Poor Applecare experience

[mikeo007]

A story and a warning. Specifically, this is for Canadian Apple customers. TLDR at bottom.

I just spent about 2 hours on the phone with various support agents attempting to get a (relatively) simple problem resolved. It's just a clicking fan, worn out bearings, whatever's causing it. I went through the motions of explaining the problem, got a case and everything else. Simple fix they told me, just bring it to an authorized Apple service center.

Here's the problem: I'm several hours from any Apple service center, which means a fair bit of fuel for a $10 fan repair, which is covered under warranty anyway. So I asked for my other options. They can't send the fan because it's not user replaceable (people don't know how to twist a torx screw?) That's their policy, so I'm fine with it, even if I don't agree. "Ok, so I'll just ship it to you" I said, even though I don't want to be without the computer for that long. Any company I've dealt with in the past will send me a box, postage paid and I pack in the computer and ship it out. "Yaaa.....no" was the response I got. Apple does not have any service depots in Canada. I can ship it to one of their authorized service centers, at my own cost though.

So I'm stuck either driving several hours, or paying for shipping for a warranty issue. Now in defence of the service reps, I do understand that their hands are tied, and the nice gentleman on the phone even offered me a free gift from the Apple store to compensate me for my travel/shipping costs, but unfortunately, my car doesn't run on magic mice and bluetooth keyboards.

TLDR: Canadian customers in rural areas: you have to pay for warranty support.

 

[ashman70]

The problem seems to me, to be the fact that you live in the country or a remote area. Different companies have different policies and to expect Apple to offer depot service for warrantied products is obviously your mistake. Apple caters to people who live in cities and suburbs, you might notice that from where they place their stores. If people in rural areas want Apple products they have two choices really, buy them online and pay shipping, or go to an Apple store and buy them. Your case is unfortunate being that the fan is faulty, however if you want it fixed you'll have to to Apple to get it fixed; at least its being fixed under warranty.

 

[iLog.Genius]

To clarify, do you have AppleCare? If you do, there is no cost to you for any repair regardless of area you're living in. There must be some confusion because if you are under AppleCare and there is a problem with your MacBook Pro, Apple should send you a box. As far as I know, most if not all repairs are sent to the service depot in Austin, Texas so it shouldn't matter that you live in Canada. I would call AppleCare again and hopefully you get another rep that might be more knowledgable.

 

[mikeo007]

The problem seems to me, to be the fact that you live in the country or a remote area. Different companies have different policies and to expect Apple to offer depot service for warrantied products is obviously your mistake. Apple caters to people who live in cities and suburbs, you might notice that from where they place their stores. If people in rural areas want Apple products they have two choices really, buy them online and pay shipping, or go to an Apple store and buy them. Your case is unfortunate being that the fan is faulty, however if you want it fixed you'll have to to Apple to get it fixed; at least its being fixed under warranty.

Apple will ship any US customer's computer in for service. The problem here is that they told me they can't do that in Canada. Any other company that I have dealt with, who sells in Canada, offers this option.

To clarify, do you have AppleCare? If you do, there is no cost to you for any repair regardless of area you're living in. There must be some confusion because if you are under AppleCare and there is a problem with your MacBook Pro, Apple should send you a box. As far as I know, most if not all repairs are sent to the service depot in Austin, Texas so it shouldn't matter that you live in Canada. I would call AppleCare again and hopefully you get another rep that might be more knowledgable.

Yes, I do have AppleCare, and my computer is also still under the original 1 year warranty before AppleCare kicks in. The information I was given was basically that Apple cannot ship my laptop from Canada to the USA and back again for repairs. I wasn't given any reason other than the fact that there were too many "issues at the border" for them to do this. I talked to a lot of different people, ending with some sort of senior tech support person, who sounded like he had dealt with this situation before. Just to clarify though, they don't want to charge for the repair, they just won't ship my computer out for repair, I have to drop it off.

 

[phpmaven]

I would just buy the fan online and install it yourself.

 

[trip1ex]

Don't live in the boonies.

Pay your few dollars and move on.

Find out where it says in Applecare policy that you have to pay shipping or not pay shipping and contact Apple again.

Get a computer that is supported locally in the boonies.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

Wirelessly posted (Johnny iphone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

@trip1ex
What's boonies???

Op: that sucks- in 7hrs drive- I can be in several different countries!

I would pull the taps n start crying on the phone- worked with samsung

 

[acedickson]

Wirelessly posted (Johnny iphone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

@trip1ex
What's boonies???

Op: that sucks- in 7hrs drive- I can be in several different countries!

I would pull the taps n start crying on the phone- worked with samsung

Boonies is slang for the middle of f&*&ing nowhere.

You're not driving to too many different countries though lol

 

[mikeo007]

I would just buy the fan online and install it yourself.

Thought about that, it voids the warranty apparently. RAM and HDD are the only things I'm allowed to touch inside the computer according to the agent.

 

[Just "Vinnie"]

Don't live in the boonies.

Some of you don't understand. The OP could live in the middle of Toronto and Apple still wouldn't send him a box. Canada is different than the States. The only remedy is taking warranty work to an authorized Apple Repair center there in Canada.

 

[Reflow]

Thought about that, it voids the warranty apparently. RAM and HDD are the only things I'm allowed to touch inside the computer according to the agent.

It's only 10 screws for the bottom shell then 3 screws for the fan. If you feel comfortable replacing HDD or ram this should be a piece of cake. It should only take you about 5 mins to replace, other wise you have a long trip just to get that fan fixed. Here are some instructions from iFixit on replacing the fan

 

[gtgrad95]

That's total BS. I would raise a stink. They should be bending over backwards for somebody who took the chance and cost to by Applecare. I can understand them saying that for a normal warranty repair, but for someone who has Applecare they should be moving mountains.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Now in defence of the service reps, I do understand that their hands are tied, and the nice gentleman on the phone even offered me a free gift from the Apple store to compensate me for my travel/shipping costs, but unfortunately, my car doesn't run on magic mice and bluetooth keyboards.

You title the post "Poor Applecare experience" but they offered you compensation. You live in a place they don't do much business. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any company to have repair services in every inch of the globe. I have a Denon A/V receiver that needed warranty service. Denon told me to ship it to N.J. (no local drop off even though I'm in a major U.S. city) on my dime and they'd fix it. That is really typical, not the exception.

But back to your experience, If it were me I'd take the MM or whatever, and sell it. They go for good money on eBay. I'd be willing to be the proceeds would more than cover shipping to a service center.

From what you write it seems to me that Apple customer service was really exceptional, offering compensation they did not have too. It would have been much easier for them to just say "Sorry Charlie" and leave you hanging. I agree it would be much easier if they emailed you a prepaid shipping label, but they still did more than what most other companies would do.

 

[dwhynman]

If they offered you a magic mouse or keyboard why don't you ship the computer to them and then when you get the "gift" sell it on amazon or e-bay and use that profit for the cost of shipping and you will probably come out with some extra in your pocket.

 

[mikeo007]

You title the post "Poor Applecare experience" but they offered you compensation. You live in a place they don't do much business. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any company to have repair services in every inch of the globe. I have a Denon A/V receiver that needed warranty service. Denon told me to ship it to N.J. (no local drop off even though I'm in a major U.S. city) on my dime and they'd fix it. That is really typical, not the exception.

But back to your experience, If it were me I'd take the MM or whatever, and sell it. They go for good money on eBay. I'd be willing to be the proceeds would more than cover shipping to a service center.

From what you write it seems to me that Apple customer service was really exceptional, offering compensation they did not have too. It would have been much easier for them to just say "Sorry Charlie" and leave you hanging. I agree it would be much easier if they emailed you a prepaid shipping label, but they still did more than what most other companies would do.

Maybe I'm just used to a different level of customer service, but I've never had this issue with warranty repairs before. I don't expect a service depot "in the boonies" but I would expect a shipping label. As 2 examples, both Dell and HP have sent me shipping labels without question to return computers for other simple problems to be fixed under warranty. A premium company like Apple should be ashamed to not offer a similar level of service, especially when they pride themselves on said service.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Maybe I'm just used to a different level of customer service, but I've never had this issue with warranty repairs before. I don't expect a service depot "in the boonies" but I would expect a shipping label. As 2 examples, both Dell and HP have sent me shipping labels without question to return computers for other simple problems to be fixed under warranty. A premium company like Apple should be ashamed to not offer a similar level of service, especially when they pride themselves on said service.

Sure, but they don't have a repair center so how can they send you a label? They have 3rd party authorized centers you can send your computer to, but there are legal reasons they cannot show preference over one or the other. So the best they can do is offer you a free item worth much more than the cost of postage to compensate you. Most "premium" companies would not go to that extent.

 

[Flood]

I had a similiar experience today with AppleCare Japan for the fan on my Radeon 5870 in my Mac Pro.

The fan had the same exact issue you described and even though I cleaned it out with compressed air it persisted. They wanted me to send the entire Mac Pro to them for testing which seemed like an incredible waste of time.

I told them I would need to remove all four drives since it has all my music work on them but they wanted me to leave the system disk in.

Finally I said forget it I'll just buy a new graphics card as this is just a waste of time. He said hold on he's going to talk to his supervisor and came back to say they are mailing me a new card and to just send the old one back with the delivery guy.

 

[rockyroad55]

A story and a warning. Specifically, this is for Canadian Apple customers. TLDR at bottom.

I just spent about 2 hours on the phone with various support agents attempting to get a (relatively) simple problem resolved. It's just a clicking fan, worn out bearings, whatever's causing it. I went through the motions of explaining the problem, got a case and everything else. Simple fix they told me, just bring it to an authorized Apple service center.

Here's the problem: I'm several hours from any Apple service center, which means a fair bit of fuel for a $10 fan repair, which is covered under warranty anyway. So I asked for my other options. They can't send the fan because it's not user replaceable (people don't know how to twist a torx screw?) That's their policy, so I'm fine with it, even if I don't agree. "Ok, so I'll just ship it to you" I said, even though I don't want to be without the computer for that long. Any company I've dealt with in the past will send me a box, postage paid and I pack in the computer and ship it out. "Yaaa.....no" was the response I got. Apple does not have any service depots in Canada. I can ship it to one of their authorized service centers, at my own cost though.

So I'm stuck either driving several hours, or paying for shipping for a warranty issue. Now in defence of the service reps, I do understand that their hands are tied, and the nice gentleman on the phone even offered me a free gift from the Apple store to compensate me for my travel/shipping costs, but unfortunately, my car doesn't run on magic mice and bluetooth keyboards.

TLDR: Canadian customers in rural areas: you have to pay for warranty support.

Why don't you sell the free gift and recoup the travel costs?

 

[rikscha]

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Whenever I had a problem with my Mac, Apple always offered me to have it picked up by UPS. Very strange. I thought this was their usual way of solving these kind of problems. Now, I do not live in a remote area (Suburbs London) but I would assume that UPS can find their way to your house.

 

[mikeo007]

Why don't you sell the free gift and recoup the travel costs?

That's the plan, it's already sold!

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Whenever I had a problem with my Mac, Apple always offered me to have it picked up by UPS. Very strange. I thought this was their usual way of solving these kind of problems. Now, I do not live in a remote area (Suburbs London) but I would assume that UPS can find their way to your house.

This is the main reason why I'm disappointed. If It was a rule that nobody in Canada could ship these things off to be repaired, I'd understand (although I'd still be bothered). But the fact that it's just my situation, kind of irks me. I've got it all sorted out now, repair will be done under warranty and I have my gas paid for. I'll still waste a lot of time between taking a day off and talking on the phone for hours, but at least I'll recoup some of the cost. Still, be forewarned, it could happen to you.

 

[sn]

That's total BS. I would raise a stink. They should be bending over backwards for somebody who took the chance and cost to by Applecare. I can understand them saying that for a normal warranty repair, but for someone who has Applecare they should be moving mountains.

this. their response seems a little "you're holding it wrong" to me.

 

[Criticalmass]

Apple will ship any US customer's computer in for service. The problem here is that they told me they can't do that in Canada. Any other company that I have dealt with, who sells in Canada, offers this option.

I know of one other company that does this as well, because I work for them. So this is not as uncommon as you think it is. Apple just doesn't have a Depot center in Canada apparently. I thought they did, as I had a friend who had her macbook air sent in to a depot center 2 times because it was overheating, but maybe they sent it to a U.S. depot center.