AppleCare Customer Service is full of lying weasel people who will try and pass the buck
Well, the lady from AppleCare Customer Service who said last week that she'd check into my case on Monday and contact me, who didn't, finally called today after I left a message on her voicemail late Tuesday afternoon, waking me out of what little sleep I got.
Even though I was still experiencing the problem, and in fact had experienced a new and annoying iteration of it on both Monday and Tuesday, she tried to pass the buck, first to the repair place, and then onto an unfortunate Tech Support person.
We went through a great many rounds of unplugging, rebooting, testing, and all the other stuff I've tried for months on end, to no avail, since everything still points back to an issue with the PowerBook. It doesn't happen with the iMac, it doesn't happen with any of the Windows computers in the household, it doesn't happen all the time.
It happened twice. Once during the original test section, the hard drive failed to mount on the desktop, or even show up in Disk Utility, although System Profiler could read that there was a USB/1394 Combo device attached.
The second time, I'd just gotten off the phone with the guy after doing a reboot, seeing the drive mount, and the guy declaring that everything was okay now and he could hang up.
Since I was already awake, I decided I might as well check my email and go blog about this. I open my mail program and browser, then click on the drive icon on the desktop, thinking to unmount the drive. Spinning beach ball of death, and system lockup, which goes on for quite awhile, eventually requiring a hard reset.
I phoned him back to inform him of the irony of his statement.
Both times, the Tech Support guy tried to convince me to take it up with the manufacturers of my external drive enclosures, who'll probably just point me back to Apple, as they well should, considering it's very likely to be Apple's fault. Then he tried to convince me to go out and buy another set of Firewire cables and see if I was still experiencing the problem.
I already have what seems to be two entirely usable cables, why should I spend money on more to try and solve an issue that seems to stem not *from* the cables, which have been swapped back and forth, used separately and together, but from the PowerBook itself, for which I have already wasted $500 in useless AppleCare, and another $52 for the dubious privilege of discovering that said AppleCare was useless, and probably wrong.
I didn't even get what I requested when I took the PB in to have it checked and hopefully fixed, and ended up being slapped with the unexpected surcharge for: a full physical inspection of the PowerBook itself, to make sure that nothing was obviously defective or likely to fail in the near future.
Instead, it reads like the guy just plugged it in, tried it once, said “Works for me”, and went on with his day after filling out his invoice for services not rendered.
In the end, I blame Apple, not him, because it's their AppleCare service policy which is at fault. It promises support and coverage while actually penalizing the customer for experiencing a problem that cannot be traced back to an obviously loose connector or other glaring manufacturer's defect, and making them afraid to report any real problems, on the off chance that nothing will be found upon casual inspection.
After all that you have spent on the extra coverage, you will receive extra surcharges for a cursory once-over which will neither look into the cause of the issue, nor tell you anything you didn't already know, and, in fact, stated openly in your report of what you've been experiencing.
And then they'll try to blame someone else for the problem, and weasel out from under their service agreement.
That two extra years of coverage for “parts and labour” you paid so much for so you could have “peace of mind” when something goes wrong? Only applies to “parts *and* labour”, and only together. They inspect the part which has gone wrong (if they even got as far as inspecting it, and not just doing “plug and play”) and don't replace it? You're liable for the labour costs, as the miracle of finding nothing counts as an “Act of God”, for which they will not take responsibility.
That intermittent problem you keep having which is directly traceable back to the PowerBook itself? It's the fault of the peripherals.
It happens once when you're talking to Tech Support and doesn't happen the next time you reboot? Well, keep rebooting!
It happens another time just after you've gotten off the phone and are working during the reboot session and completely locks up, and you call back to mention that it definitely hasn't gone away? Well, reboot yet again!
Oh, and go spend your meager remaining money on buying new and improved peripherals, maybe that'll solve it. And if it doesn't, well, it's their fault again, because Apple can do nothing for you. No visible defect obviously requiring replacement, we don't have to pony up coverage to all the fools we've suckered in, yay!
Lying weasel people.
Even though I was still experiencing the problem, and in fact had experienced a new and annoying iteration of it on both Monday and Tuesday, she tried to pass the buck, first to the repair place, and then onto an unfortunate Tech Support person.
We went through a great many rounds of unplugging, rebooting, testing, and all the other stuff I've tried for months on end, to no avail, since everything still points back to an issue with the PowerBook. It doesn't happen with the iMac, it doesn't happen with any of the Windows computers in the household, it doesn't happen all the time.
It happened twice. Once during the original test section, the hard drive failed to mount on the desktop, or even show up in Disk Utility, although System Profiler could read that there was a USB/1394 Combo device attached.
The second time, I'd just gotten off the phone with the guy after doing a reboot, seeing the drive mount, and the guy declaring that everything was okay now and he could hang up.
Since I was already awake, I decided I might as well check my email and go blog about this. I open my mail program and browser, then click on the drive icon on the desktop, thinking to unmount the drive. Spinning beach ball of death, and system lockup, which goes on for quite awhile, eventually requiring a hard reset.
I phoned him back to inform him of the irony of his statement.
Both times, the Tech Support guy tried to convince me to take it up with the manufacturers of my external drive enclosures, who'll probably just point me back to Apple, as they well should, considering it's very likely to be Apple's fault. Then he tried to convince me to go out and buy another set of Firewire cables and see if I was still experiencing the problem.
I already have what seems to be two entirely usable cables, why should I spend money on more to try and solve an issue that seems to stem not *from* the cables, which have been swapped back and forth, used separately and together, but from the PowerBook itself, for which I have already wasted $500 in useless AppleCare, and another $52 for the dubious privilege of discovering that said AppleCare was useless, and probably wrong.
I didn't even get what I requested when I took the PB in to have it checked and hopefully fixed, and ended up being slapped with the unexpected surcharge for: a full physical inspection of the PowerBook itself, to make sure that nothing was obviously defective or likely to fail in the near future.
Instead, it reads like the guy just plugged it in, tried it once, said “Works for me”, and went on with his day after filling out his invoice for services not rendered.
In the end, I blame Apple, not him, because it's their AppleCare service policy which is at fault. It promises support and coverage while actually penalizing the customer for experiencing a problem that cannot be traced back to an obviously loose connector or other glaring manufacturer's defect, and making them afraid to report any real problems, on the off chance that nothing will be found upon casual inspection.
After all that you have spent on the extra coverage, you will receive extra surcharges for a cursory once-over which will neither look into the cause of the issue, nor tell you anything you didn't already know, and, in fact, stated openly in your report of what you've been experiencing.
And then they'll try to blame someone else for the problem, and weasel out from under their service agreement.
That two extra years of coverage for “parts and labour” you paid so much for so you could have “peace of mind” when something goes wrong? Only applies to “parts *and* labour”, and only together. They inspect the part which has gone wrong (if they even got as far as inspecting it, and not just doing “plug and play”) and don't replace it? You're liable for the labour costs, as the miracle of finding nothing counts as an “Act of God”, for which they will not take responsibility.
That intermittent problem you keep having which is directly traceable back to the PowerBook itself? It's the fault of the peripherals.
It happens once when you're talking to Tech Support and doesn't happen the next time you reboot? Well, keep rebooting!
It happens another time just after you've gotten off the phone and are working during the reboot session and completely locks up, and you call back to mention that it definitely hasn't gone away? Well, reboot yet again!
Oh, and go spend your meager remaining money on buying new and improved peripherals, maybe that'll solve it. And if it doesn't, well, it's their fault again, because Apple can do nothing for you. No visible defect obviously requiring replacement, we don't have to pony up coverage to all the fools we've suckered in, yay!
Lying weasel people.
posted by Alexander the Drake at 10:41 am
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