Well the good news today is that I got my imac fixed and with very limited hassle. A quick recap... about a month or so I was burning a cd from itunes and heard a strange noise... then no matter what disk I put in, it would make a few attempts to boot, then just spit the disk back out. So I ended up purchasing a $170 extended warranty (which apple calls the "applecare protection plan")... I bought this for two reasons... one I knew I had a buggy computer after only 5 months out of the box. I figured it made sense to get the extended warranty. I also (mistakenly) thought this was the plan I needed in order to be treated like a human being when I tried to bring my computer in for repair. I later learned this was not the case... that plan is called the "pro care" card, and it can only be bought in your local apple store. I really think this is a borderline scam... it promises first rate customer service... I quote "next on the bench" with your computer when you bring it in to get fixed. So this is a mixed review here...
I brought the computer in as the shop opened at 10am. I purchased the $99 procare plan (good for one year). I then met with the "mac genius" who proceeded to boot up my mac off of a networked disk (I didn't know you could do that, that was cool that I learned something). He confirmed there was something wrong with the cd drive or optical drive. He checked and to my surprise they had a drive in stock (I guess this problem happens often). He said it should probably be done today (in approx 5 hours). GREAT!
So about 4:30 comes and I'm getting nervous that I had not gotten a call yet to say it was finished. I decided to call and see if maybe they called my home phone by mistake. I got an employee named "James" (I won't give away my local apple store... just be wary of an apple store employee named James). James was full of attitude, and at first would not even tell me if my machine had even been worked on. He said the "admin" was out (whatever that means). After I said, "Well they told me it would be done today" he put me on hold and decided to check. He said, "it's not done yet"... I said "well do you think it will be?" He said "I can't say, the tech is out to lunch (it was 4:45pm)" I said, "so there's nothing you can tell me?" He said "I've told you all that I can tell you".
So rather frustrated, I simply thanked him (sarcastically) and hung up.
I figured I would wait an hour before calling back to give the tech time to get back from "lunch"... when to my surprise my cell phone rang about 20 minutes later... the mac genius I spoke to this morning said "your computer is done" - Great! I said and thanked him.
SO... bottom line is that my computer is home, and seems to be running fine, and they fixed it within one business day.
Why I got the run-a-round from James I don't know. Was he lying when he said they had not touched my machine yet? Did the tech actually install a new optical drive in about 20 minutes? Did the mac genius lie when he said it would take 5 hours? Did I not get "next on the bench" service that my procare card promised? Who knows... I'm just happy that I have my machine back. I still feel like I got scammed out of a $99 procare plan though.
OH and for what it's worth... had I not been covered under warranty, this repair would have cost me $445.95!! ($310.94 for the optical drive, and $135.00 for the labor). Ouch!!!
2 comments:
James was probably a Mac specialist and does not know anything about what is going on. The admin is the guy who is kinda the go to guy with managing the repair facilities. He can check the status of repairs etc.... Sure you have procare, and that promises rapid repairs. But procare is very popular and you have to keep in mind that the geniuses may be working on other procare members machines. They should never quote 5 hours..... I quoted two days even if we were completing same day repairs. For non procare customers we quoted three to five days. There is probably 6-9 geniuses in a typical store and fifteen to thirty computers to be fixed. We would go in the order they were sent to repair, unless it is a procare customer. What other computer company can give you almost same day service? Hell i'd be happy to get it back in two days.
Hey Anon,
Not sure I understand your comments but it sounds like you are defending James and his poor attitude? If he doesn't know what's going on, he probably shouldn't be answering the phone and dealing with customers then. Then you say that procare is very popular so the whole idea of spending $99 for preferred repair status is not what you'll get... and then you go on to say that you will quote extra days when you know a repair will take less time. Um, these are not good things to be fessing up to. I do agree with your last two sentences though... I was very happy to have my imac back in less than 24 hours!
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