Apple Care-Mac Mini and RAM Upgrade-APPLE BLOWS-HATE THEM RIGHT NOW!

[aicul]

I've had good and badd from both telephone, applestore staff and email. Basically it comes down to those that think that they are gods.. because the work for apple ... and those that actually have apple culture that want apple to have success.

unfortunately as apple grows there are more of the first type..

 

[Enigmafan420]

That's good news, hope it all works out for you! The stores are given way too much latitude and nearly all of my dealings have resulted in what's easiest and cheapest for the store, not what's necessarily right or best for both Apple and their customer base. It usually turns around when it's escalated but a pain to have to go through those motions.

I have two Apple stores near me, one for buying gear, the other for repairing it.

Thanks for the comment-it reminded me of one more thing the "genius" said yesterday.

This is no joke-after "he" determined the mini was out of warranty-he ACTUALLY ENCOURAGED me to take it to an authorized apple service provider that was NOT part of the Apple Store network. So basically telling me to go screw (in his opinion) one of their support partners.

Guy was a piece of work to say the least.

 

[aicul]

Where it gets hilarious is when they say something absurd, you challenge them and they zip through a thick folder only to discover ... they were wrong.

 

[GoCubsGo]

OP: It's great that your situation may be resolved but I'd encourage you to take the silent route if you're blowing up at at them at all. Every retailer has the right to refuse service to anyone and judging from your thread title (and assuming you're at least 30+ as your son is 11), it sounds like neither side has deemed the high road a road worth traveling.

As a new mini owner who intends on getting 3rd party ram tossed in it, I'm glad to hear it's not a warranty voider.

 

[Enigmafan420]

OP: It's great that your situation may be resolved but I'd encourage you to take the silent route if you're blowing up at at them at all. Every retailer has the right to refuse service to anyone and judging from your thread title (and assuming you're at least 30+ as your son is 11), it sounds like neither side has deemed the high road a road worth traveling.

As a new mini owner who intends on getting 3rd party ram tossed in it, I'm glad to hear it's not a warranty voider.

I actually never blew up nor raised my voice-it was clear when I left that I was seriously angry. Not one expletive uttered though I do feel I took the high road-I have too many years in retail to go off at an employee and make a scene. When I asked to speak to the store manager, I actually asked if there was a place we could talk that others would not over hear us. And when I said I went off-I didn't raise my voice. But I did personalize it because the guy has zero customer service skills.

I in fact was just going to let it lie-but the good people here at MacRumors have encouraged me to call Applecare and for that I am thankful

 

[snberk103]

... stuff snipped.... I spent 15 minutes going off on the store manager and got NOTHING.

APPLE-YOU SUCK-this is NO WAY to treat your customers. This is something I would expect from DELL or HP-NOT APPLE.

If you were treated by the store as you claim, then the store needs a refresher course in customer relations..... however..... if you "go off" on a store manager for 15 minutes, please don't expect sympathy from them.

I have always found that when goes up a supervisory level, if you explain that you have no issues with the person you just talked to (ie they were professional, etc.) its just that you don't agree with their answer, then you will get a lot further than "going off". If you have a complaint with the genius, then you have to explain - calmly, and with evidence to support your position - that the genius is wrong. From your post here, I suspect you were not the model of calmness in the Apple Store.

UPDATE:Fast moving thread.... while I was typing you were clarifying your "going off" bit..... so I my comment may not apply. However, if you feel an employee is wrong, you need to produce evidence. In a "I think/You think" argument, the employee will win simply because they can say they have training, which you do not (Doesn't make them correct, but it is "evidence" that needs rebuttal). Hopefully there isn't a next time, but you were in place with internet access. Would have taken you all of 5 minutes of research to find the countering evidence. And on their own computers. You could have shown the manager the pertinent passages.

I once took a laptop, showing the current weather in Vancouver, to an Airline customer service counter to show them that the "cancelled due to weather" rationale was bogus - using the Airline's own free wifi network. It took another 6 hours to get on a plane, but we flew business class.

Glad you to hear that Apple seems to have corrected your situation. Good Luck with the repair.

 

[317342]

Let us know how it goes--I hope it all works out for you.

I've had 'ups' and 'downs' w/ the genius bar as well, but it all got taken care of in the end. Just keep positive!

 

[Enigmafan420]

However, if you feel an employee is wrong, you need to produce evidence. In a "I think/You think" argument, the employee will win simply because they can say they have training, which you do not (Doesn't make them correct, but it is "evidence" that needs rebuttal). Hopefully there isn't a next time, but you were in place with internet access. Would have taken you all of 5 minutes of research to find the countering evidence. And on their own computers. You could have shown the manager the pertinent passages.

Would have loved to be able to do that-that is what this guy did-printing out part of the Applecare agreement online.

I have an OLD email (maybe) somewhere from Applecare online stating that I could upgrade RAM without warranty issues, but of course I did NOT have that with me as I was not expecting a fight over the issue. And I am not sure I still have that email in my in box anyway.

At least now it is on the way to getting looked at, which was all I really wanted in the first place. If they choose not to fix it for something "I did", then that is a different story. But since the mini was never dropped or placed in the washing machine, I should be good.

This whole issue, IMO, demonstrates a need for Apple to clarify in the Applecare agreement what is acceptable and what is not. As I may have stated earlier, this guys reasoning would lead to refusal of warranty work on a MacBook where the end user added their own memory. Clearly, a much simpler task than adding RAM to a mini.

 

[GoCubsGo]

I actually never blew up nor raised my voice-it was clear when I left that I was seriously angry. Not one expletive uttered though I do feel I took the high road-I have too many years in retail to go off at an employee and make a scene. When I asked to speak to the store manager, I actually asked if there was a place we could talk that others would not over hear us. And when I said I went off-I didn't raise my voice. But I did personalize it because the guy has zero customer service skills.

I in fact was just going to let it lie-but the good people here at MacRumors have encouraged me to call Applecare and for that I am thankful

Understood, but I was merely basing my response on your post where you openly admitted to "going off". This could be a true sign of a gender gap because I'm probably old by many people's standards, but where I come from, "going off" implies you were not traveling down the high road at any one point. It's good to hear you were in the end.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Having been in the OP's situation, I always enjoy reading stories like this. Not because I enjoy others' pain, but because Apple is such a penny-pincher when it comes to repairs, and I can not wait for the day that it bites them in the ass.

 

[Nukemkb]

Sometimes you win - sometimes you lose! Hopefully your experience with Apple will balance out over the years...

 

[Enigmafan420]

Having been in the OP's situation, I always enjoy reading stories like this. Not because I enjoy others' pain, but because Apple is such a penny-pincher when it comes to repairs, and I can not wait for the day that it bites them in the ass.

You are sure correct about the penny pinching-when I inquired about how much it would cost to repair out of warranty, they quoted me around $400. For a THREE YEAR OLD MACHINE-get real, don't they realize the brand new one is only $600?!?

And you think their retail margins are high, God their paid repair margins must be through the roof.

 

[Nukemkb]

yes - they are profit oriented - no doubt about it! I've used Missionrepair successfully in the past for a really great savings! (no affiliation, just a happy customer!)

 

[Wicked1]

My idea although it seems pointless is to keep the original ram and hdd it came with, anytime you have a problem and bring it to a store, you put the original stuff back in, very rarely does RAM go bad and if the HDD is going bad no biggie you can buy a 500GB Seagate 7200 RPM 16MB Cache for $115.00 at TigerDirect.com.

I have been in the stores recently and I think the Genius name should not be used because there are some with less then average knowledge but they qualify for the Genius name, doesn' make sense to me.

 

[Enigmafan420]

I have been in the stores recently and I think the Genius name should not be used because there are some with less then average knowledge but they qualify for the Genius name, doesn' make sense to me.

LMAO-that is why I was using "Genius" in quotations. The term doesn't seem to fit, at least not in my case.

 

[arcadeforest]

If you go in with any intelligence they'll shut you down. If you go in as another hapless user they're more than happy to help.

This is so true. While I've never used the genius bar at my local Apple store I've found this to be the case in many "professional" help situations. When you start talking at their level or above defense mechanisms kick in.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

This is no joke-after "he" determined the mini was out of warranty-he ACTUALLY ENCOURAGED me to take it to an authorized apple service provider that was NOT part of the Apple Store network. So basically telling me to go screw (in his opinion) one of their support partners.

This reminds of the time I went into an Apple Store asking the person at the front if they sold the Installation/Boot Discs for an older MacBook Pro. She looked at me blankly for a second, then said, We sell Leopard... I said no, the grey discs for re-installing the OS that are hardware specific. After another blank look, she suggested that I try an Apple reseller, because "sometimes they have things for older Macs." Ugh.
You may want to consider changing your thread title- it reads like a 12 year old wrote it, and the story has developed since writing it. Which reminds me of the hilarious one with the kid who had enormous cracks/gouges on his iPhone and acted surprised when a Genius wouldn't replace it.
Good luck with all this.

 

[Enigmafan420]

You may want to consider changing your thread title- it reads like a 12 year old wrote it, and the story has developed since writing it. Which reminds me of the hilarious one with the kid who had enormous cracks/gouges on his iPhone and acted surprised when a Genius wouldn't replace it.
Good luck with all this.

I was pretty pissed when I started the thread (obviously). That being said, I tried to change the title and guess I am too dense to figure it out, but it LOOKS like you can't.

 

[macindork]

So I called Applecare and the guy that helped me "Frank" was extremely helpful. He called the local store while I was on the phone. The district manager happened to be in at the time. HOW CONVENIENT He sort of ripped into the local store manager. Kind of nice actually, after the response I got yesterday.

So he confirmed that changing RAM does NOT affect the warranty. Advised me to go back and set up an appointment for tomorrow.

This is the kind of service I expect from Apple. Still don't know if they are going to fix it, but at least now they are going to send it in for evaluation.

This is just how it goes... we had a MBP with a swollen battery that qualified for a battery replacement under the macbook battery update, I called apple, the person I spoke to on the phone said that it was indeed eligible for replacement, I asked if I could take it to my local apple store so he scheduled an appointment for me. I show up, I'm greeted, like always, get to a genius and he tells me: "There is nothing I can type into the computer that will let me replace your battery.". Of course, I mention the article on the website that he conveniently knows nothing about and still refuses to replace the battery. I get back to my office, call AppleCare back up and they overnight me a battery (it was needed urgently as the laptop was going to be out in the field for the next two weeks).

Sometimes one "apple" can spoil a whole bunch...

 

[Enigmafan420]

Status update-for those still following this Soap Opera

So I got a phone call today from the "head genius" at the local store.

He once again tried to tell me that they were not going to fix it because I had opened the case and voided the warranty. He then wanted to go get the same language the first "genius" used about user modifications. He said Applecare hotline was wrong.

At this point I said fine, I will be calling Applecare AGAIN as soon as I hang up. He then asked me to wait and he would call me back.

When he called back he reiterated that the mini has "no user serviceable parts" (BS!) and that it technically voids the warranty and Applecare but that they were going to make an accommodation for me. He really tried to make it sound like he was doing me a favor.

I also read him the recent article from Macworld (see my hyperlink elsewhere) and while I acknowledged that Macworld is not affiliated with Apple, it appears to be common belief that the mini is user upgradable.

Very frustrating experience all around. I will be heading into the store after work today to drop off the mini. Makes me wonder if they will come up with some other reason to not fix it. The thing is a Core Duo (not 2) 1.83. It is OLD, these parts, if anything, are surplus now. I can't believe how much work they are going to to NOT pay for a repair.

Again, after this experience, I just can't recommend Applecare. Either skip Applecare or if it is that important to you, get stuck paying Apple's outrageous prices for memory and/or HD upgrades.

 

[317342]

That's bad if he's saying AppleCare is wrong.... You should try Customer Relations and see if they can resolve it. It's their job to fix issues like this (esp. between AppleCare and the store)

I believe it's 800-SOS-APPL but I could be wrong (?)

 

[Enigmafan420]

That's bad if he's saying AppleCare is wrong.... You should try Customer Relations and see if they can resolve it. It's their job to fix issues like this (esp. between AppleCare and the store)

Well again, he made it clear that they were "bending over backwards (my words not his)" to accommodate me.

At this point if they fix it I will obviously be STOKED. But i am getting SO FRUSTRATED that I feel like parting the thing out!

 

[317342]

Well again, he made it clear that they were "bending over backwards (my words not his)" to accommodate me.

At this point if they fix it I will obviously be STOKED. But i am getting SO FRUSTRATED that I feel like parting the thing out!

I'm no expert here but if you are the tech, made a humongous a$$ out of yourself, know the customer is right or has a point, and want to get out of it....wouldn't that be the exact same [favor] tactic you'd use as well?

 

[Enigmafan420]

I'm no expert here but if you are the tech, made a humongous a$$ out of yourself, know the customer is right or has a point, and want to get out of it....wouldn't that be the exact same [favor] tactic you'd use as well?

LOL-yeah probably right

As I mentioned before though, I am waiting for the NEXT reason they won't fix it

 

[317342]

I think you'll be fine. Just do yourself a favor and bring anything that supports your argument, and don't be afraid to get the store manager involved.

In my experience, Apple has always come through in the end. Even with all the issues I've had (too many to share), it's still the best computer company out there.