[Pianomankw]

I've heard some things about buying a macbook from macmall from the guys at the apple store. They claim that macmall has prices that are sometimes more than $200 cheaper than the apple website. They say that the way they do this is by buying the lowend macbooks from apple and upgrading them wth third-party parts like the harddrive and ram. If something goes wrong with the macbook and you have to send it to apple, the first thing they will say is that it is an error with those parts because they are not the ones that came shipped with it. Does anyone know anything about this or is just apple's way of trying to get me to buy from them?

[rjt1000]

Although I wouldnt be surprised of a scam like that from fringe resellers or on eBay, the major Mac authorized resellers (MacMall, MacConnection, MacZone, Amazon.com etc) would not get away with doing this. (BTW, you can check out Mac Prices: Current Mac & iPod prices, bundles & reviews; Updated Daily for the best current deals, including rebates and bundles.) All Mac products should be received with the original seal on the box intact so you can feel sure that there has been no tampering and that you are receiving a new product and not a return. If I received an open box as new, I would complain immediately and demand a refund. Also, when buying expensive items I would be sure to use a credit card. That way, you have the recourse of asking your credit card company to charge back the retailer if there is any fraudulent or unscrupulous practices. Also, check with your credit card issuer: many offer to double the manufacturers original warranty which gets you 2 years of coverage without additional cost. Also, I think that the employee at Apple who told you that was acting unethically in addition to being wrong. I might complain to the store manager or to Apple.

[CheesePuff]

I've been ordering through MacMall for years now and never ran into, nor saw that problem with mail order or online. If you check their web site, they don't offer any Apple product for below MSRP, except for the previous models which all stores can do. Only reason I don't use MacMall now is because their "free shipping" has to be done through a mail-in rebate, rather then 100% free such as MacConnection.