Wow Applecare sucks.

[Decrepit]

My Mini has decided to turn off every so often. Resetting the PMU has no effect, only unplugging the brick for 15 minutes seems to resolve the problem.

So I call Applecare to see if I can get them to send me a replacement brick to prove that it's the cheap external part, or discover if it will be a system repair to get at the insides of my Mini.

46 minutes later (actually 1:15:00 later since I waited on hold for 30 minutes last night never getting through) I have spoken to a nice guy in the Philippines who made me run disk utility. Now I'm on hold for the product specialist.

I live over an hour from the nearest Apple service site so I was hoping a quick phone call would save me the two hours+ of driving back and forth.

Guess not.

Apple REALLY needs to update their tech support methods. I used to work in tech support (and not as a front line agent) for one of the top 2 computer companies, and managers would have been executed publicly if wait times hit 15 minutes, let alone 45+.


So, to the point... Is there a key word or method you can use to bypass this awfulness when you are pretty sure that you have a defective power brick?

 

[GSMiller]

Disk Utility has never fixed any problems I have ever had on OS X.

 

[killerrobot]

So, to the point... Is there a key word or method you can use to bypass this awfulness when you are pretty sure that you have a defective power brick?

Not that I'm aware of - every time I've called and pretty much had the answer narrowed down to something, the phone tech still has to run through all the protocols, make a log, and tell you to run Disk Utility and then make a log of it, and then try to schedule an appointment at a genius bar.

Even when I ask to speak to a senior tech, all I get is that the phone tech has already been in contact with a senior tech and has no further answers. So if there is a secret phrase I would really like to know it as well.

 

[Decrepit]

Disk Utility has never fixed any problems I have ever had on OS X.

I don't know why Apple wanted Disk Utility run on a power issue. Who can tell?

60 minutes... no connection to support yet.

Glad the people that buy Apples and their support contracts aren't normally professionals that can't be waiting an hour to talk to somebody...

 

[luffx]

Wow, that's unfortunate.

Anytime I need something replaced, I tell them all of my troubleshooting steps. Hell, even if you hafta BS some of them, it'll help. When you get on the phone with a tech, and they hear "I'm A+ certified, blah blah, I did this, this, this, & this"...they won't have no suggestions, and you will get your part.

 

[Decrepit]

Wow, that's unfortunate.

Anytime I need something replaced, I tell them all of my troubleshooting steps. Hell, even if you hafta BS some of them, it'll help. When you get on the phone with a tech, and they hear "I'm A+ certified, blah blah, I did this, this, this, & this"...they won't have no suggestions, and you will get your part.

I have over 15 tech certifications, and used to teach people in tech support among other things. I told the guy precisely what the problem was, and why I thought it was the brick. No joy.

So I hung up at 70 minutes and am going to drive the hour+ to the Apple Store. I have a reservation for Saturday morning. Ack.

 

[luffx]

I have over 15 tech certifications, and used to teach people in tech support among other things. I told the guy precisely what the problem was, and why I thought it was the brick. No joy.

So I hung up at 70 minutes and am going to drive the hour+ to the Apple Store. I have a reservation for Saturday morning. Ack.

oh boo. Sorry to hear that.

I must've been lucky in past experiences.

 

[killerrobot]

oh boo. Sorry to hear that.

I must've been lucky in past experiences.

Yeah, I'd have to say you were very lucky.

The best thing to do is hang up and try again - maybe someone will listen a little bit better, but they still have to follow their procedures and log it all.

 

[Decrepit]

Yeah, I'd have to say you were very lucky.

The best thing to do is hang up and try again - maybe someone will listen a little bit better, but they still have to follow their procedures and log it all.

I spent nearly 25% of my cell minutes on that call to Apple, so I will just drive down to the Apple store about 90 minutes away.

 

[killerrobot]

I spent nearly 25% of my cell minutes on that call to Apple, so I will just drive down to the Apple store about 90 minutes away.

I always try to make my calls on Saturday just for that reason - the wait times must be the worst I've ever encountered from anyone I've ever dealt with - not talking just computer companies, but any credit cards, airlines, banks, universities, etc.

Best of luck to you, and hopefully the genius bar will listen to you a lot better.

 

[Decrepit]

I always try to make my calls on Saturday just for that reason - the wait times must be the worst I've ever encountered from anyone I've ever dealt with - not talking just computer companies, but any credit cards, airlines, banks, universities, etc.

Best of luck to you, and hopefully the genius bar will listen to you a lot better.

I think that I will be able to articulate the problem in person. I just want a power brick so I can see if the problem reoccurs. If so, then I have to send the Mini in for service, which will suck.

My Time Machine drive is the internal drive. D'oh! I use a faster external HDD for the boot drive. So I won't lose any live data, but the Time Machine will be lost. *sigh*

And yeah, those wait times are incredible. I used to do tech support for tape drives a LONG time ago (think Windows 3.1 / DOS 6.22). We had a room with several hundred people and had 70+ calls waiting in the queue all day. We had success that we weren't ready for. Unfortunately, Iomega fixed the problem for us. They released their Zip Drive, which effectively killed the home tape-drive market. In one day. It was incredible to see the sales numbers pre/post Zip Drive.

Apple has had plenty of time to ramp up for Leopard. If that's what's flooding their call center, they need to double the staff. It's not like they're Dell/HP and trying to sell for the cheapest price possible.

 

[GavinTing]

Well, I literally spent 15 hours of travel time to get my macbook swaped.

So, hang in there, and take a roadtrip to try a new brick at the applestore

 

[MacHipster]

Crazy. I haven't had a need to contact AppleCare in a couple of years, but before that I was in contact with them quite a bit. Maybe it's because my purchases have always been through the education channels, but I always get routed to Texas and the wait time is usually brief. When I had problems, it was usually resolved within a matter of minutes, the resolution being sent in for repairs. Fortunately, my return time for repairs has also been brief, usually within a few days.

 

[mtbdudex]

Well, I literally spent 15 hours of travel time to get my macbook swaped.

So, hang in there, and take a roadtrip to try a new brick at the applestore

Next time you are talking to AppleCare, and it's a bonafide Apple issue, ask them what they can do for you, their customer, as a sign of good faith:
Have everything documented, be polite but firm in your resolve for Apple to "scratch your back a little", as a loyal customer, etc.

suggestions:
-extend your Applecare contract by 1 year
-"Free" upgrade to latest OS X, or a family pack upgrade, etc
-etc

don't shoot for the moon, but something should be negotiated for a win-win compromise to ease your feelings.

If you don't ask, they won't offer anything.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.



Good luck.

 

[Decrepit]

Next time you are talking to AppleCare, and it's a bonafide Apple issue, ask them what they can do for you, their customer, as a sign of good faith:
Have everything documented, be polite but firm in your resolve for Apple to "scratch your back a little", as a loyal customer, etc.

suggestions:
-extend your Applecare contract by 1 year
-"Free" upgrade to latest OS X, or a family pack upgrade, etc
-etc

don't shoot for the moon, but something should be negotiated for a win-win compromise to ease your feelings.

If you don't ask, they won't offer anything.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.



Good luck.

At this point, I'm just annoyed at the phone hold time. I didn't think those existed in the year 2007 anymore. Where I worked, if hold times went over 5 minutes, managers started running around like the building was on fire.

So I don't have anything to ask for at this point. The guy with the 15 hours of travel sure did though.

That said, if I drive 2.5 hours round trip to find out they won't swap my brick, I'll be unhappy. It's an intermittent problem, so I can't have it fail while I'm there.

I'm just waiting for the next Mini revision to replace this one as my primary system. The current one will become a test platform or may go to my folks, so I want it to continue running nicely.

 

[devilot]

I have AC # memorized. Seriously. 8002752273.



It's a complete toss up; sometimes someone has picked up within 5 minutes, other times, it's like your experience-- on hold for over 40 minutes before someone answers.

And yes, they do have to follow protocol. The "good" news? Once you get a case ID/ reference #, keep hold of that sucker and should you ever have to phone back in for the same issue? Name that ID# and you'll get "escalated" up the chain of command a lot quicker.

 

[Decrepit]

I have AC # memorized. Seriously. 8002752273.



It's a complete toss up; sometimes someone has picked up within 5 minutes, other times, it's like your experience-- on hold for over 40 minutes before someone answers.

And yes, they do have to follow protocol. The "good" news? Once you get a case ID/ reference #, keep hold of that sucker and should you ever have to phone back in for the same issue? Name that ID# and you'll get "escalated" up the chain of command a lot quicker.

I have to get back in first!

My Mac just bit it again, so I'm in Windows world until Saturday. I'm not going to subject the little guy to more powerdowns.

I just installed the XP virtual desktop powertoy because I miss spaces. It's not as "snappy" as the Mac. Which is just messed up. I have a dual Opteron 280 with 3.5 GB of usable memory and an amazing video card. And virtual desktop switching is slower and uglier than a 1.42GHz PPC with 1GB of memory and the integrated ATI 32MB chip. Very odd.

 

[atl27426]

My Mini has decided to turn off every so often. Resetting the PMU has no effect, only unplugging the brick for 15 minutes seems to resolve the problem.

So I call Applecare to see if I can get them to send me a replacement brick to prove that it's the cheap external part, or discover if it will be a system repair to get at the insides of my Mini.

46 minutes later (actually 1:15:00 later since I waited on hold for 30 minutes last night never getting through) I have spoken to a nice guy in the Philippines who made me run disk utility. Now I'm on hold for the product specialist.

I live over an hour from the nearest Apple service site so I was hoping a quick phone call would save me the two hours+ of driving back and forth.

Guess not.

Apple REALLY needs to update their tech support methods. I used to work in tech support (and not as a front line agent) for one of the top 2 computer companies, and managers would have been executed publicly if wait times hit 15 minutes, let alone 45+.


So, to the point... Is there a key word or method you can use to bypass this awfulness when you are pretty sure that you have a defective power brick?

Before the release of Leopard and the iMac issues, AppleCare was great, use to get a rep in about 3 minutes. Now it can take forever.

Hopefully once Leopard issues die down and if this new iMac firmware works, I would expect things to get better.

New iMac owner myself, back in August no issues, now I don't even bother calling.

 

[Decrepit]

Before the release of Leopard and the iMac issues, AppleCare was great, use to get a rep in about 3 minutes. Now it can take forever.

Hopefully once Leopard issues die down and if this new iMac firmware works, I would expect things to get better.

New iMac owner myself, back in August no issues, now I don't even bother calling.

I have to be fair. I have owned the Mini since the day Tiger was released. My system came with 10.3 installed, and 10.4 as a drop in.

This issue was the first one I had to call about. Everything else I have found solutions for online. This is a hardware problem.

So, I never got to find out about the phone based support at Apple. I'm glad they built such a solid machine that it took two years to need to call in.

But what a letdown it was to find out what the Apple frontline support was like. Wow!

 

[eyemac74119]

Not that I'm aware of - every time I've called and pretty much had the answer narrowed down to something, the phone tech still has to run through all the protocols, make a log, and tell you to run Disk Utility and then make a log of it, and then try to schedule an appointment at a genius bar.

Even when I ask to speak to a senior tech, all I get is that the phone tech has already been in contact with a senior tech and has no further answers. So if there is a secret phrase I would really like to know it as well.

well tell them that you are getting shocked.

then say that you would expect them to expedite(hurry the **** up dont say this part i was just defining expedite ) your issue to avoid a personal injury claim



gateway computers was giving my living hell over some bare wires on my power brick and i was geting shocked to death anon the brick and the laptop.


they were farting aroudn and wanted me to give them my credit card to pay for a new brick. even sending the whole laptop in..

then i asked to speed to a supervisor and said that i would hope they would get me out a laptop power pack out quick to avoid a personal injury claim..
9am next morning ups is knocking at my door with a power brick

 

[f1]

I have to be fair. I have owned the Mini since the day Tiger was released. My system came with 10.3 installed, and 10.4 as a drop in.

This issue was the first one I had to call about. Everything else I have found solutions for online. This is a hardware problem.

So, I never got to find out about the phone based support at Apple. I'm glad they built such a solid machine that it took two years to need to call in.

But what a letdown it was to find out what the Apple frontline support was like. Wow!

Mini with 10.3???? the mini has been out for THAT long?!?!

 

[Guiltygugu]

the only time i had to use apple care so far was for a faulty mouse (turned yellow after 1 month of use and scroll wheel broke)...i spoke to a nice kid (not the phillipines but a north american guy) and he sent me out a mouse, and it came in 2 days shipped from cali to toronto

no complaints

 

[mag2001]

Hmm...
Applecare always seems to help me out. They have even replaced a computer for me.

 

[doctor newb]

When I got a disk stuck in my Imac i was on the phone with support in around 7 or 8 minutes. And even though my warranty was out for the computer they still helped me out.