Making a formal complaint to Apple?!

[Lazze]

I am considering making a formal complaint to Apple, regarding the unacceptable long time it has, so far, taken to repair (or at least attempt to) my iMac.

On April 5th. my iMac broke down, presumably due to a faulty PSU. It took 3 weeks to get it replaced. One day after I got it back it broke down again, in the exact same way. I have now been without it for almost 7 weeks now, which I find absolutely uancceptable. This is why I want to complain.

Now, my question is; How do I go about that? Who should I contact (I live in Denmark) - and how. Does any of you have experience in this?

Lazze

 

[Queso]

That's disgraceful. Your country's Apple.com website should have a contacts page. Just call the generic number on there and they'll give you the correct details for making a formal complaint. Failing that, get the contact details for Apple Europe in Ireland. Keep a diary of telephone conversations and copies of all written correspondence.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[MIDI_EVIL]

I am considering making a formal complaint to Apple, regarding the unacceptable long time it has, so far, taken to repair (or at least attempt to) my iMac.

On April 5th. my iMac broke down, presumably due to a faulty PSU. It took 3 weeks to get it replaced. One day after I got it back it broke down again, in the exact same way. I have now been without it for almost 7 weeks now, which I find absolutely uancceptable. This is why I want to complain.

Now, my question is; How do I go about that? Who should I contact (I live in Denmark) - and how. Does any of you have experience in this?

Lazze

In the UK, if a product takes more than 6 weeks to repair, we are entitled to a replacement.

I think you should check out your consumer rights, or check the Applecare or warranty from the store you bought it.

That is unacceptable.

Rich.

 

[gekko513]

Do you have a "Forbrukerråd" in Denmark?

 

[MIDI_EVIL]

Also, we have a Citizens' Advice Bureau, do you have one?

They offer free advice for anyone in need of it.

Rich.

 

[Lazze]

gekko513 -

Yes we do have a "forbrugerråd" in Denmark, and they basically says, if the repairs takes unacceptably long, or has to be repeated more than once, then the product has to be replaced.

But here's an update to the situation. First of all, my iMac is still in for repairs (almost 2 months now ). I talked to the company that does the actual repairs for Apple, and 3 weeks after I returned my iMac to them (after the first failed repair), they told me they had just ordered spareparts from Apple (I repeat for clarification: THREE WEEKS!) and expected to return it to me during the week. NOT! Still no sign of it

Second; I've send an e-mail to Apple (to their danish mail-adress) - written in danish. Lesson no. 1. Apple don't read danish! They do have a danish office (oficially), but they apparently don't understand danish - or it just didn't occur to them that a mail to their danish adress might be to their danish office . Well - at least they replied, so I've translated it to english and hope to get some response.

Lazze

 

[Greebazoid]

My mac mini started doing wierd stuff after about 3~4 weeks of ownership, gradually getting worse and worse and in the end, not switching on at all.

I sent it to the local dealers (there is no Apple in South Africa, only dealers) who told me it needed a new motherboard and it would take 4~6 working days.

After 11 working days, I found the name of the man who runs the support for the primary apple importers - he told me there was a problem with the shipments of parts and I would have it in a day or two. When that didnt happen, I demanded a new mini and that they transfer my HDD so I didnt lose data - they agreed, and 14 days after it went in, I got a new working mac.

Dont give up until you find someone who will give you their name. Give them an hour or two to phone back with a solution to your problem, and if they dont, keep going upwards in the organisation until *someone* takes personal responsibility.

You have my heartfelt sympathy.

 

[Nate4747]

That's a ridiculous amount of time. I was upset at the two weeks back when I had to send my PowerBook in, but I can't imagine what you must be going through. Just be persistent, you will eventually get the right person on the phone who can help you and when you do I'm sure you'll be satisfied.

 

[Lazze]

Well - I finally got my iMac back, fully equipped with a new logicboard . My e-mail complaint to Apple didn't do much good though. Just got a message back saying they don't provide e-mail support.

 

[dr_lha]

Well - I finally got my iMac back, fully equipped with a new logicboard . My e-mail complaint to Apple didn't do much good though. Just got a message back saying they don't provide e-mail support.

Emailed complaints are easily ignored. Write a letter of complaint to Apple and mail it to them. That usually gets a better response than even a phone call will. In the letter express your dissappointment at your treatment, don't say things like "you'll never buy Apple again" or "I'm your best customer", but do say something like "I look forward to hearing your reply" at the bottom to make sure that they know they have to respond to your criticisms.

 

[Lazze]

Well - I finally got my iMac back, fully equipped with a new logicboard

Be it a new logicboard or not - its still shutting down on me. It has done so twice since I got it back a few hours ago . This time they'll just have to exchange it as this has gone too far.

Is this really the wonderfull world of mac-computing

Lazze

 

[iGary]

Be it a new logicboard or not - its still shutting down on me. It has done so twice since I got it back a few hours ago . This time they'll just have to exchange it as this has gone too far.

Is this really the wonderfull world of mac-computing

Lazze

It's not a typical experience. Hang in there.

 

[Lazze]

I intend to. I guess I'm kind of stubborn this way . But I'm really loosing my patience now.

 

[drake]

Tie your compaint to a rock and toss it though Steve Jobs office window.

 

[iGary]

I intend to. I guess I'm kind of stubborn this way . But I'm really loosing my patience now.

Believe me, I totally understand - hang in there, work your options and I can almost guarantee a pleasant result.

 

[Tomaz]

My Powerbook had 3 motherboard failures in the last 4-5 months. The last one was also around the beginning of April. I sent it in and then I didn't hear anything from them. So l called AppleCare last week to complain. They said they would call me back which they did two hours later to offer me a brandnew MacBook Pro as a replacement without any additional charge!!!

Call AppleCare and complain, they are nice people

 

[Lazze]

I talked to Apple support today and they were sad to hear about my continuing problems. The call today didn't really solve that much as I was asked to perform a hardware-test (it showed nothing), and then wait for them to call back to hear the results. I expect to hear from them tomorrow.
Meanwhile my iMac has had two additional sudden-loss-off-power incidents; one "sleeping" and one 3 seconds after I turned it back on. So basically I hardly trust it enough to be writing this post on it

Lazze

 

[Lazze]

Well - believe it or not. It has been running (well, mostly sleeping) without incidents for almost 24 hours now. But considering the previosly mentioned sudden-loss-of-power incidents, I still don't trust it
Still haven't heard from Apple support, allthough she promised to call back today, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait a while to call back to hear if they forgot about me.

Meanwhile I was browsing Apples website (looking for material for my complaint) and the following strikes me (the given circumstances considered) as hilarious:

"Your toaster doesn’t crash. Your kitchen sink doesn’t crash. Why should your computer? Think of the countless hours you would save if your PC worked on your time — not the other way around. Then think about a Mac."

...don't know if I should laugh or cry...

Lazze

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

Yeah well, I am a fellow Dane really feeling with you. I have to send my iBook (from November last year) to repair to Infocare (as they are the company fixing mac solutions in DK) and I don't like the view since reading your post.
I didn't even know I could or should go to infocare.dk to complain about the screen powering down all of a sudden until Apple attended my University this Tuesday and I got a Danish Employees card, along with the information about inforcare, in case I wasn't satisfied with the support there.

Wouldn't mind waiting so long just to get a replacement MacBook ^_^ though.

edit: the quote is just rubbish. They also advertise with the iMac being the perfect gaming computer, an idea which Rosetta alongside an x1600 ATI doesn't quite support very well...

edit2: Please PM me the results with the complaint procedure as I am somewhat curious to know about the whole run of the mill.

 

[Max on Macs]

Well - believe it or not. It has been running (well, mostly sleeping) without incidents for almost 24 hours now. But considering the previosly mentioned sudden-loss-of-power incidents, I still don't trust it
Still haven't heard from Apple support, allthough she promised to call back today, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait a while to call back to hear if they forgot about me.

Meanwhile I was browsing Apples website (looking for material for my complaint) and the following strikes me (the given circumstances considered) as hilarious:

"Your toaster doesn’t crash. Your kitchen sink doesn’t crash. Why should your computer? Think of the countless hours you would save if your PC worked on your time — not the other way around. Then think about a Mac."

...don't know if I should laugh or cry...

Lazze

But occasionally you get faulty toasters and the company who made them might be a bit arsey for a while. It can happen with any electronics. It sucks ****, and Apple need to do a better job of replacing your iMac, but give it time and all will be toast.

 

[bankshot]

Meanwhile I was browsing Apples website (looking for material for my complaint) and the following strikes me (the given circumstances considered) as hilarious:

"Your toaster doesn’t crash. Your kitchen sink doesn’t crash. Why should your computer? Think of the countless hours you would save if your PC worked on your time — not the other way around. Then think about a Mac."

...don't know if I should laugh or cry...

I hear you. In the last two weeks, I've run into at least two repeatable bugs in Tiger which made the machine totally unusable until I jumped through a number of hoops to alleviate the problem. A hard reset would have "fixed" it, but also lost any unsaved data. Undoubtedly a user with less experience than me would have been forced to do the reset, as they'd have no clue what to do otherwise.

I'm in the process of writing up bug reports to submit to their bug system, but yeah, the above quote is pretty ridiculous in light of stuff like this. Not what I expect out of a "modern" operating system that's supposed to be stable and designed to prevent crashes or deadlock conditions. When it happens (which still is admittedly rare), it kind of makes me feel like a chump for choosing Macs when my friends all hum along smoothly with Windows.

Of course, I forget it all when things are running well for me while my friends get spyware problems...

I just wish Apple more often showed the higher standards they so aggressively advertise.

 

[hulugu]

I hear you. In the last two weeks, I've run into at least two repeatable bugs in Tiger which made the machine totally unusable until I jumped through a number of hoops to alleviate the problem. A hard reset would have "fixed" it, but also lost any unsaved data. Undoubtedly a user with less experience than me would have been forced to do the reset, as they'd have no clue what to do otherwise.

I'm in the process of writing up bug reports to submit to their bug system, but yeah, the above quote is pretty ridiculous in light of stuff like this. Not what I expect out of a "modern" operating system that's supposed to be stable and designed to prevent crashes or deadlock conditions. When it happens (which still is admittedly rare), it kind of makes me feel like a chump for choosing Macs when my friends all hum along smoothly with Windows.

Of course, I forget it all when things are running well for me while my friends get spyware problems...

I just wish Apple more often showed the higher standards they so aggressively advertise.

I've run into problems too—the gremlins are on full alert this month—on both my Powerbook and a PC so I spent most of last weekend bitching about how unreliable computers are. Then on the way to work I ran out of gas (old Jeep, wonky gauge, I should know better) and it made me realize something: anything with moving parts (or electrons) is bound to fail somehow. Software is complex, hardware is delicate, and that this stuff works at all is just amazing.

 

[Lazze]

I got the call from Apple support a couple of days ago. I was at work at the time, so there really wasn't that much I/we could test immediately. However; She suggested I unplugged my external harddrive and plugged the iMac into another outlet. I didn't give it much credit, as I have it plugged into an UPS which should protect from surges etc. But it couldn't hurt to try, so I pulled an extensioncord and got it running again. Two days later I was almost convinced we had it, BUT; after 2 days and 14 hours uptime it had another powerfailure and within the next 3 hours it had two more

One thing I couldn't do though, was plug it into a grounded outlet (as she suggested). We have no grounded outlets in the house and as far as I know, grounded outlets are very uncommon in Denmark. Any ideas how important that is?

Lazze

Edit: The powercord to my UPS is NOT grounded. This would somehow suggest the manufacturer of that doesn't consider it necessary. Or...?!

 

[appleScare]

Hello everyone,

As most of you, I've had many problems with applecare recently, specially on the last machines produced by Apple (over the last 3-4 years)

Everytime I try to compliain, it's almost impossible to know where to do it, who to address it to, or what to write in it.

Recently, I had my iMac G5 (a year old) broken, sent for repair, and back still broken. Although the HD was apparently the culprit, they changed the motherboard. Still, when I called again with the same error code from hardware test cd, Master S-ATA error, they said, it must be the HD, send it again we'll change it again :-|

Big problem is no one came to pick it up while I was waiting at home, having taken half a day off for that. I was talked to like a 3 years old when I called applecare aftewards.

That doesnt feel.

I am starting a website where I'd like to centralize all those complaints we find everywhere in all Mac related site's forums.

It is very bare still, but I will put up a forum or framework so we can exchange views, experiences, and hints on how to get the most out of a Protection Plan.

http://www.appleScare.com

Thanks for your support, it helps to see were not alone ;-)

 

[josephtrinh]

So Stupid of switching to IMAC from pc

I bought this 24-inch Early 2008 IMAC for least than a year, and now my hard drive crash. Need to replace a new hard drive. This is about 4 weeks ago. Can you believe my computer is sitting in the store for more than a week without any one fixing it. Until I call and they said no one was following up with it. So I have to tell them again about what's wrong with my IMAC. And then they tell me that they will need one week for the new hard drive to get here. After my IMAC fixed, brought home for about 10 days. And the IMAC went down again. Oh...about the repair service in Emeryview, Bay street, California. It was terrible. It amost 3 weeks to get it done. And now after 10 days of being fixed. It crash again. I am soooo, soooooo, sooooo DISAPPOINTED. Paying about $2500 with APPLE CARE....and this is what I get. :-( Now I didn't even dare to drop it off at bay street after all that. I have to drive to San Francisco to Stone Town mall to get it fixed. All so much trouble!!!