All I have to say is wow! Alright to make a long story longer I have had to replace my 27" imac 3 times due to numerous issues including screen flickering, video card problems, DOA etc... So a couple days ago I gave applecare a call and explained to them that I wanted a refund even though I was out of the 14 day exchange/refund period. After talking to a few apple reps I was referred to apple customer relations. After speaking to the customer relations department for about 20 mins the gentleman I was speaking to comes back from being on hold and explains to me that they are going to exchange my base config C2D 27" imac for a 27" 2.8ghz i7 with 8gb of ram and a 2tb hdd! I thought that they might just upgrade me to an i5 and just say sorry for the inconvenience but they went above and beyond! Just wanted to share my story to let others out there with problems that apple really does try to make up for them!
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AMAZING apple customer service story!
- Thread starter tclamp07
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Yeah I definitely am! And your right I would not have opted for the hard drive but it was a nice surprise that is for sure!
I have had nothing but the best customer service from apple.
Dead airport extreme 25 days outside of warrenty. Went in just to see if it would be worth repairing (without a genuis appointment on a busy weekend) and they just gave me a new one.
Video card died in MBP. Walked in, they quickly diagonosed it, and had my MBP within 3 days.
1st gen iphone, wouldn't get any signal in a area that I normally got full bars. Went in to the apple store, they tried a full restore > still didn't work > gave me a new phone. No questions asked.
Best one is with a out of warrenty 1st gen ipod nano. I dropped the ipod and it stopped working. I went in to get it repaired, told them I had dropped it and they in turn just gave me a new one. At that time they didn't have any more of the orginal nano's so they just upgraded me to the "current" model.
I hope apple keeps its current business practices.
Dead airport extreme 25 days outside of warrenty. Went in just to see if it would be worth repairing (without a genuis appointment on a busy weekend) and they just gave me a new one.
Video card died in MBP. Walked in, they quickly diagonosed it, and had my MBP within 3 days.
1st gen iphone, wouldn't get any signal in a area that I normally got full bars. Went in to the apple store, they tried a full restore > still didn't work > gave me a new phone. No questions asked.
Best one is with a out of warrenty 1st gen ipod nano. I dropped the ipod and it stopped working. I went in to get it repaired, told them I had dropped it and they in turn just gave me a new one. At that time they didn't have any more of the orginal nano's so they just upgraded me to the "current" model.
I hope apple keeps its current business practices.
My experience dealing w/ Apple customer service has always been great! I have had a couple of items fixed free out of warranty because "they should not do that!" However, I have a tendency to start all customer service calls politely. I do not call and tell them what they are going to do for me etc as some folks who post here claim to have done. In my experience it has worked. I also try and take a moment or two and chat with the Apple care people. They are in cubicles tied to a phone and a monitor, a friendly word and a "hey you having a good day" goes a long way. I can not say for a fact Apple Care does this, but at the call center I used to manage, the reps made notes on the files like nice guy, jerk, demanding PIA and so on. One of my line supervisors told me it helped the next reps who caught the customer's call to know a little of what to expect, and yes, it did impact how they were handled! Just a little story, no big deal. I hope there is a note "nice guy" on my customer file at Apple Care! 
My experience dealing w/ Apple customer service has always been great! I have had a couple of items fixed free out of warranty because "they should not do that!" However, I have a tendency to start all customer service calls politely. I do not call and tell them what they are going to do for me etc as some folks who post here claim to have done. In my experience it has worked. I also try and take a moment or two and chat with the Apple care people. They are in cubicles tied to a phone and a monitor, a friendly word and a "hey you having a good day" goes a long way. I can not say for a fact Apple Care does this, but at the call center I used to manage, the reps made notes on the files like nice guy, jerk, demanding PIA and so on. One of my line supervisors told me it helped the next reps who caught the customer's call to know a little of what to expect, and yes, it did impact how they were handled! Just a little story, no big deal. I hope there is a note "nice guy" on my customer file at Apple Care!
I completely agree you have to kill them with kindness!
I have no comment/opinion on this particular case (this issue seems legit), but feel in general that the over-abundance of returned iMacs has more to do with consumer paranoia/over-expectations than *real* problems. The supposed HDD noise issues top my short list here. Are some louder than others? Yes. Are some people's environments louder than others? Yes. Can some people here better than others? Yes. How many of these are truly defective? I digress.
Unfortunately, the more people that get free upgrades and post about it will only entice more people to over-scrutinize their machines and look even harder for problems that may or may not exist. Now I agree that these are expensive pieces of equipment and should be solid from the start - but there is a point where tolerances become too fine and people can fuel unreasonable expectations by driving themselves crazy in a pursuit of perfection.
This same phenomenon happens across all kinds of forums and product lines. I read an anecdotal story about a guy who's uncle collected classic automobiles. Whenever he would buy a new car, he would take the key and make a small scratch somewhere on the car, somewhere hidden, like under the fender where you could not see. But the fact remained that there WAS a small scratch and HE did it, not anybody else. That way, if anything ever happened to the car, it would be okay because the car was no longer perfect, anyways.
It's funny how people can kill themselves to try and prevent that first scratch on a new item, but once it happens, the worry of a scratch is no longer an issue and the item can just be enjoyed.
The best post by a "newbie" I've seen in all my years on this forum...congrats sir.
My friend had a MBP six months out of warranty with a bad battery and
they gave him a new one. They generally will back up their products when they think it is a defective product and not from accidents or misuse. But you must not act like a jerk and be reasonable.
they gave him a new one. They generally will back up their products when they think it is a defective product and not from accidents or misuse. But you must not act like a jerk and be reasonable.
Hi FocusedOne, I agree with the majority of what you are saying, however I can confirm that the noisy HD issue is real and happening. I am experiencing it myself, and since it appears from multiple postings regarding the difference in noise between the 1tb and 2tb drives, you are not experiencing this noise. Picture a deep "grumbling" noise each time you visit a website or scroll down a page.. it gets annoying after a bit and when you drop 2k you want a quiet machine. Don't even contain it to macrumors, just google 27" iMac noise and you will see quite a bit of posts..
Are some of us worried about a scratch on the finish, not so much, noise each time you visit a website and sometimes when just typing a note, yep, drives some of us nuts and with the money we are spending deserve a quiet machine, especially when other iMacs are not making noise... Just please don't be so quick to dismiss issues just because you are not experiencing them...
I don't mean to dismiss any real issues; I'm pointing out that some have real issues while others are just caught up in the mania of the issues. And there are many different variables in the equation, including external ones like hearing, environment, and tolerance for noise. I've seen this same phenomenon over plasma TV 'buzz'.
That said, I'm a demanding, discerning tech nerd like many on this board and can understand the frustration and let down of dealing with faulty new equipment.