in our country and we repair the most macs in our country and I guess Apple is very happy with us. We keep Apple customers happy!

 

[VicMacs]

Yeah, but seeing it on paper and the reality of it are two different things. You can make money doing Apple service, but with all the bullcrap you have to wonder if it's worth it. Replace a power supply in a PCIe G5 tower or the power cable along the back of an aluminum iMac (which had a number of faulty units) and then wonder if Apple's payment is worth it. Yes, out of warranty is a very different thing. You can charge the customer and make additional money on part markup. That's a completely different ball of wax.

Not saying that I condone the behavior of these service centers, of course. It's just that when you put the wood to the guys who clean up your mess, some of the lesser elements are bound to start pulling this crap.

And on the subject of Best Buy, it's sadly the only place around here that really sells Macs. If a customer wants to buy one, I tell them which model to pick out depending on what they want and tell them not to listen to any of the sales monkeys. Get what you want and go. Geek Squad can eat crap. They should just stop trying to fix any Macs at all. I've done a lot of out of warranty repairs that BB tried and failed to fix. A LOT. It makes me sad that people even take in-warranty Macs there as they don't even fix them on site. They ship to some repair depot and the customer is without their Mac for weeks.

Those frickin' cables at the very end of the 20-inch iMac are a pain in the a** I totally hear ya!

 

[Durendal]

Apple doesn't support anything that they did not sell to you. So if the ATI 4870 did not come with your machine as my 2 3870s that I have in my 1st gen Intel Mac Pro then there is no support from Apple. Actually buy a new Mac without Apple Care & Apple will only supply 90 days of no prepaid charges for warranty work. This is with a 1 year warranty. So I have come not to expect any Apple support wven on products they they claim to support.

This is such outright bullcrap. Apple WILL warranty any of their products that you purchase retail for one year. Buy a 4870 and Apple will cover it for a year as it's an official Apple part. Period. The 3870s are NOT Apple products. They are from ATI and sold third party, even if Apple sold them through their store. Ergo, the warranty is through ATI, not Apple. It won't void your warranty to use them, but if one goes bad, it's not Apple's problem.

In addition, your remarks about Macs and Applecare is an outright LIE. You get 90 days of free phone support if you don't buy Applecare. You get ZERO CHARGES FOR WARRANTY WORK within that year period, end of story. If you were charged then whatever shop you went to swindled you badly and should lose their Apple service contract. You have this very, very bass-ackwards.

It took a year before Apple would replace an ATI x1900 video card that was shown to be bad before I tried talking to them. Then they replace the wrong card that was not covered by warranty. It took me a year before I felt safe that Apple would not charge me for the video card.

And did you happen to tell them that the card they replaced was not the one that shipped with the Mac Pro? If your Pro was a CTO then it may not show all the parts that came with it. Ergo, the techs see a video card and replace it if it's malfunctioning regardless of which model because they don't know what the machine originally shipped with.

Support with Apple is a joke anyway so how could anyone ever expect them to do any help for something that did not come with your computer. If you want a decent choice of video cards in a reasonable time after the manufacturer ships them, then a Mac is not for you. If you want to run OS X then make yourself a Frankentosh & have the best of both worlds. Choice means non-Mac.

Support with Apple is not a joke. Support with Apple consistently ranks as the best in the industry. How could anyone expect any f*cking company to help you with third party parts or peripherals? It's not their job! Also, if you want third party video cards, no need to make a Hackintosh. You can use some hacks to make a number of generic PC cards work in a Mac Pro.

 

[Durendal]

Sometimes, when a machine has multiple repairs, technicians forget to put the sticker with the new serial number on the board, so many cases of this happen, even I have forgotten to put it on machines I worked. And not all parts have serial numbers, it will vary on the model. Also many times so many volumes of repairs received in GSX that it's very hard to track case by case even when technicians do put the serials correctly. Also, there are disc to change the serial number in the hardware. There are many ways to bypass this. These scams aren't anything new. I have seen them going on for years. I have quit from service centers that do this, for the exact reason that I won't put my certifications on the line for these scumbags to make more money.

You really don't know what you're talking about. There is no sticker with a new serial number. The only thing close is a sticker with the new MAC address when you replace a logic board. The serializer disc you mentioned is for logic boards only and will only work on brand new boards from Apple that are not already serialized. You CANNOT change the serial number of a computer once it's been burned in. In addition, that doesn't matter because every part that's serialized has an individual serial number stickered onto it, including the logic board, which has a serial sticker that differs from the computer serial number that you burn into the logic board. Apple also keeps records of these serial numbers now, especially in the case of parts that have already been replaced.

 

[Durendal]

part no. 661-4642 is for the 8800GT and it is still sold by apple, you can get it at any AASP or Authorized Dealer, like mine. 90 days warranty as its a part and not an actual product now that there are newer models out there. Kinda unfair but they do sell it.

And it's about $400 at bare cost. If the shop marks it up, then you pay even more. It's really not feasible for most. Ebay would be a better bet.

 

[Durendal]

When we buy computers from Sun and they fail, Sun sends the tech on-site to repair it. Even Dell can send out on-site techs.

Apple is right there with e-machines and arcer making you take the computer to them.

Some Macs come with an onsite warranty.

 

[Durendal]

Surprise! "Third party centers" are in it for the $$$ and they screw over both the consumer and the companies that outsource to them. And their employees. Oh, and the communities where they're located.

I work for one of those "third party centers". We work our butts off to provide good, honest service to people. If you had a bad experience or two, then that stinks, but that doesn't mean that all service centers pull constant screw jobs, so you can stop the idiotic, ********ed generalizations. I'd much rather be working there than an Apple Store where you have to put up with all the corporate crapola.

 

[akadmon]

If you bought the 4870 directly and not as an OEM part in another Mac, then your Mac Pro serial number is irrelevant. It's covered all by itself as long as you have a proof of purchase, which you likely do considering it would've been purchased from Apple. Serial numbers are only necessary for original parts, not separately purchased upgrades.

There is a recent case on this very forum of a guy to whom Apple denied a replacement 4870 on the grounds that he was using it in an unsupported Mac Pro. So much for your little theory

 

[Durendal]

There is a recent case on this very forum of a guy to whom Apple denied a replacement 4870 on the grounds that he was using it in an unsupported Mac Pro. So much for your little theory

Then he must've outright told them (or brought in the whole Mac Pro) and the support rep was a jerk. I work for a local service provider, so it's not a "theory", pal. Separately purchased parts like a 4870 upgrade kit do NOT require a serial number from any Mac. I have that straight from Apple's Service Provider Support. If you brought that card in, said it was failing, and provided a proof-of-purchase, it would be replaced, although the shop may request that you bring it in the Mac Pro for diagnosis. It honestly depends on how the techs want to do things. If you tell them it was put in a first-gen Mac Pro, then the shop may or may not deny coverage, but that's not something you have to tell them, now is it? In addition, you might even be able to RMA it directly back to Apple with no middleman, but I'm not entirely certain if they'd just do it or have you take it to a shop. And if they do deny coverage, then it was because you did something that they specifically said was not supported, and if you do something that is specifically not supported, don't cry when they don't cover it under warranty.

 

[MorphingDragon]

There is a recent case on this very forum of a guy to whom Apple denied a replacement 4870 on the grounds that he was using it in an unsupported Mac Pro. So much for your little theory

Actually, its like that in the PC world as well.

Workstation boards do not support all cards. Like my sisters one wont take 4XXX/5XXX or GT2XX for some reason.

 

[macffooky]

My daughter broke my MBP screen a year ago and I had it replaced at an ASP in N.London.

The first screen was of abysmal quality and somehow they gave me back my MBP with a top panel from an earlier model with different keyboard layout and no 3-finger swipe. They flatly denied having done this but Apple were great and sorted the whole thing out for me themselves at Regent Street.

 

[baryon]

I know! I'd say it's only one year because Apple doesn't have much confidence in its own products.

What's also interesting is that most people in Europe don't know their Apple Care is pretty much useless, because retailers/manufacturers are required to repair or compensate for products that don't work as advertised, BY LAW. And I mean without buying a warranty or protection plan! For computers it's 3 years. In some countries 2 years. This is why I've never bought Apple Care. A friend of mine got his Macbook repaired free of charge after 2/5 years, without Apple Care. Consumer rights are very well defined and governed by the ECC (European Consumer Centres Network) and Consumer Affairs.

I didn't know that Good thing I didn't buy Apple Care then... I am in the UK

 

[angryshortguy]

Really?

I don't see this as front page news... it's not like it is common only to Apple.

really?
And yet you've taken the time to read this article and then to actually comment on it.
It's an interesting article. What's the problem?

 

[akutad]

I think this is more common than most people think. I used to work for a home appliance centre and the owner did the same thing to companies like LG, Wirlpool, Frigidaire, etc.. Needless to say I do not work for him anymore.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

Wow! What *****!

I hope Apple come down hard on these scamming tossers.

 

[VicMacs]

And it's about $400 at bare cost. If the shop marks it up, then you pay even more. It's really not feasible for most. Ebay would be a better bet.

245 actually, I sell it for around 299, ebay is a lottery...

 

[VicMacs]

You really don't know what you're talking about. There is no sticker with a new serial number. The only thing close is a sticker with the new MAC address when you replace a logic board. The serializer disc you mentioned is for logic boards only and will only work on brand new boards from Apple that are not already serialized. You CANNOT change the serial number of a computer once it's been burned in. In addition, that doesn't matter because every part that's serialized has an individual serial number stickered onto it, including the logic board, which has a serial sticker that differs from the computer serial number that you burn into the logic board. Apple also keeps records of these serial numbers now, especially in the case of parts that have already been replaced.

this is true, you cant erase a board serial number, unless you're Apple, and if you didnt move the sticker with the machine's serial no. then youre a lousy tech....

 

[theBB]

What's also interesting is that most people in Europe don't know their Apple Care is pretty much useless, because retailers/manufacturers are required to repair or compensate for products that don't work as advertised, BY LAW. And I mean without buying a warranty or protection plan! For computers it's 3 years. In some countries 2 years. This is why I've never bought Apple Care. A friend of mine got his Macbook repaired free of charge after 2/5 years, without Apple Care. Consumer rights are very well defined and governed by the ECC (European Consumer Centres Network) and Consumer Affairs.

If what you say is true, that means they just add the cost of a 3 year warranty into the sale price already. Of course, it does not stop most people from complaining that the prices are so much higher in Europe and that this somehow is so unfair. As a consumer, it seems you just lost your right to purchase an item with just one year warranty at a lower price. Whether that is desirable is open to debate. Maybe it is good for the society overall, as availability of "free" repairs (even though you are actually paying for them in the beginning) probably leads consumers to hold on to their computers longer, reducing waste. On the other hand, you can also view that as a bunch of know-it-alls making a decision for you.

 

[Durendal]

this is true, you cant erase a board serial number, unless you're Apple, and if you didnt move the sticker with the machine's serial no. then youre a lousy tech....

The only time you'd need to move that sticker is when replacing a top case on a Macbook or Macbook Pro or, for whatever odd reason, the bottom case of one of the new unibodies, foot of an iMac, etc. The only sticker involved in a new logic board is the MAC address sticker. I always move the proper stickers, but about the only time I ever need to is Macbook top cases. MBP top cases are much fewer and far between.

 

[Durendal]

245 actually, I sell it for around 299, ebay is a lottery...

If you're buying it direct from Apple through the service site then the stock price is $399. Unless a particular shop got one cheaper through a third party, it's going to cost a bundle to get one brand new.

 

[weckart]

Apple makes huge margins on their computers, but only lets Authorized Resellers make around 10% on each.

Try 7% (and less on some products), and you will realise why some third party resellers just don't bother any more.

I know! I'd say it's only one year because Apple doesn't have much confidence in its own products.

What's also interesting is that most people in Europe don't know their Apple Care is pretty much useless, because retailers/manufacturers are required to repair or compensate for products that don't work as advertised, BY LAW. And I mean without buying a warranty or protection plan! For computers it's 3 years. In some countries 2 years. This is why I've never bought Apple Care. A friend of mine got his Macbook repaired free of charge after 2/5 years, without Apple Care. Consumer rights are very well defined and governed by the ECC (European Consumer Centres Network) and Consumer Affairs.

Hmm. If you mean consumer protection laws, then the EC only provides a minimum period of two years in which to raise a complaint with the retailer. That in itself is not the same as a guarantee.

Furthermore, as you note in your comment, this varies in length from legislature to legislature. For example, 6 years in England and Wales, 5 years in Scotland. The level of protection also depends on circumstances, but is typically much less than an outright warranty. Particularly on the length of time deemed "reasonable" for the lifetime of a product, on which most, if not all, legislatures are suitably vague.

However, this does not obviate manufacturer's warranties, since in England and Wales, for instance, the onus is on the purchaser after six months to prove that the fault was inherent in the product at the time of purchase. Good luck with that.

It is not enough to state that you want a free repair or replacement because the goods no longer work as advertised if any fault can be ascribed to wear and tear or misuse of the product.

 

[rikesh]

...you wont be getting a PC with the build quality that you get in a Mac.

I buy Apple care with my laptops and I've had to send two in for repairs before.

These two statements contradict.

 

[island]

Who voted negative for this story? Do you own a facility that rips off Apple AND its customers?

 

[BrotherCrack]

You really don't know what you're talking about. There is no sticker with a new serial number. The only thing close is a sticker with the new MAC address when you replace a logic board. The serializer disc you mentioned is for logic boards only and will only work on brand new boards from Apple that are not already serialized. You CANNOT change the serial number of a computer once it's been burned in. In addition, that doesn't matter because every part that's serialized has an individual serial number stickered onto it, including the logic board, which has a serial sticker that differs from the computer serial number that you burn into the logic board. Apple also keeps records of these serial numbers now, especially in the case of parts that have already been replaced.

The machine itself no, logic boards yes, and like I have said there are methods to do this, I have seen when you wanna do fraud there is a way. I'm not gonna explain how this is done in a forum. And like I also mentioned, by regions things work differently. Logic Boards sent here come with stickers with the new serial numbers, ipod's under warranty bring a sticker, most replacement parts bring stickers with new serial numbers. In most cases the sticker has to go in the broken part, since it has barcodes to scan the new serial into the system once apple receives it. In other cases apple give you 2 stickers (like in logic board cases), one for the new board and one for the old board. ALAC which is the system used in Latin America is easier to commit fraud in than say GSX which is what they use in the U.S. And I will admit that GSX, I have never worked with and many parts and things are different that we in Latin America can see but do not have access to. You say I don't know what Im talking about, well, you are entitled to your opinion the facts are quite different.

 

[bigpics]

Indeed. You will find this in any major company, sometimes not in the light if money either, e.g. One if the big three auto America auto dealers, if not all, creating parts that break in 2-3 years or, another example, Evette get your car fixed then 6 month later, if not sooner, something else breaks. Coincidece. Hardly. That's why rightvafter the manufacture warranty is over, things start falling apart. They CAN make these parts last ten years but don't.

One thing I like about apple, except the older mice aneld iPhone cables, is that for the most part, they can last 6+ years if not moved all the time.

Peace.

I take it you also own one of those secret fuel devices that makes cars get 100 mpg, which the car companies could have done since the 1940's but have deliberately held off the market. I've been hearing this one for 50 years.

No neck populist accusations of conspiracies with zero data =/= proof.

With the (once)Big Three consistently losing market share to more reliable Asian cars for decades, I'm sure manufacturing (and continuing to manufacture) crappy parts would be a sound business strategy for them.

There are many reasons why Detroit's made lousy cars (not only failing to improve in some multi-year periods, but actually going backwards in others), and whether an attitude of planned obsolescence from decades ago contributed to their failing business plans, the fact is the sum of them is that these factors have left them unable to compete on quality of construction and durability.

Not usually a flamer, but old and rotten chestnuts like this get my goat 'cos they get repeated and some actually believe them.

So get a life. Or a brain. I assume you already have a heart.

Or, if you have something beyond six anecdotes of coincidence, bring on the data.