AppleCare getting worse and worse

[TheRealAlex]

@TheRealAlex makes a good point about them fashioning their business model after the auto industry, but by the same token could you imagine if you took your car in for service and they refused to do a warranty repair on the engine because you had a ding in your door?

Or if you went to replace your car battery only to discover that Apple had soldered it to the starter motor[/QUOTE]

Apple is fashioning itself as a Luxury brand, that being said Ferrari, Porsche tried to do the same thing with some succes that Repairs can Only be done at a Porsche Dealer or Ferrari dealer. Or you void your warranty. Sound familiar?
I forget when but Congress passed Legislation allowing people to repair their own property. This was targeted towards the auto industry. And years before the Right to Repair law that was recently passed.
But they are similar enough. Basically Automobile makers and Apple want to know when and If their product is “repaired” outside of their system.
In the end we will eventually need a Consumers Digital Bill of Rights passed by Congress. Which among many things Does Not Allow companies like Apple to deliberately make repair More difficult or diminish performance if a repair is done outside of their system.

 

[SDColorado]

All of this now makes me wonder if I should take photos and a video of my working MacBook Pro before I send it in for service in a couple of days....

Honestly, maybe not a bad idea. Though I don’t think in general they are causing the damage. Though there have been a couple reports of that, it’s impossible to verify. But I do think if your machine does have a little nick or bump, that they are too quick to point to that as the cause and claim the issue was due to accidental damage and deny the warranty repair.

It would make me a big nervous if I did have a little bump or scape and had to send it in without it being “mint.”

Apple is fashioning itself as a Luxury brand, that being said Ferrari, Porsche tried to do the same thing with some succes that Repairs can Only be done at a Porsche Dealer or Ferrari dealer. Or you void your warranty. Sound familiar?
I forget when but Congress passed Legislation allowing people to repair their own property. This was targeted towards the auto industry. And years before the Right to Repair law that was recently passed.

In the USA, I am guessing that you are referring to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act passed in 1975, that among other things banned auto manufacturers from voiding your warranty if you had service done at an independent shop or performed it yourself. They had to actually show a correlation between the service you or the other shop performed and the failure in order to deny warranty. It also made it so manufacturers couldn't void the warranty because you removed the "warranty void if removed" stickers and had a look inside or upgraded your own RAM, etc.

Of course, manufacturers have been trying to get around that ever since, requiring special proprietary tools and diagnostic devices, soldering stuff in, introducing barriers like the T2 chip or in the case of printer cartridges chips that won't be reset if you refill them yourself, so they always read empty.

 

[Natzoo]

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that my complaint was that Apple were refusing to repair a machine which I had damaged. They may be right - I may have damaged it and not noticed, although there was little evidence of any damage to the machine when I sent it off. But it is not this that I'm complaining about.

The point of my long post was to say that I am unhappy that Apple now, in my experience, are making it harder to get things looked at locally, so compelling you to allow them to ship it somewhere else and charging you £100 if they then decide that the fault is not their's. This turns the process of using Applecare into something of a lottery and this is what I'm very unhappy about. As I said

"So now I feel that I have an expensive computer with useless cover which might cost me £100 every time I try to use it should Apple’s repairers decide that it’s my fault (with no appeal, because they’ll just hang on to the computer)."​

Thinking about it more, I'd go further and suggest that this might be something of an emerging policy on Apple's part. They now glue or solder everything in making any repair very expensive and given the problems the last few MacBook Pros have been having with keyboards, it must be costing them a fortune to repair them as doing so involves switching out most of the bottom of the case and the battery. Making it harder to get a repair and introducing a gamble as to whether or not they decide it's their fault is a way of deterring people from trying to get the machine repaired: i.e. better to hang on to a £3,000+ computer with a faulty "f" key than risk having to pay £100 for asking to have it repaired.

Of course, as every company grows, customer service will decline. Apple is just worst because they know people will keep buying their products, no matter how cheap it is. The innovation period is gone, cheap displays and computers, the "pro" badge is just to show off, I mean look at Samsung's new laptop. Or android technology, but alot of us are stuck in the Apple ecosystem, so unless you live somewhere with good consumer laws, just

 

[Stephen.R]

the "pro" badge is just to show off, I mean look at Samsung's new laptop.

If you're going to complain that some other product is apparently so much better, you could take a minute to summarise the reason? You might as well say "Apple computers are crap now, I mean look at this new chocolate bar from Cadbury".

 

[Foulenough]

Update: my wife went into the Cambridge store and complained. They were very sympathetic and have refunded me the £100 - albeit in goods and not cash. So alls well that ends well.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Show me a thread like this (with a valid criticism or complaint)...

...and I'll show you at least one (usually more), totally in the bag, defend at all costs, Apple apologist.

smh