Resolved Shocking treatment from Apple, lied to, conned, and wrong machine back! Please Read!!

[harcosparky]

I'm not entirely sure, but I wouldn't be surprised. The way they act, you would think that the money for the part is coming out of their pocket, and that it is such a hassle for them, and basically trying every option to get out of repairing it. I'm not sure if it's just a bad store as every one of my friends who uses this store has had the same treatment.

When I went in for the second repair, the genius said that it was more than likely caused by smoking, to which I answered "I don't smoke, never have, never will". He then had the cheek to reply "Oh it's just that it's got a yellowish tinge and I can actually smell nicotine off the machine" Those were his exact words. I don't see why the manager and sales staff are among some of the best in retail, yet when it comes to the genius bar, every single one of them has a chip on their shoulder and doesn't want to help if it means new parts.

There was one female who I dealt with before whose attitude was so bad I had to leave the store before losing my temper. It was regarding the bezel and I asked how long it would take, she was very snappy and I told her that this is my only machine and I need it for my work and she said "Well you can't just expect to come in and get it done straight away, there are other customers you know?" Absolutely shocking, and not what I expected at all from Apple employees.

I took my iMac in because the HDD was causing me intermittent grief.

It was under warranty.

When I went to pick it up they gave me the paperwork.

They replaced the HDD, LCD, and Logic Board.

I asked what happened and this was the exchange .....

" Tech noticed a tint on one corner of the LCD, do you smoke? "

NO, I do not smoke.

" No problem, we replaced the LCD to a newer version for you. When the Tech was doing a test he noticed one USB port seemed 'loose' so we replaced the Logic board as well. Oh and as you suspected the HDD was going bad, replaced that too! "


NEXT I inspected the iMac and noticed a 'nick' on the back edge of the case, manager checked paperwork and saw no mention of any damage when it was accepted for repair and offered to replace the case.

Basically ended up with a new iMac when all I wanted was the HDD replaced.

In my experience a good attitude on my part, brings about a good attitude on Apples part .... at least when dealing with them in person.

 

[Detosx]

I took my iMac in because the HDD was causing me intermittent grief.

It was under warranty.

When I went to pick it up they gave me the paperwork.

They replaced the HDD, LCD, and Logic Board.

I asked what happened and this was the exchange .....

" Tech noticed a tint on one corner of the LCD, do you smoke? "

NO, I do not smoke.

" No problem, we replaced the LCD to a newer version for you. When the Tech was doing a test he noticed one USB port seemed 'loose' so we replaced the Logic board as well. Oh and as you suspected the HDD was going bad, replaced that too! "


NEXT I inspected the iMac and noticed a 'nick' on the back edge of the case, manager checked paperwork and saw no mention of any damage when it was accepted for repair and offered to replace the case.

Basically ended up with a new iMac when all I wanted was the HDD replaced.

In my experience a good attitude on my part, brings about a good attitude on Apples part .... at least when dealing with them in person.

Hi harcosparky, thank you for sharing that. All that for a hard drive?!

Before handing it in had you yourself noticed a tint and were you in the habit of regularly plugging and unplugging USB devices and had you noticed a loose USB socket?

Replacement of the USB socket's damaged circuit board, that 'nick' and replaced screen... did the iMac fall while plugged into a USB hard drive running Apple Service Diagnostic?! Unlikely, and please don't refer to my wildly unhelpful speculation, but on the topic of customers getting the blame for things, having worked in service departments and retail management I have heard so many stories (not about Apple) where customers were blamed by a service department because of screw ups by overworked/stressed techs. Taking your experience at face value, though, Apple are probably well within their rights to ask owners if they smoke but good on you for inspecting your Mac before taking it away and finding that nick. Keeping a civil tone works wonders all round but, if you feel something wasn't quite right about the way you were treated (and certainly they should have noticed that nick that wasn't identified as being there on receipt of your iMac), I would politely write to the Glasgow store manager and Apple with the names on your service paperwork, not just because I suspect you might get more than just an apology but mainly because it could help sort out the Glasgow store's problems. That is assuming there is a pattern that needs to be resolved rather than a number of isolated incidents.

 

[harcosparky]

H

Before handing it in had you yourself noticed a tint and were you in the habit of regularly plugging and unplugging USB devices and had you noticed a loose USB socket?

No I did not notice any 'tint', but then again any tint would have occurred over time and may not have been immediately noticeable to me but to someone who saw it for the first time it would have been. Perhaps if I had fired up my iMac next to a new one to compare I would have noticed.

I did notice that the screen looked a lot better when I got it back.

USB port being loose? Yeah you could say my USB ports are heavily used and I do recall an incident or two where a plugged in device was knocked to the floor yanking the cable out of the socket. Did I notice it being loose? No not so much loose but I did at times in the past think some cables were not as easy to insert as others but did not attribute it to a single port.

I did make some usage changes as for USB. I know have an extension to the front of the iMac and plug devices into that and not the port on the back of the iMac.

The Apple Store I went to was in the states.