Humorous call with Apple Support over vintage product.

[Anonymous Freak]

So I decided to 'upgrade' my copy of QuickTime 7 on my old Tiger machine to QuickTime Pro. I've bought every version's Pro key since they first started selling them with QuickTime Pro 3 in 1998. Of course, I purchased the QT7 Pro key back when QT7 first came out in 2005, and the way to look up the old numbers was to go to the Apple Store, log in, go to your account, and go to "Software Downloads". Well, that section disappeared at some recent website update, and the "Your Orders" section only goes back 18 months.

So I contacted Apple Support.

The first person I talked to had no idea what I was talking about. "What is the serial or IMEI of the device?" Uh, no, it's not a device, it's Mac software. "Okay, what is the serial number of the Mac?" Well, that's irrelevant, it's Apple branded software that is independent of an individual Mac, and, in fact, can be used on Windows. "Okay, what is the serial number of the software?" That's why I'm calling!!!

The person she escalated me to got it right away, though. He knew what I was talking about (a QuickTime Pro key,) and tried to help. In the end, though, it was long enough ago that he couldn't look it up. He even called the Apple Store help (he was "Mac help",) to see if they could get it, but they couldn't either.

So he did some more digging, and found that there is a separate QuickTime support line. Completely independent of the rest of Apple's support system, different phone number, he can't transfer to it. He warned me "Don't mention the iPod or iPhone, they won't know those exist. Oh, and you may have to use a rotary phone to call them." Old timer support guy humor for the win!

 

[Jessica Lares]

So did you end up getting the serial from those guys? Man, amazing how they still have a support line going for it!

The last time I called Apple they had to call me on a line that wasn't being recorded. Anther time I had to read the model numbers off my box to make it easier for them to find in the list.

My favorite one though is when they called me three years later asking about my experience with my iPod 3rd generation. And I was like, oh, I have the iPod Video now! And they were like, oh, well tell me your experience with that then.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Haven't had a chance to call back yet. I'll do it tomorrow and report back.

 

[MacTech68]

I wonder if this applies to the Mpeg2 Quicktime Codec as well.

Maybe, you could ask them where you download the last release version (since it's a Quicktime "component" I'd assume they'd know about that too).