Dan Mayer's Blog

Apple is known for pretty good costumer service (source), so when I was having a minor issue with my mactop (Macbook laptop), I thought I would bring it in for repairs. I will share my really crappy experience with Apple customer service that followed.

I had about 45 days left on my warrant. I had purchase one of the small 13 inch refurbished laptops from Apple. Apple refurbished laptops come with a 1 year warranty. My laptop had been pretty awesome, it had one slightly annoying problem that was happening more and more often. The backlight would flicker a bunch and sometime flicker entirely off for a moment or two. I figured it was just a matter of time before it flicker off and never returned. I decided that it was worth having the service before my warranty ran out. I brought it in, and apple said it would take 3 to 5 days and they would ship it back to me, but I was about to leave on vacation so I decided to bring it in when I returned.

I attempted to drop by the apple store so they could mail it in for repairs. I was told I would have to get an appointment to drop my laptop off. They checked online and they were out of appointments for the rest of the day. I brought it back the next day. My laptop was then shipped off right before Memorial Day weekend, after which I started a new job on Tuesday and figured I wouldn’t have my laptop in time. Tuesday morning, amazingly my laptop was at the door. I excitedly rip it open plug it in and power it on. It comes up for about 30 seconds before making this scary image, and it refuses to ever boot again. Apple had just shipped me back a broken laptop, it was a new case, it had my hard drive, but it didn’t work. It wouldn’t even make a boot sound.

I ship the mactop back to apple for a second attempt at it being fixed. Friday afternoon I get a call while at the office, I am told my laptop is in Boulder, but it had an incomplete address. So it returned to the Boulder Fedex service center and they would try again Monday, or I could pick it up. So I leave work early Friday after spending my first week at a new job with out a laptop, to pick it up about 15 minutes away or so. Now that I have the package I check the incomplete address. Apple mailed my computer to:

Dan Mayer
Apt #23
Boulder, CO 80304

There was no street address, and everything previous with apple had my full and correct address. I checked online and apple has my full and correct address in my online account as well. Through out all of this I had probably spent an hour and a half on the phone with apple between the various repairs / disrepairs. So I open the box, plug it in, power it up… and it works thank god it works! It now makes a weird humming sound when the screen is open at random… My laptop mouse key now sticks and doesn’t respond well to double clicking. So after all the ordeal my laptop is back and basically in worse shape then when I originally sent it in. I will say that the screen doesn’t flicker anymore, which is good, but the mouse key is driving me nuts, and I don’t really trust sending it in to Apple again.