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bpd115 · May 3, 2004, 09:58 PM

So my father orders a new 12 inch, with the 80 gig 5400 RPM HD.

He's all excited...boots it up....and nothing on the LCD....you can hear the OSX Start up in the background but the backlight on the LCD is out....battery is good, plugged in and reset pram and still nothing.

So he calls applecare....first tech guy puts him through the general troubleshooting and suggests repair...Uh, no thanks I want what I paid for, a NEW working powerbook, not a new repaired one. So he passes him through to another department...the Representative was really nice but the previous tech never gave him a case number or a "DOA" number....bumps him back to tech support who again trys to troubleshoot but than says "Oh well I see this was an educational purchase" and puts him through to yet another department who verify's that yeah it's DOA but OOPS the department that issues DOA numbers is closed and he'll have to call back in the morning.

He's pretty disgusted as we've had some family issues this week, his septic pump is buzzing and now his new powerbook is DOA...

My new 12" comes in on Wed. and I hope it works!

For anyone with DOA experiences does Apple have a quick turn around on these things or is he going to be waiting another week?

PeterKG · May 3, 2004, 10:14 PM

Here is a thread on the Macworld forums where someone else had the same issue. Macworld Thread

tekno_geek911 · May 4, 2004, 01:56 AM

That sucks...Hopefully they let him swap it for a new one.

Im glad I didnt upgrade from Rev B to Rev C....Seems like it has a lot of issues.

bpd115 · May 4, 2004, 08:06 AM

Well he should be on the phone with them in a few min. so we'll see what they do soon....

chabig · May 4, 2004, 08:28 AM

I'd just send it in for repair. It's still a new machine, even after the repair.

Chris

bpd115 · May 4, 2004, 08:46 AM

No, he paid for a working new powerbook, not one with potential problems. And if you send it in for repair it may come back with scratches etc. on the case...

he's getting a DOA number as we 'speak'.

hldan · May 4, 2004, 10:06 AM

Originally posted by bpd115:
No, he paid for a working new powerbook, not one with potential problems. And if you send it in for repair it may come back with scratches etc. on the case...

he's getting a DOA number as we 'speak'.

I agree, it's the same as buying a new car off the lot and it's a lemon after you start it and all the dealer offers you is to "repair" it as if they are doing the customer a favor after spending a fortune. Get an exchange for another one! It doesn't matter if it's an educational discount or not, you are buying a "new" model and not a refurb and you are an "Apple Customer", you could have purchased a Dell so Apple has to be appreciate all their customers.
Don't take no for an answer. Apple doesn't have the rights to repair a brand new machine they shipped DOA at "their" option. I don't know about the state you live in but here in California there are "No Lemon" laws.
Also only have Apple repair your machine at a last resort when something goes wrong later down the line. Their techs are sometimes sloppy and the machine comes back looking worse than before and sometimes have other problems.
This is not always the case but it's happened to many as well as myself. Get Applecare! They go the extra mile for anyone with Applecare.

bpd115 · May 4, 2004, 10:52 AM

Well the new machine is on it's way and he printed out the return slip from fedex and is shipping the DOA unit back.

It's funny you metion applecare as one of the techs he spoke to was like "Well you don't have applecare so lets get you signed up and we can take care of this"..

Uh Hello, you shipped me a broken product and now you want me to buy the extended service plan so you can fix it? Yeah that didn't work. And technically he has "applecare" for the first 90 days by phone and a year for hardware.

I work in a call center for customer support so I know that it all depends on the agent you get as some simply do not know policy and procedure as they should...so my view of Apple hasn't been changed by this...stuff happens I guess....

Just as long as when I get home my new 12 inch works out of the box

iomatic · May 4, 2004, 11:32 AM

Please write, in a thoughtful manner, to them. If they don't know about bad customer relations, they'll never fix it. I have, and received very positive results from various companies.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Originally posted by bpd115:

...

Just as long as when I get home my new 12 inch works out of the box

bpd115 · May 4, 2004, 01:11 PM

I will tell my father to do so since he has the names of the people he's delt with.

I think its just that generally people in tech support aren't as customer friendly as they should be (there are exceptions however)

The woman he spoke to in sales and service was extremely apologetic and helpful.

bpd115 · May 4, 2004, 09:27 PM

well, my new 12 came in today and everything is fine with it, no dead pixels....the 5400 RPM HD is an improvement and the 32 additonal MB of Video Ram help expose alot...it needs the extra 512 of ram which should be here tomorrow though...(FCE 2.0 will not run w less than 384)