Apple Customer Service (rant)

Unfortunately a lot of companies are getting that way.

You would think they would be more interested in cultivating both new and old customers instead of aggravating them.

The dust has just settled on a fiasco I had with CenturyLink at one of my business clients. The extremely short version is that we went to CenturyLink from a T1 and were so disappointed that we switched to Cable Internet after just 2 days with CenturyLink. Then they tried to bill us for the installation ($300+) despite the fact that they were unable to provide the speed they sold us.

 

Wow! Apple just did bite off themselves another piece of the Apple. This time around it was the core! Shame on them.

I had nothing but excellent service from Epson in the past even though the AIO was years past its warranty. So got another Epson this time.

Logitech was excellent too. Mouse charger wouldn't charge the mouse anymore. Lost the bill. Still under warranty (5 Years) Had to mail in the mouse and got a free replacement. No warranty on the replacement though.

Past December I purchased a business Dell Vostro PC with 3 years PRO support. ($$) Next Business Day service and software support with North American support. Heck, after a call to Dell and diagnosis, I needed the NBD the day after setup. A Tech came next day and installed a new motherboard. Way better than having to request a return ticket and return the tower myself. So far so good with their service.

Years ago, Bell tried to sell me better internet speed, 3 months for the current price I had. Went for it but didn't get what they promised. Numerous calls, fault was always at my end. If I'd believed them I would have spent hundreds of $$. Finally ... I got the truth: *out of area*. I cancelled their service immediately. Don't trust them anymore regardless what they say or promise.

 

Yep, the legitimate customers that are paying them fair and square often get penalized, often resulting in a PITA for their own customers.
One reason why, even though I have an i-Pod, I don't use it, ( I actually won this thing, so it didn't cost me anything, but they sent me the pinkest, most girly, gayest looking one they could find,so it seems...Grrr!):mad
Now, I just stick to the generic MP3, MP4 players).
I hope that you get your C/C sorted, Laura. That could cause problems in other areas, too. As if ya don't have enough problems, eh.rolleyes

 

I feel your pain Laura, i have just had a positive outcome from an IT distributor here in Belgium.
The company Mobistar has a closed concession for i phones from apple so if you want an apple product you have to buy it through them, they are the biggest mobile company in Europe so you would think that their service would be good roflmao
They also do satellite TV and internet so i was offered a great deal for internet,TV and land line phone ( i am already with them for my mobile) so the whole package sounded great on price, I signed on the dotted line for a two year contract, now something you should know about Belgium is when you sign a document it is binding from the moment you sign with no cooling of period so we always read the small print first, all seemed good at first except we had no land line but they told us it would be OK in a couple of days so after a week i started to get a bit irate, i must have made 30 calls to the call center over the next 3 months but still no land line and the internet was so slow as to be useless.
In desperation i got in contacted the Telecommunications Ombudsman who took up my complaint but told me to keep paying the TV and internet as if i stopped they would cut all services.
After a lot of e-mails and phone calls i got the contract canceled with no cost to me and i have won a decoder and satellite dish so it ended OK except that i had to crawl back to my original ISP and plead stupidity to get everything back to where it was.
Mobistar has the distinction of be officially the worst customer service in Europe.
It just goes to show that "if it looks too good to be true it usually is"

This is a bit long and it is more than a year old but things are no better.

http://euforus.blogspot.com/2009/08...html#!/2009/08/mobistar-customer-service.html

 

As was previously mentioned, escalate it, take it higher up. Did Apple insist to write off the $6 as fraudulent charges or did you have any say in it? Never mind, it should have been a goodwill Customer Service write-off instead. This was done on a routine basis in the credit card department where I used to work many years ago. What decent Co. wants to lose customers over such a piddly small amount? ESCALATE and insist on re-instatement of you account. PS: hope you have the name of CSR who did this.

 

Dunno if this will help but a trick I use is to phone the cancellation line,in the UK customer services is directed abroad to call centre but if you call the cancellation line "eg.Hit 3 or something to cancel and apple service" you get through to someone in the UK who actually has power to make things happen just don't ask them to put you through to customer service stay talking to the cancellation rep,often they will bend over backwards to keep you paying.

Maybe worth a try,good luck anyway And I fell your pain

 

Shnerdly - Sorry to hear about your brief experience with Centurylink. It sounds as if it was fully resolved, but if it has not, Please contact us by email: TalkToUs@Centurylink.com so we can further assist you.

Thanks!
Rich
Centurylink Help Team

 

More Apple attitude reported here.

 

I complete forgot to add something very important. Real fraudulent purchases are not committed in the amount of $6.00!! They run in the hundreds or thousands of dollars purchased in a very, very short time if more than one purchase.

As a side note: Credit card companies have the technology to catch/alert unusual purchases rapidly and will cancel the account immediately upon verification and notify you also that they have cancelled the account and will set up a new one. At least that's how it happened many years ago.

@Laura, can you give us an update to the current status please?

 

I feel your pain, Laura. In my line of business, (I.T./Industrial Consultant), the only thing that 'lights my fuse' more than Clients with a bad attitude is Companies that are very efficient at grabbing money, but don't want to know about it when it comes to corporate/company responsibility, which is nothing more than providing the goods/services that have already been paid for. Then think that they are so big they should be "untouchable".:mad
No wonder a lot of people just convert the i-tunes to standard MP3/4 and use a different product entirely. rolleyes
It's like me selling equipment that goes on the Fritz, then either not wanting to know about it, or threatening to sue. I wouldn't be in business for very long.
Yeah, most people just give up - then it's the usual win/win situation for Cos. like Apple. Like you said, only something like a class-action suit or similar would be likely to have any tangible results, and show them that legal bullying doesn't always work. We live in hope, I guess.rolleyes
I'm NOT an Apple or Jobs hater, I just don't like to see corporate greed at the expense of personal rights, as I've said in other threads.
...</rant off>

 

Sounds to me as if Apple decided (perhaps) to put into place a policy not to offer goodwill customer service write-offs. Some companies are perhaps more lenient than others. Some used to allow max of 3 cust. write-offs per customer, other more or less, or left it up to the CSR, depending on the circumstances. Those were other times though. Just awful reading that Apple made more profits than any other co. recently. That must leave anyone, who dealt with them and had a bad experience with Apple, a bad taste in their mouth. Makes one hesitant to purchase any future products from those companies, small or large?

What can I say Laura? You made the decision to leave it alone and I respect that. Just hope that you get it out of the way and therefore need to have peace with your decision.

 

Re: Apple Support -- Best Numbers and Hours to Call

Hi Abby,

Sorry to hear that you had such problems with Apple. Sheesh what a hassle! I never contact Apple Customer Service via e-mail. Their customer service technical support via telephone is actually much better with any questions and/or complaints anyone might have with their products; (than it is via e-mail). The people who answer the phone inquiries are far more proficient in answering questions directly; than those who answer Apple support e-mail (at least IMO). I actually haven't called in a while; but these are the numbers that I have successfully used whenever contacting Apple for tech support:

iPhone Technical Support Phone Number: 800-694-7466
(How to reach a live person: Press 0 at first recording and then Press "#" when the recording asks for your iPhone number).

Important Note: Hours of Operation are: 7am-12am (EST)

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iPod and Mac Technical Support - Phone Number: 800-275-2273
(How to reach a live person: Press 0 until transferred to a person).

Important Note: Hours of Operation are 9am-9pm (EST)

=======================================

Side Note: You can call Apple tech support after the hours posted there; however it is only an 'auto-bot' answering any inquiries. There is no one available to talk to 'live' after-hours; at least not when I called them.

Good Luck! -- COMP
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