Word of warning : This post is long and ranty.
I ordered my Macbook pro on the thursday, the 2nd of march from an education reseller in Australia. Ship time was estimated to be 3 - 4 weeks. On the 1st day of the 4th week, I visited the education reseller to see if there was a way i could pry an ETA from them, and I was quoted an ETA of the 7/4, more that 2 weeks past the stipulated ship time.
I thought that the store was just not being helpful, so I called apple today to clarify the situation. Now, right now, if you notice, the Australian Apple store quotes an estimated ship time of 3 business days.
After being told the exact same thing from an Apple representatitive (different from the reseller IMHO, he always sounded too indifferent for me to take anything he says at face value) I managed to get this out of the representitive
me : "so you're saying that the ETA is still 7/4?"
her : "that's correct"
me : "but the website says that the ship times are down to 3-5 business days now"
her : "yes, but that is estimated"
me : "so does that mean if i cancel and order online, i'll be able to get my macbook shipped in 3 - 5 business days?"
her : "no, backorder machines will be serviced first"
me : "so this means that I'd better wait out the 2 weeks? The "estimated" time explaination is unacceptable to me - I feel that I placed the deposit for 3 - 4 weeks ship time, and if its late by a few days, its still reasonable. But this ETA puts my wait time up to 6 weeks!"
her : "im sorry we can't help you. we're building machines as fast as we can"
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like a suspicious case of misleading advertising.
I have to wait an estimated 2 weeks more for my macbook to arrive. so that is an error in "estimate" of 2/4 weeks = 50%!
If I placed my macbook order now, according to the website, I should get it in 3 - 5 business days. Now, since all backorders are serviced first, lets make an assumption that I was the unlucky person that put an order in last. Therefore this means that my new order would just effectively "replace" my current order. Unlikely, but this is a simplifying assumption. In this case, the order would still be the same place in the queue of the "flat out factory" and would have to wait 2 weeks before it even got to be (assuming same delievery everything - since she did mention that my dear macbook hasnt even been built yet. that makes an error in estimate if 3/8 = 37.5%!
For an engineering company, this is hardly impressive. Granted the second percentage is lower than the first, but the few simplifying assumptions made are quite impossible.
Someone please define estimated?
Unfortunately, I can't do anything about it, because Apple Australia has explicitly told me that nothing can be done at all. I can't claim my deposit, which I thought I put down in good faith for a machine to be shipped in 4 weeks. There were no papers signed, but the reseller has indicated that they will hold me to forfeiting my deposit should I cancel the order. This dispite the fact that I was never told about this forfeit. Or signed anything.
I'd just like to know if there are any other Australian Apple people out there that are experiencing incidents like this. Once again not very impressive for an engineering company, and a company that seems to pride itself on its image - I'd like to hear about any other stories while I settle down for another 2 weeks without a machine to work on...
I ordered my Macbook pro on the thursday, the 2nd of march from an education reseller in Australia. Ship time was estimated to be 3 - 4 weeks. On the 1st day of the 4th week, I visited the education reseller to see if there was a way i could pry an ETA from them, and I was quoted an ETA of the 7/4, more that 2 weeks past the stipulated ship time.
I thought that the store was just not being helpful, so I called apple today to clarify the situation. Now, right now, if you notice, the Australian Apple store quotes an estimated ship time of 3 business days.
After being told the exact same thing from an Apple representatitive (different from the reseller IMHO, he always sounded too indifferent for me to take anything he says at face value) I managed to get this out of the representitive
me : "so you're saying that the ETA is still 7/4?"
her : "that's correct"
me : "but the website says that the ship times are down to 3-5 business days now"
her : "yes, but that is estimated"
me : "so does that mean if i cancel and order online, i'll be able to get my macbook shipped in 3 - 5 business days?"
her : "no, backorder machines will be serviced first"
me : "so this means that I'd better wait out the 2 weeks? The "estimated" time explaination is unacceptable to me - I feel that I placed the deposit for 3 - 4 weeks ship time, and if its late by a few days, its still reasonable. But this ETA puts my wait time up to 6 weeks!"
her : "im sorry we can't help you. we're building machines as fast as we can"
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like a suspicious case of misleading advertising.
I have to wait an estimated 2 weeks more for my macbook to arrive. so that is an error in "estimate" of 2/4 weeks = 50%!
If I placed my macbook order now, according to the website, I should get it in 3 - 5 business days. Now, since all backorders are serviced first, lets make an assumption that I was the unlucky person that put an order in last. Therefore this means that my new order would just effectively "replace" my current order. Unlikely, but this is a simplifying assumption. In this case, the order would still be the same place in the queue of the "flat out factory" and would have to wait 2 weeks before it even got to be (assuming same delievery everything - since she did mention that my dear macbook hasnt even been built yet. that makes an error in estimate if 3/8 = 37.5%!
For an engineering company, this is hardly impressive. Granted the second percentage is lower than the first, but the few simplifying assumptions made are quite impossible.
Someone please define estimated?
Unfortunately, I can't do anything about it, because Apple Australia has explicitly told me that nothing can be done at all. I can't claim my deposit, which I thought I put down in good faith for a machine to be shipped in 4 weeks. There were no papers signed, but the reseller has indicated that they will hold me to forfeiting my deposit should I cancel the order. This dispite the fact that I was never told about this forfeit. Or signed anything.
I'd just like to know if there are any other Australian Apple people out there that are experiencing incidents like this. Once again not very impressive for an engineering company, and a company that seems to pride itself on its image - I'd like to hear about any other stories while I settle down for another 2 weeks without a machine to work on...