therawr

Ok, well, I decided I wanted to write this today.

This issue *really* bugs me, it really pisses me off.

I’m going to start off by saying that I’ve always had great service at this store, and their Genius Bar has always been helpful and knowledgeable and I had an amazing experience with Apple through their AppleCare service when I had some problems with my MacBook.

We brought Brett’s MacBook in for repair, specifically the screen (based on a defect of the plastic macbook’s casing rubbing on the screen and scuffing it when closed) and the chipping/cracking of the bezel around the screen and the keyboard casing from being closed too hard (covered as it’s a common issue).

We were taken in by a genius bar employee at the time of our appointment and he took our info and filled out the repair order, told us it would be mailed out for repair and would take about 7 days to be completed.

7 days later we had had no contact at all from apple about the status of our repair, no email with the info, no call about completion or anything, nothing at all.

So we took our repair order/receipt and looked it up online finally to see if it just wasn’t ready yet… and we came to find that it had completed repair the same day we brought it in, and had not been mailed anywhere, and 7 days had passed and apple hadn’t done anything to contact us…

Great.

So we go in to pick it up, I get the machine in my hands, open it up to inspect it, notice the screen was not repaired, they said that it wasn’t covered under the warranty, I told them that they lied to me about it being mailed out for repair and had not contacted us at all about the machine being finished so we were out the laptop for 7 days. The Genius bar employee even went so far as to tell me that emails and calls were NOT apple’s usual practice for machine repairs.

BULLSHIT

Let me tell you that this specific store and the on the phone applecare had done BOTH of those things for me multiple times with my iPhone 3G AND my black MacBook.

HE LIED TO MY FACE!

This guy then had the nerve that when I told him he was lying to say the same thing over AGAIN!

We could have just waited a half hour for the keyboard to be replaced (which we had done in the past for the same issue, common on white plastic macbooks), and that any machine with a screw on the side that has no structural purpose could not be denied warranty based on it’s own lack of structural integrity.  To my surprise they agreed that it was an issue and their incompetency was reason enough to do the repair, warranty or not.  So the manager began to take our information again, and we find out they had the wrong phone number, great.  Got that corrected, and when she was typing the incident report for the repair, instead of typing ‘through’ she typed ‘threw’.

Are you fucking kidding me? Oh my god.

So I had her correct that, she appologized, said it was a long day, I can sympathize, but not the time to be making huge mistakes on a report with a pissed off customer to your side.

So we were told *again* that the machine would be *mailed out to a depot* for repair because they don’t have the screen repair tools or parts in the store.

So this time they emailed us right away with the info, *and* called us to tell us it was ready 4 days later (4 days? that’s a lot shorter than the quoted 7 days….?).

So we go to pick it up, this is the same day as Planny and LBP btw.

I get the machine back in my hands and inspect it, unnaceptable.  The easiest way of putting this would be to say they *dropped* the machine while doing the repair or didn’t even put it back together correctly.  Huge gaps in the plastic casing, the hinge wasn’t attached correctly and the plastic on the back there was sticking out 5-6mm from the display casing, not to mention the bezel on the display wouldn’t click down correctly as if the clips were broken, and the whole top casing was tilted 2-3mm on all sides because it was off of it’s track.  At this point I knew I would have to call in for this to be fixed, because I didn’t want to deal with the store again at all costs.  Which is sad, because I know 5 people that work there and neither of them were able to help me… Mack, Fergel, Colin, Eric, Arian, oh well…

So yesterday I got on the phone with AppleCare, told them the deal was connected promptly to the repair depot dispatch, where he took my info and was unable to locate my repair in his system as going to the depot, so he sent me to a product specialist, who said i should be with a depot dispatch, but instead sent me to a technical support rep, who 3-way called me with a customer support/retention rep to get all the info straight, and then we were able to find out that the machine was repaired in house *again* and not mailed out as I had been told, so I found out the Genius Bar guy lied to me, and the manager lied to me, again.  Awesome.  And the customer service/retention reps now know that they lied to me in the store, and are totally taken aback by the fact that I was told that email and calling is *not* standard apple practic and that they lied to me and typo’d ‘through’ with ‘threw’.  They were very amazed at this, and have written up the store for misconduct and overnighted a repair box to Brett’s house, which we received today, on schedule, and were emailed all the status and tracking info right away.  They even took our phone numbers again to make sure everything was correct after the store messed those up.

So on the phone they were motivated to keep me as a customer and right their wrong and take care of the situation and right the wrongs of the store.

So today after Brett left my house and we packed up MacBook I met with a friend to have some spots on my car buffed, and after we were done I drove to DHL, come to find that it closes at 4 on every day but friday when it is open till 6.  Awesome, so I still have the MacBook in the back of my car, I’ll drop it off tomorrow morning before class.

So that’s where we stand right now with this repair, I’ve been lied to at the retail store, but totally taken care of on the phone.  I know where I’m taking my business in the future.  It’s really too bad, they totally took care of me with my iPhone 3G but have completely dropped the ball on this repair.

I’ll have pictures later, I’m still going through them for resizing and such.

Here’s one I have now, a little blurry sorry, but it shows the worst of the damage to the MacBook.  Note that all of this is supposed to be flush and smooth, not jaged and broken and separated.

this is how it came back to us, it was fine before the repair.