I wasn't going to blog about this but I just had to.
As some of you know I've been having hardware issues with my iphone. We bought it Monday, the touchpad developed a dead strip on Friday and I've been trying to find where/how to get it fixed since Saturday.
We bought it at a retail outlet, not direct from the Telco. This was a retail chain that both Mr Bears and I have used before on a regular basis and quite appreciated their levels of customer service.
When we bought the phone on Monday in Perth they were their usual wonderful service. I flew home that day.
Friday I discovered that my touchpad was developing a dead zone, where the finger pressing wasn't working. This went straight over the settings button and the keypad, so I couldn't text or type in new numbers etc etc.
On Saturday I went to a local outlet of the retail store and was told "you didn't buy from this outlet, we can't help you".
I went straight to my Telco's outlet, who told me they couldn't help me, I had to put all my enquiries through the retail outlet, as I didn't buy the phone direct from the Telco.
I came home, rang the Perth outlet. The manager apologised and said he would find me a friendly Melbourne outlet and call me straight back.
Saturday came and went. Monday came and went. I rang three times in Tuesday, twice the Manager was not in yet, the third time he was in but informed me his computer network was down. He would ring me as soon as it was back up.
Tuesday went. Wednesday came and went. I skipped lunch today because I was in back to back meetings, so I left early at 3pm and visited another outlet of this retail store.
Waited for over 30 minutes while the two lackeys couldn't help me - I had to talk to the manager apparently. He was too busy chatting up the just out of high school lollipops. Every time I said "excuse me, I've been waiting here" I got a got a "you will wait. I will get to you". I was patient. I waited and endured this treatment for another 20 mins. Then I blasted him. I completely told him exactly what I thought of him and the way he ran his store and the way he treated his customers. He shrugged, turned his back on me, and continued chatting up the lollipops.
I seethed all the way home. Rang the Head Office who listened and then said "we'll put your through to Melbourne Area Manager". That's it. Not apology, no explanations, nothing.
I went through it all again with the local area Manager. His only response was "well those are the only two stores on your side of town, which one do you want to return to?" He also informed me that I needed to return the phone to them. They would post it to the Telco to check and fix and then it would be returned to me. It would take 4-5 weeks and I would not be getting a replacement phone.
I hung up and rang my Telco.
The first operator could barely understand English and kept asking me to repeat myself, so I asked to speak to his supervisor. He hung up on me.
I rang back and got a different operator. After to-ing and fro-ing for over 30 minutes, me pointing out that I've been a customer for over 10 years, I will be writing to the Telecommunications Ombudsman and the local news media, I was pushed up the chain to someone who told me that I should go to directly to an Apple authorised repairer. This operator gave me his name and extension number, and he's waiving the contract costs for the time I am without a phone.
I rang a local Apple Authorised Repairer who informed me that he can repair and service every single Apple product except the iphone. Apple will not let their authorised repairers repair or sell iphones in Australia. This is an Apple US decision and he gave me Apple Australia's number so I could confirm this for myself. He did offer to look at my iphone free of charge tomorrow morning and at least determine for certain that my problem is a hardware issue.
I rang Apple Australia and went through to their iphone support centre. It transpires that all iphone purchasers in Australia automatically qualify for 90 free service direct from Apple. Gee the Telco's never mention this !!!
He talked me through restoring factory settings on the handset and other limited diagnostics (difficult when I can't access half the buttons because of the dead zone - including the Settings button!)
He then determined it is definitely a hardware issue and made an appointment for me to see a Mac Genius (yes that is their official title) at the Apple Retail store on the other side of Melbourne on Friday morning. They will test my phone and confirm the diagnosis and replace my phone free of charge then and there.
So I've gone from "Sorry can't help you" to "send it to Perth who will send it to the Telco and it will take 4-5 weeks" to "we'll have you back up and running within 15 minutes of you being able to visit the Apple store".
Now if I could just get over my unreasoning desire to castrate the managers of the retail outlets, I think everything would be fine.
Moral of this story: Never go into an outlet of only male staff without a great looking woman beside you.
Fact -gathering information: Every iphone purchaser in Australia is entitled to 90 days free iphone support direct from apple. If your phone plays up within the first 90 days, ignore the telco and go straight to Apple!
It only took me 2.5 hours this afternoon, five days after the phone broke, four days after we bought it, to discover this.
23 comments:
Blimey, what a mess.
I wondered why texts are coming through from your old number....explains it all.
Here's hoping you get the correct level of grovelling service on Friday.
So sorry they messed you around so much, horrible.
{{{you}}} for going through all this rubbish.
Hmm - maybe you should let Apple know the LACK of service you got, they may have more clout for complaining, at least you are getting it sorted out though!
I am still livid at being treated like an invisible person solely because I was not 18 years old and weighed more than 40 kilograms.
And his Area Manager and Head Office don't care!
Sorry they made you feel worthless love.
Some guys just can't see beyond their own miniature brains, i.e their lower regions.
What a load of guano! Sheesh!
Kudos to the Apple guys who will get you all fixed up, but hoping that the fleas of 1000 camels infest the tents of the idiots at the retail outlets.
Holy crap!!! I would have thrown the damn thing in the trash after the first 2-3 attempts to talk to someone. People are so clueless - and they know it and don't care!!!! Glad that you finally found the guy to get you fixed - it definitely shouldn't have been that big of a deal at any of the previous stops. Ummm, to write up a product as defective and send it back to the manufacturer should be almost 0 hassle for the outlet, and shouldn't cost them anything but time.
And I wouldn't necessarily say that it was the way you looked that caused the issue - you had an issue, and nobody wants to take responsibility for that, even if all they have to do is pass it on up the line. It's a pandemic of "Not my job" because customer service is an archaic term no longer taught, expected, or concerned about.
Think I'll back out right now before some one has a go at me ;))
Nah Jim - no need to go away, I don't think you would ever be as stupid as the men/boys/idiots/drooling hormone machines that Gothy has been dealing with!
Oh I can drool with the best of them given half a chance! lol
Ah well - seeing as it is you we can let you off!
Why thank you ma am!
So can I honey! But you - like me - know when to drool and when to actually do your fucking job !!!
I sent Mr Bears a txt on the tram on the way home while I was seething that went something like:
I'm going to throw this fucking iphone against the nearest brick wall and use the jagged shards to castrate all {retail outlet} male employees.
Morning Mel. Not a good day I see. When will we know if it's fixed?
Morning sweetheart !!!!!
Actually today is a very good day - its pay day! The money should actually be in its proper accounts tomorrow so I can spend it :)
Usual work day today with lots of meetings and then dinner out tonight with some old friends from my last job who are visiting Melb for a conference this week :)
The phone will be fixed Friday morning because I cannot get to that side of the city until my next day off (which happens to be Friday). I can wait one more day.
Glad you finally got some sense from someone and hopefully it will be fixed soon.
I don't have anything to add Mel. I would be livid. I hope you get your phone fixed soon.
Good. Hope you are back in the living world of moble's soon. I look forward to getting my first text from the Antipodes!
Watch out Mel, Jim rarely answers texts...he's happy to chat on the phone, but text, nada LOL.
Just back online from my 3 weeks holidays and still lots of catching up to do.
Thanks for the info Mel. I'm planning of getting an iPhone come Feb when my contract expire. Now I know if I run into similar problem. Cheers
Definitely Tim! I'm passing that little nugget on to all my Aussie friends :)
It's strange how some members of staff in shops and offices go out of their way to be helpful and seem to get some kind of joy from helping people - then there are ones who are as unhelpful as they can possibly be because if they help you it means they might actually have to do some work.
My daughter and her husband were on honeymoon in Italy, moving on as and when it took their fancy. The only fixed part of the trip was to take the Orient Express from Venice to Paris on their way home.
En route to Venice, they discovered that not only had they forgotten to check in to a hotel the night before the Orient Express trip, [they were now four hours away from Venice with the train departing in two hours], they had also left their passports in a hotel in the south of the country.
In the UK, that would have been the end of it but in Italy, the Orient Express made it possible for them to join the train at Innsbruck later that night, the hotel suggested faxing copies of their passports to the Orient Express so that they could board the train and then couriered the passports to the Paris hotel. The car hire company made no extra charge for leaving the car in Austria rather than in Italy and, despite having to drive at nearly 100 miles an hour to get there, they made the connection with ten minutes to spare.
If that had been the UK there would have been lots of shoulder shrugging and, 'Sorry sir, no can do' or 'That'll cost you £... extra and 'We can't guarantee anything.'
Wouldn't it be wonderful if only the right kind of people took jobs in the public service industry!
Ouch! Sorry to hear that you had such a terrible time of it - it really shouldn't be so hard to get an obviously defective brand new product fixed/replaced. I would be frothing at the mouth over it too! You know what they say - the best revenge, is the *best* revenge. Have you started your letter-writing yet?
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