Change of heart after buying a macbook pro!

I'm going to be as emotionally detached as possible while writing this, so I only state the facts about what has happened.

I bought my mac book pro 13" in the middle of Sep, 2010. I was very pleased with the on time delivery and couldn't wait to start using it. I am in an MBA program at Queen's University in Canada and had a lot of interviews in the fall. One time I was traveling to Calgary, and I decided to bring my mac with me. This is within the first month of purchase, and the charger just stopped working completely. I was stuck in the airport for 5 hours without a computer (did I mention that this mac's battery only last like 2 and a half hours?) then when I got to Calgary I immediately went to their genius store and fortunately was able to get a replacement for the charger, so it was fine. As I was traveling around a lot i sometimes forget to bring my time machine back-up drive with me, and three month into purchasing this piece of machine, the hard drive completely crashes with all my presentations and resumes and a 20 page term paper inside! It was near Christmas and I had deadlines to me
et, I frantically contacted Apple, and basically this is what they said "you should have backed up your computer, it's so easy a monkey can do it, why didn't you back up? you have to give us your hard drive in order to get a new one, so if you want to do any data recovery, then sorry we cannot give you a new hard drive". The rep from Apple drove me to tears and made me feel extraordinarily stupid for not backing up on time. Honestly that's not what someone needs when she is already in stress. So I decided to forgo recovering my data and just get the computer fixed and rewrite everything I have lost. After that I made sure to back up my mac every second and never download anything onto it. The machine is so well taken care of it really doesn't serve much of a purpose anymore. Then come my academic exchange to Lyon France, and the 2nd week that I am here (Feb. 2011, two month after the last repair), the EXACT same thing happens to the mac, the hard drive again cannot be found
and the question mark folder mocks me every time I turn the machine on. Every one of my friends urges me to ask for a replacement for the machine, I spent 6 hours on my friend's computer talking to Apple ( I don't have a phone yet in France that's cheap enough to call like that) and the representative put me to his "manager", here is what he said exactly "we are going to stand behind our product and we will only look into the option of replacement after multiple damage and repairs". By now anyone with half a brain knows there is something wrong with this machine, that it is a lemon machine from their factory in China and it will continue to have problems, however, apparently three times is not multiple to Mr. John Griffin. I then pleaded if they can extend my warranty as it expires in September, and if this machine breaks again after that I have to pay huge repair fees, he absolutely refused and when I asked for his superior he said, and I quote "no one in apple has the authority to change warranty, and there's no more superior". Did Steve Job get fired AGAIN? I then again lowered my expectation and said could you then please write on my file to look not only into hard drives but also other components, and ask the Apple store in Lyon, which is one hour away from my residence by bus, to book an appointment for me with someone who speaks English, Mr. Griffin says "sorry madam, we have no access to the European stores". The guy spoke nicely and listened to me, but at that point, I was again in tears at 3:30 in the morning, in a foreign country, and I woke up early the next day to call the local store, and Voila, NO ONE in the store speaks a word of English and they don't even seem to want to talk to me on the phone.

I want to solemnly swear that every word I told is true. I wish it wasn't because I always thought Apple was into customer service, and that's why I am willing to pay such a premium for a laptop, I stated with the rep that I have almost all of their products and they should not treat such a loyal customer this way, all he said was "madam I understand but that's the Apple policy". I guess for Apple policy weights a lot heavier than actual human feelings?

To everyone who wants to buy a mac, it really is hit and miss. Because the company outsource all their production, and if you get a good one, it can last 3-4 years no problem, but if you unfortunately get a lemon, then be prepared, the backup only works on Apple (time machine) so I am still not able to access any of my school stuff until the machine is fixed. I am now looking at bus routes to get to a store that also closes on Sunday, please wish me luck that this machine breaks down again before Sep so I can ask the Apple rep if 4 times is the charm!

I hate to make you feel any worse, but when it comes to backing up it is 100% on you. I have had multiple PC laptops and have had hard drive problems with every one of them. Was windows customer service there to help? Yes. IT was very similar to what you say here, "well we can replace it, but you lose all of your data"..."we cannot change any warranty information".

I am not saying that you are wrong in your frustration by any means, because from what this sounds like you are completely justified in being frustrated; but, I would not consider mac "hit and miss", because it is RARE to hear stories like this. In fact, most people are overly satisfied with the product and applecare/customer service. I have heard many PC owners who are FAR less satisfied with their service than mac owner.

I really hope that this experience doesn't make you turn away from Apple, as the products are much better than anything else on the market! But if you do, hopefully you find the product and the customer care that you are looking for!

Good luck

I'm not so certain that everything you said is completely accurate, more to the point, not slightly exaggerated in the wording.
I don't know how you spoke to the Apple reps, or how they spoke to you, but I find it very hard to believe that they weren't as accommodating as possible, just based on my many times on the phone and in Apple stores.
I also understand that it can be frustrating when you have had a couple of problems, and that when you are talking to someone and you don't feel that they are understanding your situation, it can seem like they are not trying to be accommodating.

The gist of what I see here is the you had a charger problem and it was rectified.
You failed to back up your hard drive and keep your back up with you. That is not Apples fault.
HDs fail, that is just a fact of life.

The HDs are usually Western Digital or Hitachi, and they are good HDs, however, there are always going to be some in a batch that don't make the grade, and unfortunately, you weren't too lucky.

These things in life happen!

You have a working MBP now, and if the battery is only lasting that long, while it is under warranty, take make an appointment with the nearest Apple store, have them test it, and if it is faulty, they will replace it!

A long rant is only going to leave a bitter taste in your mouth, compared to tackling the issues at hand!

Wall of text. Moving on.

So what u r saying is the rest of us need to buy AppleCare which I purchased incase a charger or a HDD went out but you think they should give it to u for free? Sounds like u had problems and apple fixed them. Wonder if someone comes to the USA from France they can request to apple to only deal with someone who speaks French at the apple store.

schweb said:

Wall of text. Moving on.

Click to expand...

Yeah...my eyes got blurry when I saw that post.

- Nick

schweb said:

Wall of text. Moving on.

Click to expand...

I believe you mean to write the usual: tl;dr

All power adapters can fail, rarely, but can, which is why it's covered under warranty. HDD's are known to be the single device on a computer to cause failure, which is why hdd's aren't covered under a normal warranty. This is because combined with their own faulty rate, and their ease of damage(from transporting and such), they will fail. You had 2 hard drive failures. If I worked at Apple, and you came up to me, I wouldn't question the computer, I would question the way you handle it. Sorry, but your computer got fixed the first time due to hdd failure, than stopped worrying again. If it was a motherboard issue, it wouldn't have gotten fixed just by switching hdd's.

Before I got my MBP, I had an HP laptop. I never backed up my data. I never cared until one day when my hdd adapter plate fried along with the hdd. I had data on there that I HAD to professionally extract...that was $900 just to extract 6gb's of data. That was the quickest lesson I EVER learned. Don't blame someone else for your mistakes.

The folks at Blizzard (the warcraft people) like to call the feeling of the original poster " an overstatement of upset". And I tend to agree. I agree with what the OP said. But I disagree with how it was said. It's hard not to go aggro when something you spend $1000+ on is not as perfect and the manufacturer says it should be.

But with a few nice words (try your best) things should be sorted out for you. And I think you need to know the 2 rules on owning a computer.

1. No liquids near any hardware that is horizontal on a flat surface. Keyboards, noteboks etc etc.
2. Backup backup and back again. Losing data is never fun.

Write those 2 rules on paper and stick them on the back of the toilet door so each time you take a dump you are forced to read these rules. But follow them and most times you should be ok.

No point in having a discussion here. I'd be amazed if the OP ever came back. This was also copy-and-pasted on Apple's support forums - and I'm sure he's hit others as well. Why do people think they're going to have some kind of resolution by using tactics like this?

cwa107 said:

No point in having a discussion here. I'd be amazed if the OP ever came back.

Click to expand...

I was just going to post the same thing. I think that the OP joined just to post a "rant"...and thus may join the LONG LIST of members who are..."one post wonders"!

Of course at this point the OP's post is only about 15 hours old...so they may still return.

- Nick