let down by Apple on Beats headphones

[sadappleday]

I'm a lifelong Apple fan, my memorable purchases include the 64gb iPod with the scroll wheel and hard drive, the iPhone, 3G, 4, 4S, 5, 5S, 6, 6s, and 7. I also have Macbook pro and Macbook air, and iPad mini 2, iPad 4 and 5.

So I've spent a lot of money on Apple products and always felt Apple was worth the premium because of the excellent customer service. Unfortunately that seems to be no longer the case with Apple and I've decided against buying any more Apple products.

Here's what happened. I purchased the Beats Powerbeat 3 from CostCo in March, and the Beats X from Best Buy in April. Both Beats headphones came with 3 months of free Apple Play music, or an equivalent value of $30 that is applied to your iTunes account. So net net I was due to get $60 worth of iTunes credit. However, the Beats registration web page had issues during code redemption. I reached out to Apple and they said to be wait until the website issues were resolved, in mid April. This was a well known issue and discussed on Apple discussion forums (you can google "beats redeem apple music and you will see the threads discussing this issue).

Based on that, I decided to chill and not worry about it. I got busy with other stuff, travel, kid's graduation, summer vacation, etc. Finally last week I decided to follow up on this, and called Apple again because the website had not worked for me the few times I had tried in the weeks after. Much to my surprise, the Apple support agent told me the promotion had expired 5/19. There was no such notice or information in the Beats promotional materials. I assumed that Apple and Beats being multi-billion dollar companies which charged premium prices, that it would be no problem to get my issue resolved.

I escalated and was told repeatedly by senior Apple customer support agents that there was nothing they could do. So I was effectively out of $60 in iTunes credits, thanks to Apple's website issues, and their lack of customer support.

I am amazed and blown away by the callousness of the Apple support. I expected far better customer service than this blatant disregard for fairness and customer service.

I can't believe the most profitable company in history, due to the its customers paying a premium for the products, would screw over its loyal customers this way.

I wanted to spread the word and warn people about the new Apple, which seems to be more concerned with profits than doing the right thing with its customers. I will no longer buy any more Apple products, which is a sad day indeed because I've been a loyal Apple customer for such a long time. The principle of this matter is what matters, and it's sad and infuriating that Apple has changed so much since Steve Jobs left the company.

 

[sadappleday]

This is rich... I complained along with other Apple customers on the Apple communities board (discussions.apple.com), and Apple removed my post along with other customers' posts:

We’ve removed your post Not working: redeem Apple Music code by registering in Beats by Dre because it contained a non-constructive rant or complaint.

It's a sad day indeed Apple.

 

[sunapple]

because it contained a non-constructive rant or complaint.

Also how I read it.

Sure you didn't receive your 60 bucks of free credit. But now you just decide to never buy their products again? You were a fan for so long and now it's all over because of something this small?

That's definetely a rant.

"Steve Jobs would never.." Yeah, you blew it.

 

[Absrnd]

Wow that is an impressive list of Apple devices you have bought,
And because of that impressive list you should have gotten preferential treatment from apple !

But the sad truth is you...forgot..., and were expecting a promotion on an Apple device would even be honored, months later or even years later, No..they do not.

And even sadder is the fact with even that impressive list of Apple devices, you never told Siri....He Siri, remind me in a weeks time

Maybe this forum can help you out
https://androidforums.com/
We all at this Apple forum wlll ...miss...you

 

[sadappleday]

Also how I read it.

Sure you didn't receive your 30 bucks of free credit. But now you just decide to never buy their products again? You were a fan for so long and now it's all over because of something this small?

That's definetely a rant.

"Steve Jobs would never.." Yeah, you blew it.

Yes it's small, but it's the principle of the thing. If you agree it's small, why wouldn't Apple just do the right thing and treat its customers right? If Apple is going to screw the customers over something this small, how will they treat customers when something major comes up?
[doublepost=1497692187][/doublepost]

Wow that is an impressive list of Apple devices you have bought,
And because of that impressive list you should have gotten preferential treatment from apple !

But the sad truth is you...forgot..., and were expecting a promotion on an Apple device would even be honored, months later or even years later, No..they do not.

And even sadder is the fact with even that impressive list of Apple devices, you never told Siri....He Siri, remind me in a weeks time

Maybe this forum can help you out
https://androidforums.com/
We all at this Apple forum wlll ...miss...you

Sorry, you apparently missed the part that there was no expiration noted on the promotion in the Beats box. None. Myself and other Apple customers were unaware, and we let Apple fix the website so we could redeem the codes. Never would we dream that Apple would arbitrarily declare a date as expiration for the promo, not even when its own website was not working to allow customers to redeem the code.

Amazing how you can defend Apple, even when Apple is in the wrong here. It is very sad, apparently when Apple can do no wrong, in the eyes of many Apple customers, until it impacts you personally and you are screwed out of something. Good luck to you as well.

 

[keysofanxiety]

There was no such notice or information in the Beats promotional materials.

Terms & conditions. Because it would have been listed in there, guaranteed. Or there would have been a little star* at the end. No company accompanies a promotion with the finer inconveniences of their T&Cs clearly listed in big red writing. Sucks if you didn't know, but the information would've been there.

https://www.beatsbydre.com/company/promotion-terms

Basically Apple told you to try again in a week or two. You waited over two months and now you're upset because the promotion expired and you weren't aware of this.

Even with the wealth of your Apple purchases it was somehow difficult to set a Siri reminder, or an alarm, or to Google search the promotion terms on any of your thousand devices.

Truthfully it's a bit of a kicker it happened, but your petulant rant and the "Steve Jobs wouldn't have..." along with the precursor of how many Apple products you bought (which you think should enable you to get special treatment if things don't go your way?) isn't allowing anybody here sympathy for your cause.

 

[Absrnd]

Amazing how you can defend Apple, even when Apple is in the wrong here. It is very sad, apparently when Apple can do no wrong, in the eyes of many Apple customers, until it impacts you personally and you are screwed out of something. Good luck to you as well.

I am not defending Apple, they are a business like any other business, and YOU should have contacted Apple and not forgotten about it,
sometimes things don't work as they should, but You should have kept an eye on it yourself.

 

[sadappleday]

I am not defending Apple, they are a business like any other business, and YOU should have contacted Apple and not forgotten about it,
sometimes things don't work as they should, but You should have kept an eye on it yourself.

Perhaps you didn't read. I did contact Apple and was told to wait until the site was fixed. There was NO mention of May 19th deadline. I'm not one to obsess over trying to redeem $30 daily. I gave it a try every couple weeks and figured Apple would fix it sooner or later, and never dreamed it would be an issue. This was not my fault...Apple's site didn't work, they didn't disclose May 19th deadline. Now they won't own up to doing the right thing.
[doublepost=1497693099][/doublepost]

Terms & conditions. Because it would have been listed in there, guaranteed. Or there would have been a little star* at the end. No company accompanies a promotion with the finer inconveniences of their T&Cs clearly listed in big red writing. Sucks if you didn't know, but the information would've been there.

https://www.beatsbydre.com/company/promotion-terms

Basically Apple told you to try again in a week or two. You waited over two months and now you're upset because the promotion expired and you weren't aware of this.

Even with the wealth of your Apple history purchase it was somehow difficult to set a Siri reminder, or an alarm, or to Google search the promotion terms on any of your thousand devices.

Truthfully it's a bit painful it happened, but your petulant rant and the "Steve Jobs wouldn't have..." along with the precursor of how many Apple products you bought (which you think should enable you to get special treatment if things don't go your way?) isn't allowing anybody here sympathy for your cause.

Assumptions.. you know what they say about that. I followed and tried to redeem every couple of weeks, but didn't think that there would be an undeclared deadline that we would be screwed by. Learn to read and understand, instead of accusing.

Besides, this is Apple we're talking about, right? known for legendary good customer service? When something is messed up, especially if it's on Apples' part (website not working), you take it for granted that Apple would make it right. The fact they didn't, is what makes this shocking. We're not talking about some random Chinese company that screws over its customers...this is Apple and Beats, billion dollar companies that charge premium prices for premium customer service, or used to be.

So now that Apple resorts to screwing its customers over, you don't care and you will defend Apple and blame the customer... how very sad.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Assumptions.. you know what they say about that. I followed and tried to redeem every couple of weeks, but didn't think that there would be an undeclared deadline that we would be screwed by. Learn to read and understand, instead of accusing.

Funny you're the one telling me to learn to read and understand as there would have been T&Cs stating that deadline date. That's not an assumption, that's fact. But let's get back to the original point.

When Apple told you to try again in mid/late April, did you try again then and it still wasn't working? If so, you can give the original case number when you logged the call to say the redeem website wasn't working and then the time(s) you tried it again as you were advised. Maybe they might reconsider a refund.

Otherwise if you held off for a few months then I'm not sure I can suggest anything further. Sucks I'm afraid but nothing you can expect from there. Sorry.

 

[sunapple]

Yes it's small, but it's the principle of the thing. If you agree it's small, why wouldn't Apple just do the right thing and treat its customers right? If Apple is going to screw the customers over something this small, how will they treat customers when something major comes up?
[doublepost=1497692187][/doublepost]
Sorry, you apparently missed the part that there was no expiration noted on the promotion in the Beats box. None. Myself and other Apple customers were unaware, and we let Apple fix the website so we could redeem the codes. Never would we dream that Apple would arbitrarily declare a date as expiration for the promo, not even when its own website was not working to allow customers to redeem the code.

Amazing how you can defend Apple, even when Apple is in the wrong here. It is very sad, apparently when Apple can do no wrong, in the eyes of many Apple customers, until it impacts you personally and you are screwed out of something. Good luck to you as well.

Hey, Apple definitely makes mistakes, you can read all about them on the forums. Point is that you're making a huge deal out of something so small which comes across as just sad. You made a new account, your username and avatar refer to it, you threaten to give up on Apple AND you made it your mission telling everyone your story because Apple has become evil.

That's just excessive man, it's hard for anyone to take you serious this way.

You had ONE bad experience and your problems are far less worse than other people's experiences on this topic, deal with it accordingly.
[doublepost=1497696943][/doublepost]Get this: I bought BeatsX on the 13th of February and totally forgot about the redemption code which has now expired. I don't really care for the credit but now I wish I had just entered the code when I had the chance. Sucks, I too thought it wouldn't expire within a year and I only realize it now because of this topic.

The mistake that we made was not looking for that expiration date. If we did happen to think to look for one, we'd have found it in the Terms & Conditions, I quote:

Promotional Period: From December 1, 2016 until May 19, 2017 (the “Promo Period”).

- as found on beatsbydre.com/register under the terms & conditions which are mentioned under the AM redemption code

Look, if it was placed on the actual code card it would've been much clearer. The website not working for some time makes it more unfortunate. But I never actually visited the website to register my product because I didn't care for that and so I couldn't have found out about the terms. That's my own fault.

 

[matrix07]

I understand the OP gripe. I really do. I used to have problem redeeming iTunes gift card once. iTunes seemed to hang when I hit Redeem and kept telling me to wait for like 10 minutes, so I decided to do it all over again only to be told my card was already redeemed but the amount in my balance wasn't changed.
That $50 gone in a blink of an eye.

I'm not sure then how Apple would react to my problem. If they couldn't fix it I swore I would cancel Apple Music for 5 months (the equivalent of my $50 gone). Luckily they were able to check and fix it.

I would recommend the OP to just cancel Apple Music for 6 months (equivalent of your $60 that's been lost), or if you're not a subscriber yet just postpone subscription for another 6 months (using free Spotify in the mean time). It might sound like you're punishing yourself but like you said, sometimes we need to do it out of principle.

In your case it's really not your fault you trust Apple but it's also not Apple fault the promotion expires the day it's supposed to expire. Even if Apple CS want to refund you they wouldn't know how. Where will they draw this fund from? They were just as helpless as you.