Apple technician damaged my MacBook

[simonsi]

Truth be told...sometimes I sit back and wonder why I dropped all this cash when I am really sitting in terminal shells all day. 😛

🙂

 

[thundersteele]

Truth be told...sometimes I sit back and wonder why I dropped all this cash when I am really sitting in terminal shells all day. 😛

Cause the text in the shells is much crisper with the retina display?

 

[Altemose]

A frame affects the future function and durability of the car. A dent in the chassis of a computer does not. Your analogy is flawed.

Depends on how that dent landed. A picture would really help. It isn't flawed but could be disproven if the dent is minor.

 

[john123]

Depends on how that dent landed. A picture would really help. It isn't flawed but could be disproven if the dent is minor.

Even if it's a major dent, in between a visual inspection and diagnostics, it's pretty easy to test whether everything on the inside is good to go. If this were years ago, I'd have some concern about the HDD...but these days, with moving parts virtually non-existent, I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[Altemose]

Even if it's a major dent, in between a visual inspection and diagnostics, it's pretty easy to test whether everything on the inside is good to go. If this were years ago, I'd have some concern about the HDD...but these days, with moving parts virtually non-existent, I wouldn't worry too much.

I want to know what they are replacing. If it damaged the structure of the MBP then they should do the Logic Board too.

 

[l.a.rossmann]

When I worked at Apple, customers used to come in all the time to pick up their computers and attempt to say that a dent that was there before wasn't. It happens ALL the time. Majority of the time, the genius who checked in the computer was careless and didn't document it.

This has been my experience.

I remember two years ago, my favorite case. This machine had such a huge dent in the ethernet port area that it was shaped like a Z. Tons of A1278 machines get messed up in this area, but this one went ALL the way down.. I was stunned. it was how I recognized this machine without ever having to look up what slot it was in for 2 days.

He disapproved repair before we ever opened it. I never touched it, and when he came to pick up, blamed us for this monstrosity of a dent.

Had I been a proper technician and worked on it... I could say I did cause the dent. However, embarrassingly enough, 48 hours in, I never touched it. So I knew he was nuts.

So how do you defend that? "I know that I didn't cause that dent because in the 48 hours we possessed your laptop, we never touched it."

Fun times.

 

[darcmasta]

Cause the text in the shells is much crisper with the retina display?

That retina display....I can see all the black and white O_O

Loving my Mac though 🙂 I am just one of those anal customers who just focuses to much on the flaws 😛

 

[IndoX]

This has been my experience.

I remember two years ago, my favorite case. This machine had such a huge dent in the ethernet port area that it was shaped like a Z. Tons of A1278 machines get messed up in this area, but this one went ALL the way down.. I was stunned. it was how I recognized this machine without ever having to look up what slot it was in for 2 days.

He disapproved repair before we ever opened it. I never touched it, and when he came to pick up, blamed us for this monstrosity of a dent.

Had I been a proper technician and worked on it... I could say I did cause the dent. However, embarrassingly enough, 48 hours in, I never touched it. So I knew he was nuts.

So how do you defend that? "I know that I didn't cause that dent because in the 48 hours we possessed your laptop, we never touched it."

Fun times.

To be honest, in my years at working at the genius bar, I have only ever ONCE seen someone damage a computer. ONCE. And we completely replaced it. The computers are only in one of two places when checked in for repair, on the shelf waiting for repair or being repaired on a matted desk.

When they dent something, it's because they either accidentally dropped it or damaged it during repair - which is VERY noticeable to any genius. Dents don't go unnoticed. And if they somehow manage to dent it, they'll usually replace it during the repair.

Dents that technicians don't notice are dents that were already there 9 out of 10 times.

I don't question the quality of work that goes in the genius room, especially considering I know how genii work and how the genius room function.

I have a feeling the dent was probably there beforehand and the OP didn't notice it. You're more likely to closely inspect your machine after someone else has touched it.

EDIT: Also, the fact that people can even say that the genius who worked on his computer purposely left the dent there - if they even caused it in the first place - and did absolutely nothing about it hoping that the OP wouldn't notice it is an insult to his work. I find extremely insulting, and I don't even work for the company anymore!

 

[5to1]

EDIT: Also, the fact that people can even say that the genius who worked on his computer purposely left the dent there - if they even caused it in the first place - and did absolutely nothing about it hoping that the OP wouldn't notice it is an insult to his work. I find extremely insulting, and I don't even work for the company anymore!

I agree, unless their extremely clumsy (in which case they will get found out eventually) I'm sure Apple would much rather they owned up to making a mistake and replaced the part.

However, clearly people can be dicks, both the customer and some Apple staff. I recently had an experience which highlighted this.

My wifes 2009 MBP suffered an expanded battery for the second time, after only 300 cycles on the replaced battery. I took it into the store I purchased from, and the manager incorrectly stated since it had already been replaced once my consumer rights didn't apply. Worse still he refused to remove the battery to confirm it was safe, stating it "probably" was. Apparently they tend to expand some more when the case is removed and he insisted they wouldn't return the machine sans battery and therefore only open it if I agreed to pay for a new one. He kept asserting I'd already had a "free" battery, when what I'd actually had was a replacement for a defective battery (which I'd paid for as I didn't get the machine for free).

Obviously I wasn't happy with this, as it had two premature battery failures, I wasn't paying for another one given this history. And I certainly wasn't opening it to examine the battery and replace with OEM, once they'd told me it usually expands some more when you open the case. Given my field of work, I've been conditioned to treat lithium polymer batteries with care particularly when they've started to lose physical integrity.

I took the machine back, explained my concerns to Apple Care, who agreed a replacement part did not preclude my consumer rights. They booked me into another Apple store. Some quick tests later, which showed the battery was still reporting as healthy, they agreed to replace it. Far more in line with the experience I'd expected. NB I didn't necessarily expect a free battery, if they'd shown it had depleted naturally I would have been happy for them to remove it. Both he and Apple Care agreed this was a reasonable position, as while the battery was probably safe, I had a right to be concerned given the potential results had it not been safe.

I left it with them for 5 days, as I was going abroad and he wanted to inspect the machine to see if there was a root cause for the two battery failures. When I returned to pick it up I noticed he'd incorrectly logged it had a scratch on the Apple logo instead of on the top case. It did have a scratch on the top case which he hadn't logged (I'd once rested it ontop of its sleeve at airport X-ray. Unfortunately after I passed through the scanner, the idiot attendant must have put it, in its own tray, but top down 🙁).

Now had I been unscrupulous I could have claimed they'd caused this scratch, as it wasn't logged. Given how busy the store was, the Genius wasn't going to remember his mistake and they would have had little choice but to accept my assertion. But I try to live by the moto what goes around comes around, so just pointed out they'd made a mistake and the scratch was pre-existing. I really didn't feel like taking advantage of a minor slip up, during a very busy time in the store (teachers strike was on, so lots of people had free time to pop in with their kids), despite my experience with the previous store manager. But I'm sure many customers would have grabbed a free top clam shell at Apples cost 🙁 and its behaviour like that which leads to manufacturers having to be less generous and trusting 🙁.

If they handed out replacement machines in these circumstances, it simply leads to moral hazard and more customers behaving badly IMO. Having had experience with other retailers/manufacturers IMO the OP's resolution is fine. It will be logged that they dented the machine and the OP can use this to his advantage in the future, should they refuse a claim based on physical damage. But equally theres enough inconvenience (as opposed to simply handing out a new machine) to deter those being unscrupulous.