Tuesday June 3
 
12:24
 
How Is This For Crazy Customer Service?

On 11th May I bought a new iMac. A week or so later, I noticed irregular fan noise. After comparing with other iMacs in the store and hearing no similar sound, I decided to take my Mac back. Under Apple’s rules, a machine that has problems within 14 days will be replaced with a new one.

Apple said that the noise was “within normal limits”, so they wouldn’t replace the 10 day old machine. They would, they said, replace the fans however. When I queried the decision, they told me they had compared it directly with another iMac in their workshop (same building). I asked if I could hear that comparison myself and they refused.

This seemed deeply suspicious - why would they agree to replace the fans if there was no problem? Why would they refuse a comparison of my machine with another? A comparison would surely clear up whether there was problem or not.

I wasn’t particularly pleased about repairing a 10 day old machine, but Apple gave me no other option. I was even less pleased when to be told I’d have to lug the machine back home, then come back again when the fans were in stock. Apple could collect and deliver, they told me, but I would be without the machine for up to 5 days.

So I lugged the machine back home, and then on Friday I lugged it back to the Apple store. A 24″ iMac isn’t a light beast, you know.

On Saturday I returned back to the Apple store to pick up the machine. I carried it back home and promptly opened it - eager to hear whether it was now quieter.

Imaging my horror that before I even got it plugged in, I noticed that the screen was dirty on the INSIDE. Big streaks inside the glass on the front of the iMac - presumable from wiping the screen with a dirty cloth - and no way I could remove them. After two trips lugging an almost new (now 3 weeks) iMac to and from the Apple store, I would have to take it back once more to be cleaned.

It was 8.30pm and the store closed at 9, so I didn’t have time to pack the iMac up and take it back to the store - but I did race back there myself. The staff there change daily, so I wanted someone who was familiar with my machine, and I wanted to raise the issue immediately.

At the Apple Store, I was told that I should bring the machine back for them to clean the screen (surprise surprise) - but that it could take “a few days” because “you didn’t book it in and we don’t know what the workload of the technicians is”. I shouldn’t need to book it in. It shouldn’t need cleaning.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say I was fuming. A machine which has a problem within 14 days should be replaced according to Apple’s rules (told to me verbally when calling the Apple support line). I’d accepted a fan replacement because they had denied a machine replacement. Now after carrying the machine back and forward twice, I would be forced to do it again, and be without the machine for several days.

After pointing this out to the manager several times, eventually he agreed to replace the machine completely. As you’ll recall, I was concerned about getting a machine with a bad LCD pixel when I bought my iMac, so once again I asked explicitly if I could check the replacement machine. He agreed.

And there was a bad pixel on the screen.

The manager’s response: One bad pixel is “within normal limits” (that phrase again). We will not open another iMac for you to check. Either you accept this machine or refund.

I tried to reason with him: Obviously I wont accept a machine that I know has a bad pixel. So I should refund and then come back to buy again? That means another iMac will be opened anyway, so why not just open one now?

He wouldn’t budge and the store was closing, so I returned home. Before packing up the iMac I switched it on to check the fan noise and was greeted with a huge racket. From the fan? No. After bootup I found that the technicians had left in an Apple diagnostic DVD. So not only had they not bothered to clean the glass properly, but they hadn’t even removed their test DVD.

Next morning I returned to the store with my iMac. This time there was a different manager in store, a senior manager apparently. I explained to him what had happened, explained that I would rather stay with Apple because if I refund the machine, I would be forced to abandon Apple completely and return to Windows. He offered to open another iMac to check the screen.

Thankfully the new iMac had no screen problems. Half an hour later, memory swapped over and the assurance that they would zero-format the old hard drive (I could come back 8 hours later to check), I was leaving the store with the new machine. Shortly after that, the machine was plugged in and restoring my previous iMac setup from Time Machine.

The thing that gets me about this isn’t that Apple didn’t replace the machine after 10 days. It’s the shoddy repair service and the response of “accept a machine with a bad pixel or refund”.

What confidence can one have in Apple’s repair service if they leave the inside of a screen dirty and don’t even take out diagnostic DVDs?

What sense does it make to say “accept a machine with a bad pixel [in exchange for your machine which had a perfect screen before we cocked it up] or refund” - especially when I could refund and buy another one, rather than accepting one I know that has a bad pixel.

In the end, I have my new iMac, it’s working well, and I’m pleased that I don’t have to return to a Windows only world. I’m also pleased that I got lucky and talked with a manager who sorted out the issue rather than aggravated it. It’s not all rosy though. I now have less confidence in Apple’s repair service and quality control. Eyal’s MacBook Pro video display died recently after an Apple firmware update, and from searching around the forums looking for others that had the same issue, it seems that Apple has instructed some people out of warranty that they need to pay to get the issue fixed. Further, it seems that every time Apple bumps a version of the operating system (eg 10.4 to 10.5), a bunch of software breaks - software that shouldn’t break, such as Adobe Lightroom, Nikon Capture DX (”a data loss bug”), etc.

Mac just works - so we have been told. I notice today that I can’t find such a reference on the Apple website, except limiting it to wireless and things you connect to your mac: “Unlike other computers that require you to spend hours configuring devices, a Mac connects to your digital camera, wireless device, or external drive and just works. Really.” If Apple are not careful with their quality control, they’ll slip down the track of being as dodgy as Windows.