Been buying Apple stuff for nearly 30 years. But I’m so disappointed recently with Apple support, specifically AppleCare. My wife’s 2019 MBP, still covered by AppleCare, had a malfunctioning display - bright lines all over the display. Weeks back I made the hour trip to the closest store. Rep in the store happily helped and said the turnaround time for the repair would be 2 days. This is an essential tool for my wife’s business, so I was very pleased (thank God in retrospect I ended up having a spare MacBook Air that she has been using now).
So now 3 weeks have passed, and of course, still waiting on the device to be returned. I’ve made multiple calls to AppleCare since and they insist there is no time estimate for the repair, as other customers are still waiting on the same parts for the same repair for several months. I do realize there are supply chain issues, but they promised two days.
I nicely inquired if they could replace the device with a comparable device as the delivery windows on those devices, even a refurbished device are much sooner. The categorical answer was a prompt no and that repair is the only option. Waiting months for a covered product by AppleCare is completely unacceptable. During the last phonecall with the closest store, I pressed harder for a replacement product. The rep at the store become agitated, refused to help, and finally said “You can buy a new one if you want!” I can’t imagine that Apple condones this type of reply. Can’t Apple provide a better remedy to this situation? Shame on you Apple Store, Park City Mall, Lancaster, Pennsylvania!
The problem is the 2 days you were originally quoted. That is probably how long it normally takes, if the parts are in stock. Or maybe there was stock supposed to be coming in, but it got blocked or diverted to a higher priority area.
Given that Shanghai, the major shipping hub in China, was locked down for a couple of weeks, a lot of stuff, especially low-volume spare parts, are going to backed up for a very long time. Many products are currently going for many times their normal price, if they can be found at all.
There isn’t a lot that Apple, like any other manufacturer, can do, if the parts are stuck in a backlog at a major port.
I agree, the “you can buy a new one,” is not a real answer and the staff member who said that should be ashamed and sent for re-training.
Edit: Interesting, the local paper had a report that local car dealerships currently have a backlog for servicing and repairs, due to parts availability and you should reckon with at least 8 weeks for an appoinment.
Reminds me of an old Toshiba Tablet I owned back in the day. It was a Windows XP convertible. To be honest, was probably one of the best machines I owned. Perfect size.
However, Toshiba’s support is the reason I will never buy another Toshiba device again.
The display died on it. I contacted support. Advised that the display was dead. Further advised that I plugged a monitor in directly with no issue. They sent me a box, I sent it in. They decided I needed a new motherboard. Which they didn’t have in stock. After weeks, I could see they replaced the motherboard, saw it didn’t fix the issue, then replaced the display, and sent it right back to me. Had they just replaced the display from the get go, I would have had the device back weeks sooner.
Fast forward a couple of years, the hard drive died. I begged with them again to just send me the drive and I would take care of replacing it. Couldn’t do it. Sent it back again. Again, they decided that the clicking hard drive problem meant that the motherboard needed replacing. Again, waited weeks for them to get one in stock. And again, since that didn’t fix the issue, they then replaced the hard drive and sent me back the device. And again, had they just replaced the known broken part, I would have had the system back sooner.
The first time I sent it in, I advised them that I was the IT Manager for a physicians group and was also evaling the unit for use by our physicians for EHR. Having a device in the shop for weeks was unacceptable.
Due to this, I will never buy a Toshiba product again.
I think everyone has stories about poor service and good service.
Apple service has always been lousy, here in Germany. We get next day onsite with our Lenovo and Dell machines, Apple is 2 weeks, return to base.
Phones, the iPhone is picked up by the provider and you get it back 2 weeks later. Android, they deliver a new phone straight away, when they collect the damaged one and you only pay if you damaged the screen or there was water ingress.
When I got my first iPhone (3GS), it stopped working after 2 days, returned to provider, who sent it to a Dutch repair centre working under contract to Apple. After 2 weeks, I got it back, unrepaired. A day later, stopped working again, away for another 2 weeks, returned unrepaired, stopped working as I was still in the shop, away for another 2 weeks, miraculously, they found the RAM was defective and swapped it out. 3 day use In the first 7 weeks of ownership.
Thanks. I’m guessing from a corporate standpoint it probably is cheaper in the long run to simply just replace with new. It definitely is cheaper from a customer satisfaction standpoint, as you’ve mentioned you would never buy from Toshiba again. You can’t put a price on brand loyalty. When it’s gone, it IS gone.
Around 2000, I had a laptop that had a cooling fan issue, and I had bought it at a Houston area CompUSA. I had a Comp USA extended warranty on it, so it was still covered. I brought it into the store, and I should have gotten it back in 1 week.
Well, they had it 3 months TOTA!. I called numerous times. I was even told once it was fixed. I drove for 90 minutes to Houston to go pick it up. Only to find out that it was a mistake - it was NOT fixed after all. I drove all that distance for nothing.
After that, I called a manager and got a number to the corporate office. I was recovering from a surgery, and they called me back 2 hours later. Apparently, THEY fried the computer, and had been trying to get all the parts to fix it and not tell me. But, they were not able to get the parts after 3 months.
The corporate person told me to come into the store, and I was given a brand new laptop.
CompUSA is long gone now, but that was horrible customer service.
I actually prefer to mail a device off. For Apple, it’s a 3-hour round trip to the nearest store - twice, once to drop off and again to pickup.
Had a Samsung phone and tablet fixed this way. Both came back within one working week with the issue sorted under warranty. New motherboard and new screen.
What I do with my wife’s business is make sure we have a spare machine + phone just in case. She could use my old MBP and a cheap Android for her music and writing if her MBA failed.
Reporting back on my progress. Was just getting ready to make the additional call to AppleCare to request a Tier 2 support person, but my phone rang first. In response to my email to the Tim Cook address, I received a call from an advocate in Apple’s customer relations department. We talked for awhile (he was so nice). He is working on getting the approval to replace the product with a new comparable model, but he said that even though the build would still take about a month (since the broken item had a 2 Tb SSD), it would still probably be faster than continuing to wait for the part to become available in the supply chain. He is going to continue to work out some details on his end and said that he would call me back on Monday.
Definitely agree with you regarding an extra MBA on the shelf. After I get all of this saga worked out, my current MBA (would like to soon have the M2 MBA) could be placed on the shelf after being factory reset to be immediately available for service with a Time Machine backup and thunderbolt cable. I’m learning the value of hardware redundancy, especially in business.
I had a friend (since passed) who had a similar issue with Best Buy with a laptop. They had it so long that he had to tell them where he would be to ship it to.
A ten+ year old Toyota taken into Canadian Tire for service. They did something very wrong involving welding, and the engine dropped all its oil on the way home. They towed it back, determined what happened, apologized profusely that the engine had to be completely replaced. They obtained a gently used one from a junk yard (or equivalent) and replaced the engine. They didn’t properly attach the front nose of the car and it almost fell off on the highway, so it had to go back again a couple of days later.
The old engine had over 400,000kms on it and the replacement one had less than 50,000kms on it. The whole process left us without a car for a week, and rattled my confidence in having the car worked on again at that store. In the end, the $400 bill for the fix probably didn’t come anywhere close to what it cost them to clean up their mess and return a working car.
No an example of good service, but I was very surprised they actually owned the mistake and made it right in the end. If you have to experience bad service, you can at least hope the final resolution won’t leave you out money or product.
In business, we always go for next day on site repairs or replacement with our kit - one reason why we don’ t have any Apples, as that isn’t an option.
Sending an employee to an Apple Store is a 5 hour journey, which means a 2 day trip, as they can work a maximum of 8 hours, so we would have to include an overnight stay in the hotel and they would drive back the next day.
They usually have insurance for such mistakes, at least in the UK. My Golf Mk1 had an engine blow up after a rebuild (literally within 30 miles of getting it back). Their insurance covered getting a replacement (used) engine.
Reporting back on the resolution of my dilemma. Within about 24 hours of posting here and on Mac Power Users, in additional to my “Tim Cook” email, my wife’s MBP was suddenly repaired and returned to us by FedEx. I can only speculate if the public discussion and email prompted the fast repair and return of the item.
I recommend passing on the many excuses we hear regarding Apple’s recent unforced errors, which span from decreasing quality of customer service to a poor decision regarding NAND chip usage making the Macbook Pro M2 disk speeds SLOWER than the prior model.