[janmc]

my beloved powerbook had a problem where the light on the display went. i duly rang applecare and they told me to bring it to my local 'apple approved' repair centre. in the meantime the display started working again, but i dropped it off anyway. the stupid man there told me that apple wouldn't fix it (it has to be sent to Amsterdam) because it's working ok now. i told him that it hadn't been working for 3 days, and that something obviously was wrong. i also told it has the infamous white spot problem - and he'd never heard of it - he thought i was talking about dead pixels!


it doesn't reassure me when the man fixing my computer knows less about it than me.


so anyway i showed him the white spots using pixel check, and he said that apple only replaces displays with 6 or more dead pixels. at this point i was looking at him wondering if i was being filmed for a new tv show. i told him that the 6+ dead pixel thing was all very well and good, but what had that to do with my powerbook and the obvious giant white spots on the screen?


he is the only person in there who fixes macs, so there is no one else i can get to look at it. he's running a powerbook diagnostic program to check it for problems before he sends it off to Apple in Amsterdam. should i go down there, rescue my powerbook and give it to their rivals - the other Apple approved repairers?

is this a common situation?

[cewade]

As long as he is going to send it to Apple, ad won't be the one (attempting to be) fixing it, I'd say you should be fine. But if he's going to be opening it up, run, and don't stop until you get somewhere better.

[Luca Rescigno]

See if you can get Apple to simply send you a shipping box. That's what I did when my iPod had problems a few months ago. I called them up, and instead of having to drive it to a repair facility, they just sent me a box with a shipping label to send it back to them. No dealing with idiot repair people then.

Call 'em up and tell them the address you want it sent to. Just tell them that you'd prefer to send it in directly instead of going through the service provider. I got the box the very next day.

[webb3201]

My sympathy, that is incredibly frustrating. Call Apple and ask for a shipping box (as suggested above). If they approve, run to the shop and get the machine back. If they give you any hassle on the shipping directly, just have the dealer send it in. The good news is that as it is a screen problem and a laptop, most service shops have to send them to Apple rather than tinker.

PS, print out the information you can on the white spots and hand it over to this guy to help your local Mac community.