Sad experience with Apple Customer Care

aicul · #1 March 27th, 2007, 01:49 PM

Why does apple do this?

My 5 month old mighty mouse broke down and I am having terrible problems getting apple to repair it under their warranty.

I spent pointless calls to their service desk who had me running in circles. Finally I was told to go to an authorised dealer for a swap/repair as deemded necessary by local specialist.

Here I discovered repairs I would get a swap - the red laser light being dead. However the swap required me to submit my iMac's serial number?!!

Putting aside the fact that the serial number of my iMac has nothing to do with the mighty mouse warranty (the two were separate purchases), but I was to return home, get the info, etc., etc.

I find it unacceptable for apple to require un-related information to initiate a repair. This is just another unethical manner to obtain customer id's without their consent - compromising the notion of confidentiality - or just a technique not to honor their warranty.

Sometimes apple is a real dissappointment!!

wraith · #2 March 27th, 2007, 05:25 PM

As much as I love my Apple products, their support does suck somewhat. My iBook required 3 logic board replacements, and if it happens again I'm screwed. (You'd think that 3 replacements would indicate a trend with them, but nooooo.) My MacBook had a logic board replaced before they figured out they all they needed to do was release a power management firmware upgrade. My MacBook's battery died, and even though they had many MacBook batteries on the sales floor they had to order me a "repair unit" which took a week. (My guess is that they get their "repair" stock from returned MacBooks that can't be fixed.) My iPod broke, and they had to replace it with a refurbished one. (So, I basically paid full price for a refurbished iPod.)

MacOSX rocks, their astetic hardware designs are awesome, but their repair policies suck.

icemanjc · #3 March 28th, 2007, 07:12 AM

I didn't even know the Mighty Mouse had a warranty.........

**mdnky** · #4 April 2nd, 2007, 09:31 AM

It has a one year warranty when bought separately. When mine broke, I took it back to Comp USA with the receipt and they exchanged it with no questions (about 7 months).

Did your mouse ship with the iMac as a standard (or paid upgrade) accessory? If so, they are probably considering it a trackable repair for the system, hence wanting the iMac serial.

aicul · #5 April 2nd, 2007, 11:30 AM

I appreciate your response as this is the real issue.

The mouse was bought as a separate item (as per 1st post : separate purchases), hence the warranty.

However, the Apple authorised dealer refused even to look at the invoice! On this document you can seen the purchase for the mouse and no iMac purchase.

The dealer claims the request for the serial number comes from Apple...