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kRaZyEyEz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 7, 2010
6
0
Hi All,

I haven't posted on this forum for a long time...

My mom had my old MBP. The thing was taken care of properly, short of a few screws missing from the bottom... She complained of 'pink stuff' on the screen when she used it. She complained of random restarts and the computer acting 'funny'. It then stopped turning on, so she took it to the Apple store for a genius bar reservation...

When she got there they did no diagnostic tests, they did not try to plug it in, they tried powering it once by hitting the button and it did not turn on. They then told her she would need to pay to get it shipped out and looked at, they said it would be about $300 and it didn't guarantee that her information would be saved, or that the problem would be fixed. She said that was nuts and asked if there was anything else they could do, they said no. They did however show her the new laptops and pushed her to purchase one as it wasn't worth getting her old one fixed. She ended up purchasing a new Macbook. Which they charged $100 to transfer all the data from the old one... After all this happened, she then decided to call me and tell me what was going on. (

I immediately was a little upset that they tried nothing to get the laptop to power on or boot into diagnostics. At first, I thought I was being unreasonable, but I had her ship me the old Macbook so I could take a look at it. Immediately upon it arriving, I reset the PRAM and SMC, and it boots up just fine. I then decide to run some testing on the device, as soon as I start using it and it heats up, the graphics start to glitch and I have purpleish lines running around the screen. This is where I am at now...

I made a Genius bar appointment for tonight, what do you think I should say to them? I am really frustrated and pissed off because this seems exactly like the problem that there is an active recall for and that they pushed my mom into buying a new laptop. I am going to a different apple store because I live in a different area. Do you think I should talk to the manager on duty or just deal with the genius directly? I feel like my mom got robbed and frankly, the behavior at the other store was unacceptable.

What would you do in this situation?

Thanks!

TL;DR Mother took MBP for issue consistent with recall. Genius does no diagnostics or testing, they say she needs to pay for possible repair, she declines. They push and sell her new MBA. I now have the old laptop and am going to the Apple store tonight.
 
Just quote the repair programme to them (Link). They will take it in and fix it at no cost if it fails the standard diagnostics.

If your mother's machine is still within the return window, you could consider returning it and just keeping the old one after it has been fixed.
 
$300 bucks sounds like a depot repair, which they fix everything but like you said its under recall so that shouldn't have happened. Sounds like some shady sh*t. How far ago was the incident?
 
The 2011 MacBook Pro has a known issue with the discrete graphics.

This repair is free.

https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

She should definitely return the MacBook that she bought.

I made a Genius bar appointment for tonight, what do you think I should say to them? I am really frustrated and pissed off because this seems exactly like the problem that there is an active recall for and that they pushed my mom into buying a new laptop. I am going to a different apple store because I live in a different area. Do you think I should talk to the manager on duty or just deal with the genius directly? I feel like my mom got robbed and frankly, the behavior at the other store was unacceptable.

What would you do in this situation?

Thanks!

TL;DR Mother took MBP for issue consistent with recall. Genius does no diagnostics or testing, they say she needs to pay for possible repair, she declines. They push and sell her new MBA. I now have the old laptop and am going to the Apple store tonight.

You mom basically got robbed.

If I were you, I would definitely return the new MacBook Air and demand that the $100 for data transfer be refunded.
 
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$300 bucks sounds like a depot repair, which they fix everything but like you said its under recall so that shouldn't have happened. Sounds like some shady sh*t. How far ago was the incident?
Unfortunately it was over a month ago. I just talked to customer relations and they seemed a little disturbed by the Apple stores actions. He told me to go to the genius bar tonight and see what they say... I hope they make this right...
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The 2011 MacBook Pro has a known issue with the discrete graphics.

This repair is free.

https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

She should definitely return the MacBook that she bought.



You mom basically got robbed.

If I were you, I would definitely return the new MacBook Air and demand that the $100 for data transfer be refunded.

It's been over 30 days, plus she really likes the new laptop. We have been talking about getting her a new machine when they did the next refresh of the MBAs anyway. This whole process is just BS though. They really pushed her to buy a new laptop.
 
FYI
"The program covers affected MacBook Pro models until December 31, 2016 or four years from its original date of sale, whichever provides longer coverage for you."
So if it didn't fall into that criteria, its not eligible to have fixed for free.
 
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