It took about ten hours trying to get my AirPods with crackle exchanged. A friend of mine was taking his down to exchange them, so I asked him to take mine too. I had lost the left one and ordered a replacement. Later I found the one I lost, so I had three... no problem, right?
When he got there they told him that they could only do one exchange on a single genius bar appointment. So he exchanged his no problem. They had another open appointment in an hour and a half, so he waited for it to exchange mine. When the Apple Store employee saw that there were three, he got totally confused. He said he couldn't exchange three. He didn't know how to fit three into their online repair system. He said I needed to call Apple phone support and have them open a case number because he didn't know how. So my friend called me and they set up an immediate appointment with Apple phone support. I explained my problem to the person and said my friend was waiting at the store to turn them in. The person on the phone opened a case file on the first two of them and I gave it to my friend at the Apple store. They told him that his 15 minutes was up and the next available appointment was in a few days. He came back with them.
So I wrangled with three layers of Apple support on the phone for another four hours. They couldn't figure out how to handle the third one either. Finally I got to someone who knew, but they said that if I put the extra left with the right and sent it back, it would be rejected and the AirPods wouldn't be returned to me. I had to figure out which left was the one that originally went with the case and send those two back, then open a separate support case to send the third back. They arranged to send me a box to ship the pair back in, and told me to call back when I could read the serial number on the AirPods and determine which left was the replacement one and open a separate case for that.
My friend arrived back with my three AirPods in hand... I don't know if you've ever looked at your AirPods carefully, but they look identical. How do you tell them apart? Well in the crook of the stem is a faint, tiny serial number. For my eyes, it was impossible to read. So I called my friend to come over and see if he could read it with his sharper eyes. He read off the numbers to the Apple person and we went back and forth trying to figure out which one was part of the set. But by then, it was a lower level phone person and they had no idea what I was talking about. That took another hour. Finally I guessed that the set had the same first two letters on the serial number, since the last two letters indicated left and right. I asked the Apple person to just verify that and not try to figure out everything that came before. They verified that, and I was halfway there.
Then I had to open a new replacement order for the third AirPod. I went right back into the loop of confusion over how to enter just one AirPod into the system instead of two. An hour later and three levels of support people later, finally I got someone who could kludge the system to get it to accept just one AirPod. They sent out a box to return that.
I asked the person how I was going to tell which box went with the pair and which one went with the single AirPod. They said that the support case number would be written on the box. The boxes arrived, and guess what... no case number. So I called AGAIN and had to explain the whole thing again to another support person. Thankfully, they identified which was which by another number and the boxes are now sealed up and ready for FedEx.
I have had an easier time at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Apple support is TERRIBLE. If you want something that is on their script, the nice man in India can help you. But if you go off the script, it's a clown show. I'm hoping I'm done now and I'll receive three non-crackly AirPods Pro in the mail soon.
When he got there they told him that they could only do one exchange on a single genius bar appointment. So he exchanged his no problem. They had another open appointment in an hour and a half, so he waited for it to exchange mine. When the Apple Store employee saw that there were three, he got totally confused. He said he couldn't exchange three. He didn't know how to fit three into their online repair system. He said I needed to call Apple phone support and have them open a case number because he didn't know how. So my friend called me and they set up an immediate appointment with Apple phone support. I explained my problem to the person and said my friend was waiting at the store to turn them in. The person on the phone opened a case file on the first two of them and I gave it to my friend at the Apple store. They told him that his 15 minutes was up and the next available appointment was in a few days. He came back with them.
So I wrangled with three layers of Apple support on the phone for another four hours. They couldn't figure out how to handle the third one either. Finally I got to someone who knew, but they said that if I put the extra left with the right and sent it back, it would be rejected and the AirPods wouldn't be returned to me. I had to figure out which left was the one that originally went with the case and send those two back, then open a separate support case to send the third back. They arranged to send me a box to ship the pair back in, and told me to call back when I could read the serial number on the AirPods and determine which left was the replacement one and open a separate case for that.
My friend arrived back with my three AirPods in hand... I don't know if you've ever looked at your AirPods carefully, but they look identical. How do you tell them apart? Well in the crook of the stem is a faint, tiny serial number. For my eyes, it was impossible to read. So I called my friend to come over and see if he could read it with his sharper eyes. He read off the numbers to the Apple person and we went back and forth trying to figure out which one was part of the set. But by then, it was a lower level phone person and they had no idea what I was talking about. That took another hour. Finally I guessed that the set had the same first two letters on the serial number, since the last two letters indicated left and right. I asked the Apple person to just verify that and not try to figure out everything that came before. They verified that, and I was halfway there.
Then I had to open a new replacement order for the third AirPod. I went right back into the loop of confusion over how to enter just one AirPod into the system instead of two. An hour later and three levels of support people later, finally I got someone who could kludge the system to get it to accept just one AirPod. They sent out a box to return that.
I asked the person how I was going to tell which box went with the pair and which one went with the single AirPod. They said that the support case number would be written on the box. The boxes arrived, and guess what... no case number. So I called AGAIN and had to explain the whole thing again to another support person. Thankfully, they identified which was which by another number and the boxes are now sealed up and ready for FedEx.
I have had an easier time at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Apple support is TERRIBLE. If you want something that is on their script, the nice man in India can help you. But if you go off the script, it's a clown show. I'm hoping I'm done now and I'll receive three non-crackly AirPods Pro in the mail soon.
