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ProCare: Biggest ripoff ever?

C

chicagdan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 3, 2002
723
0
Chicago, IL
Are there any satisfied customers of Apple Store ProCare? What's the point of it? At least they should let you jump to the head of the line at the Genius Bar for your $99 ... all it does is let you schedule 7 days in advance. BFD.

Other than that, what does it give you? File transfers already built into OS-X? Personalized training for software a monkey could use? Somewhere in Cupertino there's a master idiots-who'll-buy-anything list and ProCare buyers are at the top.

And, yes, I'm one of the idiots.
 
chicagdan said:
Are there any satisfied customers of Apple Store ProCare? What's the point of it? At least they should let you jump to the head of the line at the Genius Bar for your $99 ... all it does is let you schedule 7 days in advance. BFD.

Other than that, what does it give you? File transfers already built into OS-X? Personalized training for software a monkey could use? Somewhere in Cupertino there's a master idiots-who'll-buy-anything list and ProCare buyers are at the top.

And, yes, I'm one of the idiots.
Click to expand...

I thought ProCare was some additional warranty (like at site service etc .. ) on applecare but quickly realized it was not the case! anyway try and use what ever the benifits that you can get out of the whole thing!
 
budugu said:
I thought ProCare was some additional warranty (like at site service etc .. ) on applecare but quickly realized it was not the case! anyway try and use what ever the benifits that you can get out of the whole thing!
Click to expand...

I know, I'm just going to start making stuff up. Maybe there's a cute woman at the genius bar who I can schedule for a long, tedious task. (ProCare entitles you to pick your genius bar helper.) Or maybe I'll ask them to program a whole bunch of Apple Scripts for me ... see if they'll do it. Come to think of it, I'm going to abuse this stupid black card like crazy ... if anyone has a question they'd like answered, give it to me, I'm taking it to the genius bar. The crazier the better.
 
I couldn't agree more. One year of free warranty is enough for me. That's when the teething problems generally occur. *Waits for both Macs to blow up simultaneously within the next five minutes*
 
mad jew said:
I couldn't agree more. One year of free warranty is enough for me. That's when the teething problems generally occur. *Waits for both Macs to blow up simultaneously within the next five minutes*
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Oh I'm not even complaining about Apple Care, that's a whole other issue. Dot-mac too. Those are lower levels of rip off compared to ProCare. ProCare literally gives you no benefits for $99. This is what you get for your money:

With ProCare, you’ll get added benefits over and above our standard level of service:

Personal Training. Book free, one-hour training sessions to take your skills further. (Yeah, that's where my "hey, do you know how to program Apple scripts or Automator" questions will come in handy.)

Reserve a Genius. Use our online Apple Store Concierge to make a reservation, up to seven-days in advance. (Scout the store for cute geniuses and schedule them, otherwise this is worthless.)

Rapid Repairs. Get priority, next-day turnaround on in-store repairs. (99 percent of issues are handled that minute, never mind next day.)

Complete setup. We’ll transfer your old files and get you ready to roll before you leave the store. (Give me a firewire cable and I can do this myself.)
 
Sorry to revive this thread, but the value of pro care is related to the value of your time. My time is extraordinarily valuable (not sure if thats a good or bad thing)... It is economically ridiculous for me to do my own home repairs, wait longer for repairs, or even mow my own lawn. But 4 years ago, i would never have even considered it. I have, however, had the same repair done twice on my computer, and when i used pro care it was exponentially faster.
 
Since this thread was created, ProCare has split into two components:

1. One-to-One: hour-long training sessions ($99)
2. ProCare: advanced scheduling, RAPID REPAIRS, and all of this on up to three machines (before it was just for one CPU)
 
chicagdan said:
Are there any satisfied customers of Apple Store ProCare? What's the point of it? At least they should let you jump to the head of the line at the Genius Bar for your $99 ... all it does is let you schedule 7 days in advance. BFD.

Other than that, what does it give you? File transfers already built into OS-X? Personalized training for software a monkey could use? Somewhere in Cupertino there's a master idiots-who'll-buy-anything list and ProCare buyers are at the top.

And, yes, I'm one of the idiots.
Click to expand...

For competent Mac users, at least, there's no benefit. I think Apple marketed ProCare to older users with $ to burn.

Habitus :apple:
 
If your machine is your life and you can get next day turnaround times for desktops and 2-3 days for laptops (if it needs to be sent out) -- that is well worth $99. For business computers, it can mean minimal down time.

For some business users who are persuasive, Apple will even give you a loaner machine until yours comes back.
 
If you use the service, it's valuable. If you don't use the service, it's a "rip off". Seems pretty standard to me - sounds like you thought it was something other than it was when you bought it, then realized your mistake afterwards.

to me, ProCare is designed for people who don't know how to use their computer or are new to Apple products. Grand parents needing to know how to use iPhoto or adults who want to learn the basics of iMovie with the help of a semi-knowledgeable person will get use out of it.

I mean seriously, for $100, you get to schedule lessons with Apple store employees for a full year - and when you find the employee you like and who knows their stuff you can specify them... seems like a good deal to me - if you use it (I wouldn't, but I know it's not designed for me).

edit: I just realized I'm still operating under the understanding of ProCare as the hour long training sessions... but it has since been changed to One-to-One. Based off previous responses, I'm unsure which one this thread is discussing - so I'll leave my response with the caveat that I'm really talking about One-to-One.
 
This thread was created when it was both. Now there are two separate services.

One-to-one is wildly successful and Apple cannot keep up with demand (and has limited its purchase to when you buy a CPU, not on its own). It may not be for you, but it is for a LOT of other people.
 
BrianKonarsMac said:
to me, ProCare is designed for people who don't know how to use their computer or are new to Apple products. Grand parents needing to know how to use iPhoto or adults who want to learn the basics of iMovie with the help of a semi-knowledgeable person will get use out of it.
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I think a lot of people forget that the $99/year One-to-One membership allows you to get trained/introduced to ALL Apple software, regardless of if you own it or not.

This includes the Pro apps, as well as their "Express" versions.
 
I'm considering a procare membership but havn't because i'm waiting to get another mac in the house.

I'm no noob. I work in IT, I have a copy of the *certified tech only* ASD for my specific model (got it from our Apple guys at work :D), TechTool 5, Drive Genius 2 and Disk Warrior. Each has saved my bacon atleast once.

The only thing I can't do myself is authorize repairs.

So that means I have to trot down to the Apple store, and while it's relatively close by, sometimes the availability is kind of wack.

More often than not I come in already with a diagnosis and I make it clear that i've already done the troubleshooting.

And for me my time might not = money but it does affect my sanity since i'm 100% paperless. I have seperate machines at my disposal but I don't have seperates of MY machine at my disposal, and since I only have one license of certian big ticket programs and certian security measures in place, it's better if I have my machine working properly.
 
I saw this and I guess for some people it's good. What I do agree with is:

"Schedule appointments for technical support at the Genius Bar up to 14 days in advance. Since only ProCare members get access to every available time slot, it’s easy to get a time that works for you."

and

"If you have a quick technical question or need to drop off a repair, just flash your ProCare card. You’ll skip right to the head of the line at the Genius Bar — and we’ll take care of the rest."

So if I make an appointment on line and do stuff right, someone with ProCare can just take my appointment place just because they paid for it? I think that is poor customer service.
 
Primejimbo said:
So if I make an appointment on line and do stuff right, someone with ProCare can just take my appointment place just because they paid for it? I think that is poor customer service.
Click to expand...
At the store near me, except for maybe the last hour of business, they have additional Geniuses working in the Back-of-House (doing the technical repairs that they won't perform on the Genius Bar, like replacing hard drives, logicboard, screens, etc). They will stop doing the "behind-the-scenes" repairs long enough to pop out and help the rare ProCare member, without disrupting the appointments of non-ProCare customers.
 
guitarhap said:
My time is extraordinarily valuable (not sure if thats a good or bad thing)... It is economically ridiculous for me to do my own home repairs, wait longer for repairs, or even mow my own lawn.
Click to expand...

Great to see you spend all your extraordinarily valuable time here on a message board.
 
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