Not Impressed with Apple Service

I bought my G5 iMac in Sept 05 and was having a great time till saturday when my power supply decided to give up. No problem I thought I'll just ring Apple and get it sorted in a few days. Oh how wrong I was.....

First let me say that maybe it was partly my fault but I would have assumed that I could ring apple for support within the first year without worrying about getting charged for it.

OK. so I ring my local service center (there's only one) and explained what the problem was. No worries they said just bring it along. So in I go and get told it will take at least 2 - 3 weeks to get it back. This was before they even looked at it. "er I paid 2K for this machine your telling me that I have to wait a month to get it fixed" yes.

Fine I ring apple and get told that as my machine is older then 90 days I will be charger for the support call (i will receive a refund if its hardware related, but thats still out of order in my book) So I can either pay it or buy a care plan and they'll send me out a tech who will take it away but it could still take 3 weeks to get fixed. (Dell's warranty is better then that for crying out loud!!!!!)

This was all on monday so with no option I took it to the service center. I rang today just to see if there was any news and was told "We said 2 to 3 weeks. Dont call us we'll call you"

Now I understand there might be a shortage of parts or a high number of repairs but this is too much. I really thought hard before buying my mac as it was either that or a Dell/Custom Build. Now I'm really begining to regret my purchase. I'm a pc tech so I could have fixed the pc by now and even dell would have shipped me a replacement psu in a few days.

Sorry for being such a long post but honestly if I had know the service was so poor I would have taken my cash somewhere else.

This seems to be one of those things that varies from place to place. The two times I have had to use Apples Service Support, I had the machine back, repaired within 5 days.

I visit the West Hartford Apple store in Connecticut on occasion, although it's a bit of a drive from where I live. I have tried calling several times and never once have I been able to speak to a live person. The phone menu is nested so deep that it's like they don't want you to talk to anyone. I finally got through to the service department and waited nearly 10 minutes before hanging up because it was burning up my cell phone minutes. I had heard such good things about Apple "care" in the past, but I guess they've gone the way of the world in their support area. Bummer.

Uh, what does calling an Apple store have to do with service or support? Were you trying to book time with a Genius? You have to go into the store to actually get any help, all you can do is schedule an appointment over the phone.

baggss said:

Uh, what does calling an Apple store have to do with service or support? Were you trying to book time with a Genius? You have to go into the store to actually get any help, all you can do is schedule an appointment over the phone.

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I'm just talking about Apple "service" in general. Trouble is that nobody seems to ever be manning the phones

Made a call to a friend of mine who is a trainer in the european HQ and he said that the PSU is user installable. he gave me a link so I can order the part and fit it myself. (dont have my serial as the mac is in the service center)

but this sorts it out for me. strange how the tech on the phone said I couldnt do that when apple had a guide posted on the site.......

Getting there slowly but still well pissed off. at the moment I'm between 2 minds about getting the care plan or just selling and going back to pc's. watch this space.

BrianjG said:

Made a call to a friend of mine who is a trainer in the european HQ and he said that the PSU is user installable. he gave me a link so I can order the part and fit it myself. (dont have my serial as the mac is in the service center)

but this sorts it out for me. strange how the tech on the phone said I couldnt do that when apple had a guide posted on the site.......

Getting there slowly but still well pissed off. at the moment I'm between 2 minds about getting the care plan or just selling and going back to pc's. watch this space.

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BrianjG, it's all a bureaucracy. As organizations get bigger, people talk to each other less and confusion runs rampant. Just let me tell you about my eMachines/Gateway laptop experience... I like PCs because you can do anything you want to them, including build them from scratch yourself. Having just my made my first foray into the Mac world last month, I'd be hesitant before jumping completely back into a PC-only world because Apple has a lot going for them. I really like OS X a lot. It's very stable and nice to use. Their computers are great eye candy for your desk and are powerful enough to use for everyday work. I'm still more comfortable on my Windows machines, but everytime I go back to work on my Windows box, it's not as much fun. If you really like your Mac and can still get the Applecare plan, I'd say go for it. From what I've read, their plan is really the best way go. I'm not a big fan of buying plans (ever), but since Apple has tight control over both their hardware and software, and since they seem to give priority to Applecare customers, it might be a good way to go. My 2¢

My imac G5 stopped working after a week, I'd just installed a new memory stick some days earlier and it just went dead.

So I did the same, took it back. Waiting until the guys had finished drinking their coffee before they came to have a look at the machine and guess what? .According to the man it was all my fault for installing the memory myself because the memory wasn't good enough quality and I'd probably put it in badly and the motherboard was fried. Anyway he said he'd fix it and then see about the costs later (by this time I'm cacking my pants thinking of the cost of a motherboard replacement). :dummy:

Two weeks on and i give him a call and find out that he'd replaced the motherboard only to find out that it wasn't the problem at all. It was the power supply so nothing to do with me but it was going to take another week for the part to arrive. So i had fun grinding the git into the ground for being such a tosser but still had to wait three weeks for the repair !!!

Anyway, while the computer was being repaired i looked at Apple help website and their is a simple test in their that involves taking the back off and pressing a button to see if an LED comes on. This would have told me what the problem was and i could have ordered the part and installed it myself which would have saved me two weeks of stress.

Do I blame apple. No, I blame the idiot at the apple store who didn't know his **** from his elbow and who didn't even test the machine as Apple would have wanted him to. I guess they just can't get the staff these days.!!!!!

I've been an Apple user for years and this is the only hardware problem that I've ever had and I've not had one since.

Update!

3 weeks and 2 logic boards later (the first was DOA apparently) I got my mac back on friday last.

Unpacked it and found 3 lovely scratches on the front next to the apple logo. (that really annoyed me). Plugged it in anyway and turned it on. Its working......or so i thought. After about 10 mins it freezes. I hit th power button and restart. 10 mins later same thing. So I shut it off and walk away.

Turn it on this morning and it gets as far as the logo screen and then tell me I need to restart the computer. And thats all it does, over and over again.

Call the shop and he tries putting it down to my network (?????), then my RAM (removed it, same thing) and now he thinks its the OS. Bring it in and we'll load a new one and restore your settings etc for you.

So its back in the box waiting to go in after lunch. At this stage I just want it fixed so I can sell it and go back to pc/windows setup.

Well, I hate to say it--but all of that information was in the Terms and Conditions that you agreed to when you bought the computer. I agree that they're not quite as steller as certain PC companies' policies, but you can't blame Apple because you didn't read you Terms and Conditions carefully.

I'm sorry that you got a bad tech and that he screwed up your machine--THAT part is truly unfortunate and you should complain to Apple about it. Hopefully you'll get the thing fixed and have it sold soon.

I saw nothing there about taking 3+ weeks to get my machine fixed. I blame apple for providing substandard service (via a contractor or otherwise) nothing else.

The first rule of Applecare is:

NEVER take your computer to an Apple Store "genius" when you could talk to a phone representative at 1-800-275-2273 instead and do mail-in repair.

The second rule of Applecare is:

NEVER take your computer to an Apple Store "genius" when you could talk to a phone representative at 1-800-275-2273 instead and do mail-in repair.

Well actually, the second rule should be never admit to installing 3rd party RAM... but whatever.

That is really weird, seeing as how apple's support hq is in Ireland, but I've had much better experiences with them on the phone...

Normally if it is something that isn't a software related issue, there's no charge for the "support", and they'll suggest you take it to your nearest support partner, or they'll pick it up and fix it.

I'd get back on the phone with them, make some noise about the additional scratches and see if they can't come up with some better solutions.

I've also pm'd you about this...

I have brought my powerbook and my iMac to an apple store to get it fixed. Both times they said it would probably take 2 weeks to get it back and it was back within 2-3 days. I had them ship it back to the apple store so I could go in and make sure it was fixed before bringing it home and it was never an issue

I took my sister's iMac in to the store where I bought it, the tech took it out the back, came out 15 minutes later and said it was fried. Salesman went out came back with a brand new replacement. This all happened in the space of 20 minutes.

Really I wouldnt worry about applecare too much, Like did you have an applecare plan? That would have covered it for free if you had one. ALso every company always has like a case everyonce in a while. Good news is it hapened to you, not to me

*UPDATE*

According to the same tech it needs another logic board (its 3rd so far). He had no explanation as to why or how this time he could have the part by tomorrow when originally it took 3 weeks.

He said he was going to discuss the marks on the case with a manager and call me back tomorrow after the part had arrived.

Will update again once I have more.

my powerbook would not recognize my ac charger at all so i took it to the mac cafe (just like an apple store but not owned by apple) and they tried one of their ac chargers but it did not work. He told me that they could ship it out but it would take a few weeks.
Monday i called apple in the morning and there was a box to ship it in on my door that afternoon.
I placed it on my porch and they took it tuesday morning.
Wednesday morning before i left for school there was a box on my porch, my book was fixed and no charge to me.
Two day service, not bad at all. Cudos to you Apple.

There are a few examples of poor support and I'd agree that they are not excusable. Apple Care or not. The only difference should be whether or not you must pay for the service and how much.

I just got my system 2 weeks ago and I did buy the Apple Care plan. I do hope I don't need to use it, and that if I ever do, I get much quicker turnaround.

In any case, as a long time technical type that is built, repaired and supported more PCs than I can count, and assessment of what is in an iMac, I don't see why there should ever be a shortage of parts. How hard is it to keep some power supplies, motherboards or other replacable parts on hand. Either they have a high failure rate and can't keep them on hand, (I really tend to dought this, word like that would get out and destroy Apple) or they don't have a lot of failures and can't justify keep too many parts on hand. Of course a bad manager of the store/repair location could just not be keeping the stock of repair parts they should on hand either.

I think most companies have issues like this, and you always seem to hear about the problem situations before the good ones.

I'm keeping my fingers cross that I don't have problems for a very long time and that these stories are the exception to the rule.

jn4jenny said:

I agree that they're not quite as steller as certain PC companies' policies...

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Yikes. I always assumed Apple care was BETTER than Dell or other PC makers. This is *not* good.