Feeling Slighted

[mattopotamus]

Surprised as it’s so different to what has been my own experience, not shocked that they’ve done no more than they are contractually obliged to. It seems like in the end the sort of great service I have always received won through.

I think that is why I felt slided initially. Apple is typically (and made it standard to be honest) good at handeling true defects. It is my second major repair with a 1-year old device. It honestly should probably just be replaced, and maybe that’s what they end up doing.

I also need to remember to always use my Amex for that extra 1-year manufactures warranty.

 

[Miltz]

This is more me needing to vent. I just had my first bad Apple experience. My one year and 16-day old MacBook Pro had the Retina display fail. The tech confirmed it’s definitely a manufacturer defect, and they won’t budge over 16 days outside the warranty period. $500 to repair, and for stubborn reasons I’d rather have a paper weight than pay to fix it. I’ll never buy another Mac and this saddens me.

I was 3 days out of warranty on a keyboard fail on a 2016 MacBook Pro and they said no. They told me if we give it to you then why would anyone buy a warranty? 72 hours out.... $479 dollars.

 

[raqball]

I was 3 days out of warranty on a keyboard fail on a 2016 MacBook Pro and they said no. They told me if we give it to you then why would anyone buy a warranty? 72 hours out.... $479 dollars.

Wow! 3 days for a well known KB issue and Apple told you to pound sand?

 

[lpolarityl]

...

If it were me? I'd also file complaints with the BBB and your State Attorney generals office if Apple does not bend and fix it...

Wait, you're saying its valid and OK to just spout complaints at the BBB because you want something fixed for free that is clearly out of warranty, because you don't feel its "fair" to pay for a broken screen that broke out of warranty? C'mon... that would get tossed out of court immediately, there is nothing to back the customer.

Warranty is stated clearly, its a year from purchase. If you want an extended warranty, you can add AppleCare Plus within 60 days, or AppleCare within 365 days. You used a product for 381 days and the screen broke, and want it fixed for free because you feel "slighted" that you were only 16 days out of warranty?

Apple ultimately took care of @mattopotamus 's issue and is replacing the screen free of warranty, but that isn't normal nor should it be considered common practice. It was out of warranty, there was no extended warranty added within 365 days of ownership, he should feel very, very lucky.

 

[raqball]

Wait, you're saying its valid and OK to just spout complaints at the BBB because you want something fixed for free that is clearly out of warranty, because you don't feel its "fair" to pay for a broken screen that broke out of warranty? C'mon... that would get tossed out of court immediately, there is nothing to back the customer.

Warranty is stated clearly, its a year from purchase. If you want an extended warranty, you can add AppleCare Plus within 60 days, or AppleCare within 365 days. You used a product for 381 days and the screen broke, and want it fixed for free because you feel "slighted" that you were only 16 days out of warranty?.

Yes that's exactly what I am saying considering the 2016's are well known by everyone, including Apple, to be problematic.. You can disagree and defend Apple if you want but there is a right way to treat customers and a wrong way. Even more so considering the known problematic issues that exist on the 2016's...

I suppose you feel the same re: the 3 day out of warranty KB issue described a few posts above? 3 days past warranty with a known issue = it's okay to tell the person to go pound sand?

 

[Falhófnir]

Wait, you're saying its valid and OK to just spout complaints at the BBB because you want something fixed for free that is clearly out of warranty, because you don't feel its "fair" to pay for a broken screen that broke out of warranty? C'mon... that would get tossed out of court immediately, there is nothing to back the customer.

Warranty is stated clearly, its a year from purchase. If you want an extended warranty, you can add AppleCare Plus within 60 days, or AppleCare within 365 days. You used a product for 381 days and the screen broke, and want it fixed for free because you feel "slighted" that you were only 16 days out of warranty?

Apple ultimately took care of @mattopotamus 's issue and is replacing the screen free of warranty, but that isn't normal nor should it be considered common practice. It was out of warranty, there was no extended warranty added within 365 days of ownership, he should feel very, very lucky.

The keyboard is almost certainly a known manufacturing defect or design flaw - something which is exacerbated by the design meaning a single failed key requires an expensive topcase replacement to remedy. So yes in this case I think it’s perfectly reasonable for Apple to be very generous with out of warranty repairs. There’s enough about the keyboards floating about online that if they make a habit of charging a significant sum of money for a repeatedly failed part (as some have experienced) then it’s got the potential to be come a big reputational issue for them.

On out of warranty repairs, considering people are busy, not everyone lives near an apple store, I also think it’s reasonable to expect Apple to give you a week or two leeway on getting the machine to them. We’re not talking people that have gone in 18 months after purchase here.

 

[mathepac]

Initially, I was fascinated by the thread heading about the OP "Feeling Slided", a feeling I'm not familiar with. I had to peruse the subsequent posts to figure out the feeling was actually "slighted" as in "rebuffed" or "insulted", rather than suffering a Winter Olympics induced condition.

Yes in the EU we pay a bit more for our tech stuff but we also get better consumer protection, up to six years in some cases. Apple Ireland in fairness advises consumers of this fact on their web-site https://www.apple.com/ie/legal/statutory-warranty/

Hopefully, I'll never feel "slided" by Apple Or start a sentence with "So".

 

[bigjnyc]

Perhaps you should have made the call to apple before starting a thread ranting about how horrible of a company they are.... Too many reactionary "sky is falling" threads around here

 

[Miltz]

Wow! 3 days for a well known KB issue and Apple told you to pound sand?

Yeah, I was shocked too. The Apple techs claim they never saw keyboard issues on my model. One of the stores claim he only saw them on the 12inch model after I pressed him. I don't believe it. I suspect aside from accidents, keyboard repairs are in the top 2 MacBook Pro repairs for the 2016 model. When I tried to buy the warranty they said no. I love my Mac, I really do, and I even love the keyboard (minus the reliability).

 

[hallux]

I suppose you feel the same re: the 3 day out of warranty KB issue described a few posts above? 3 days past warranty with a known issue = it's okay to tell the person to go pound sand?

While it may seem contradictory to my previous post - I feel like maybe it could be taken on a case-by-case basis. Come in 3 days after the warranty with a failure that's common across the model - cover it, shouldn't be a question. Come in with a different failure such as the screen in this case - the warranty is the warranty.

 

[mattopotamus]

Initially, I was fascinated by the thread heading about the OP "Feeling Slided", a feeling I'm not familiar with. I had to peruse the subsequent posts to figure out the feeling was actually "slighted" as in "rebuffed" or "insulted", rather than suffering a Winter Olympics induced condition.

Yes in the EU we pay a bit more for our tech stuff but we also get better consumer protection, up to six years in some cases. Apple Ireland in fairness advises consumers of this fact on their web-site https://www.apple.com/ie/legal/statutory-warranty/

Hopefully, I'll never feel "slided" by Apple Or start a sentence with "So".

I want to more than like this post haha.

While it may seem contradictory to my previous post - I feel like maybe it could be taken on a case-by-case basis. Come in 3 days after the warranty with a failure that's common across the model - cover it, shouldn't be a question. Come in with a different failure such as the screen in this case - the warranty is the warranty.

My issue is the first I’ve heard. I really couldn’t find anything online either. The screen looks so weird, it’s worse after the initial tech tried to reseat cables. Still cannot get an appointment until Sunday to have them swap it out.

 

[canuckRus]

This is more me needing to vent. I just had my first bad Apple experience. My one year and 16-day old MacBook Pro had the Retina display fail. The tech confirmed it’s definitely a manufacturer defect, and they won’t budge over 16 days outside the warranty period. $500 to repair, and for stubborn reasons I’d rather have a paper weight than pay to fix it. I’ll never buy another Mac and this saddens me.

Check your CC coverage for 2nd year of warranty?

 

[mattopotamus]

Check your CC coverage for 2nd year of warranty?

They ended up taking care of me

For some odd reason I paid in cash. Don’t ask me why. I normally use my Amex for everything.

 

[canuckRus]

They ended up taking care of me

For some odd reason I paid in cash. Don’t ask me why. I normally use my Amex for everything.

SORRY, misread your reply. Apple came through then? Use of CC in many instances are the saving grace. If using a Amex charge card as opposed to a Amex credit card cash payments barely makes a difference.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I'm not sure why you're unwilling to spend the money, it seems your cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yeah, its not cheap to fix the laptop, noneless you'll be spending more to buy a new laptop (that equals the class of the MPB). I can understand your dissapointment with apple not doing the repair for free, but it was your decision not to buy the extended warranty. You had a chance to have 3 years of warranty, and this is the end result. It doesn't matter if its two weeks out of warranty or two months. Its out of warranty.

I know you're a mod here on the forums and all, and I've gotta give props to the OP (Mattopotamus) for not loosing and replying in kind. I personally had to stop reading with what I've underlined above and take another try. When I reached what I've bolded above I would've flipped you the bird!

Regardless if it's extended warranty or not or out of warranty ... this is a manufacturer's default - which our OP indicated as confirmed by the Apple store genius and was ignored. Apple has previously, as heavily documented on front page articles on this site replaced or repaired their MBP/MBA/iMac's LONG past warranty. I recall even 2012 iMac's getting a GPU replacement in 2016. Not sure why you replied above without considering all of this, but whatever.

Thanks for the advise. I did end up calling Apple and they are going to replace it for free. I’ll just avoid that store in the future.

The main reason I did not want to pay the $500 to fix it is because the laptop had a logic board replacement in July for a different issue. They would only honor the new repair for 90 days, and the last thing I want is to pay and fix a laptop that is likely to fail again within the year.

It is the 2016 Retina Pro that people are saying has issues. It has easily been the worst laptop I’ve owned in terms of reliability.

I’ve never felt the need to buy AC with a laptop, but I guess with the new designs it is a must. I have it on my phone, Apple Watch, and iPad. I guess you live and learn. Hopefully I get another year out of this. I think it helped that I really emphasized the fact it takes over a week to get a genius appointment where I live, so I was really about 8 days outside the warranty period.

To be honest I think a small part of you also felt NOT to pay the $500 to fix it due to a manufacturer fault. I know I personally would not. I'm glad you had this fixed without a dollar more than what you already spent. I sincerely hope the previous repair did NOT shorten the original warranty of your MBP - if so someone at Apple seriously needs to look at this as it's NOT proper customer service or potentially violating a consumer act: 2016 MBP gets lessened warranty due to logic board replacement or ignored repair due to manufacturer fault? Still very glad you got this resolved.

 

[mattopotamus]

I know you're a mod here on the forums and all, and I've gotta give props to the OP (Mattopotamus) for not loosing and replying in kind. I personally had to stop reading with what I've underlined above and take another try. When I reached what I've bolded above I would've flipped you the bird!

Regardless if it's extended warranty or not or out of warranty ... this is a manufacturer's default - which our OP indicated as confirmed by the Apple store genius and was ignored. Apple has previously, as heavily documented on front page articles on this site replaced or repaired their MBP/MBA/iMac's LONG past warranty. I recall even 2012 iMac's getting a GPU replacement in 2016. Not sure why you replied above without considering all of this, but whatever.



To be honest I think a small part of you also felt NOT to pay the $500 to fix it due to a manufacturer fault. I know I personally would not. I'm glad you had this fixed without a dollar more than what you already spent. I sincerely hope the previous repair did NOT shorten the original warranty of your MBP - if so someone at Apple seriously needs to look at this as it's NOT proper customer service or potentially violating a consumer act: 2016 MBP gets lessened warranty due to logic board replacement or ignored repair due to manufacturer fault? Still very glad you got this resolved.

Thanks for the reply. My main issue with spending the $500 to fix it were pointed out by you. 1) it was a manufacture defect and 2) based on it being the second repair within essentially 1 year I have no confidence it won’t happen again. I would have almost preferred buying a new Mac with AC+ over fixing my current one.

 

[maflynn]

I know you're a mod here on the forums and all, and I've gotta give props to the OP (Mattopotamus) for not loosing and replying in kind. I personally had to stop reading with what I've underlined above and take another try. When I reached what I've bolded above I would've flipped you the bird!

Why?

Here's what I read
His laptop failed after the warranty expired, the OP decides for his own stubborn reasons (his words), he will not pay the 500 dollars to repair a laptop that cost in excess of 2,000 dollars. The term I used describes perfectly the situation. I have included a describtion of that that term:

"Cutting off the nose to spite the face" is an expression to describe a needlessly self-destructive over-reaction to a problem: "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face" is a warning against acting out of pique, or against pursuing revenge in a way that would damage oneself more than the object of one's anger.

Choosing not to pay for the repair is in my opinion a needless over reaction, especially a new laptop of similar class is going to cost 2 to 3 times the cost of the repair.

Sure he's upset, I would be too, but we are all adults and as an adult the OP made a decision not to by the extended warranty and as such he (as we do), need to live with the consequences.

it was a manufacture defect

Yes, and that's what the warranty covers, included the extended warranty, your warranty ended so any manufactored defects are now longer covered.

based on it being the second repair within essentially 1 year I have no confidence it won’t happen again.

Valid point, which is why the use of AC can be viewed as invalueable option for laptops, many people do not beleieve in them, and that's fine, I myself have forgone the use of them on occasion, but that doesn't mean I'll blame apple for not taking care of me when the standard warranty expires.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I think you’re being a little unreasonable. I’ve had a high end Samsung tv fail 30 days out of warranty. Reviews on the product show a sizeable number of others had the same problem. Think Samsung did anything about it? Nope. Did I ask nicely? Yep.

Yeah this stuff happens rarely but not much you can do about it. Apple is usually better than most for now.

 

[raqball]

The problem is that Apple has kind of boxed itself in a corner. They help some out of warranty and others are told to pound sand. There is no rock solid policy that's adhered to. If Apple stayed the course then I don't think these types of discussions or customers feeling slighted would happen.

A quick example that I was party to from a few years ago.

I believe this was an iPhone 6 but maybe it was an iPhone 6s.. I went to Apple Store because I was having an issue with the phone. The Apple rep who was helping spent several minutes inspecting my phone and even took it in the back. While I was waiting a very attractive young lady showed for her appointment and was seated in the stool next to me. The Apple rep, who was obviously goo-goo eyed by her, went out of his way to hook her up. She had an iPhone that she had dropped and shattered the screen on. After a few minutes of the rep fawning over her, he said they'd give her a complimentary replacement free of charge.

My rep? Comes out and says there is water damage to the phone (bogus) and there is nothing they can do. Offers to sell me a replacement phone at a reduced cost. I don't remember how much it was but I think it was like $279 or something..

The very attractive girl? Came in after me, left before me, with a free phone. Me? Left with a sour taste in my mouth after shelling out the cash for a replacement.

 

[jerryk]

The very attractive girl? Came in after me, left before me, with a free phone. Me? Left with a sour taste in my mouth after shelling out the cash for a replacement.

Treat it as a lesson. When pushing (or exceeding) the limits of a warranty have an attractive girl take in the broken item.

FWIW, I actually saw a study about this very thing that confirmed this theory.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Treat it as a lesson. When pushing (or exceeding) the limits of a warranty have an attractive girl take in the broken item.

FWIW, I actually saw a study about this very thing that confirmed this theory.

What if your genius is female?

 

[raqball]

Treat it as a lesson. When pushing (or exceeding) the limits of a warranty have an attractive girl take in the broken item.

FWIW, I actually saw a study about this very thing that confirmed this theory.

What if your genius is female?

Yeah and that's really my point. There are some here saying the warranty time frame is the warranty time frame = end of story but that's not how Apple operates. The warranty is enforced or not enforced based on the Apple rep you are dealing with.

Those who get taken care of praise Apple for it (and rightfully so) and those who don't feel slighted. If there was a rhyme or reason to the unofficial 'take care of someone or not' policy then okay but there is none that I can tell. Treat everyone the same or don't. Strictly enforce the warranty or don't.. It should not be based on if the Apple rep is physically attracted to the customer or not...

 

[Falhófnir]

Yeah and that's really my point. There are some here saying the warranty time frame is the warranty time frame = end of story but that's not how Apple operates. The warranty is enforced or not enforced based on the Apple rep you are dealing with.

Those who get taken care of praise Apple for it (and rightfully so) and those who don't feel slighted. If there was a rhyme or reason to the unofficial 'take care of someone or not' policy then okay but there is none that I can tell. Treat everyone the same or don't. Strictly enforce the warranty or don't.. It should not be based on if the Apple rep is physically attracted to the customer or not...

I kinda agree - it's like the case with swapping out the 2012 rMBPs for 2015 models because they had run out of batteries... Well, that's really great for the people with those 2012s, they effectively have gotten two computers for the price of one, used their 2012 for 5 years, get another 5 years with a newer model... but what about everyone who bought one/ a different model who won't get that?

 

[chabig]

The main reason I did not want to pay the $500 to fix it is because the laptop had a logic board replacement in July for a different issue. They would only honor the new repair for 90 days, and the last thing I want is to pay and fix a laptop that is likely to fail again within the year.

I know it’s easy to get emotional when money is concerned but one cannot conclude, even after a repair, that any subsequent failure is likely.

 

[Yeahyeahyeah123]

The problem is that Apple has kind of boxed itself in a corner. They help some out of warranty and others are told to pound sand. There is no rock solid policy that's adhered to. If Apple stayed the course then I don't think these types of discussions or customers feeling slighted would happen.

A quick example that I was party to from a few years ago.

I believe this was an iPhone 6 but maybe it was an iPhone 6s.. I went to Apple Store because I was having an issue with the phone. The Apple rep who was helping spent several minutes inspecting my phone and even took it in the back. While I was waiting a very attractive young lady showed for her appointment and was seated in the stool next to me. The Apple rep, who was obviously goo-goo eyed by her, went out of his way to hook her up. She had an iPhone that she had dropped and shattered the screen on. After a few minutes of the rep fawning over her, he said they'd give her a complimentary replacement free of charge.

My rep? Comes out and says there is water damage to the phone (bogus) and there is nothing they can do. Offers to sell me a replacement phone at a reduced cost. I don't remember how much it was but I think it was like $279 or something..

The very attractive girl? Came in after me, left before me, with a free phone. Me? Left with a sour taste in my mouth after shelling out the cash for a replacement.

That makes sense. One time I spilled a glass of water on my 2010 MBP right before Christmas, rendering it useless. The Genius felt bad for me and covered all the repair costs (I did not have Apple Care)... that was probably the coolest thing that Apple has done for me.