Apple Customer Service

May 5, 2010

I would like to share my experience with Apple’s customer service with regard to my MacBook.  First of all I guess I should say that it’s actually my wife’s MacBook.  I originally bought it for her in December 2007 to go along with her iPhone and it is her only computer.  After about six months the drive failed.  We were able to recover most of the files (music, photos, etc…) but it was still a pain.

Over the next 18 months I visited the Genius bar at the Mac store all too often.  When I brought it in for the third drive failure they said that maybe the drive controller should be replaced, and I agreed.  This meant that they would have to send it off to the repair depot.  A few days we received it back with a new drive as well as a new system board (apparently the drive controller is embedded into the system board.)

It didn’t take long before we realized that the screen would black out if it was held at just the right angle.  How frustrating!  We sent it in for a drive issue and it came back with a display problem!  I knew that it would have to be sent off for a few days again, and we could live with the screen the way it was, so I waited to send it off.

Last week we had some travel, so I decided it was a good time to get the screen fixed.  I needed to get the serial number of the unit in order to submit a warranty claim.  The serial number is inside of the battery compartment so I had to remove the battery.  There is a ‘button’ about the size of a nickel which needs to be turned with a screwdriver in order to release the battery.  As I was removing the battery, button broke.  Add one more thing to the list of what has gone wrong with this laptop!

I got the request submitted and made yet another trip into the Apple store.  I spoke with a Genius and he told me what I already knew.  That they could fix everything, including the newly broken button, but they would have to send it off for a few days.  Once more I had walked into the store with a laptop and came out with a piece of paper.

A couple of days later I got an email from Apple telling me that my repair was on hold because they detected accidental damage which voided the warranty.  They included a picture of the plastic button which was broken.  This obviously had nothing to do with the screen blanking out, but they wanted me to pay over $400 for the repair.  Needless to say, I had a different opinion.

I called their customer service department and was transferred to a senior customer service rep.  Her name was Lynette.  I explained everything that had gone on, all the way back to my original hard drive issues.  She was very nice and listened as I explained my frustration with everything I had experienced.  She then surprised me by suggesting that they send me a brand new MacBook!  Of course I wasn’t going to argue with her.  She said that I clearly had a bad experience and she wanted to make it up to me.

This was all on a Saturday.  On Tuesday at 10:30 AM my new MacBook arrived via FedEx.  I transferred the information from the old drive, which they sent to me, in about 90 minutes.  I went from an Apple hater to an Apple lover very quickly.  It is a current generation (so about 2 1/2 years newer than my old one) with updated software and better in every category than the one I had.

UPDATE 5/6/2010  1:00PM CDT

I just got a call from a guy at Apple to make sure that I had the system up and running.  That’s impressive.

By Hans | Posted in Technology | Tagged , , | Comment (1)

Are you getting screwed by your printer?

November 11, 2009

I guess that title could mean a lot of things.  In this case I mean screwed as in screwed over and printer as in laser printer.  I apologize to everyone having an affair with someone at Kinko’s if I have offended or scared you.  Don’t worry, your secret is still safe. What I mean is I figured out a setting on my printer that just saved me about $250.

I have a HP Color Laser Jet 2605dn printer.  I generally like it; it does a great job on printing, is fast and prints on both sides of the page.  It works with my PCs and the Mac very well.  It also came with full toner cartridges when I bought it about 2 years ago.  This is something that is rare, but very nice.  I did find one feature, which I didn’t even know existed, that I don’t like.   This is the feature that tells you when your toner is gone.

Each cartridge has a chip in it that keeps track of the toner level.  The idea is that when the toner is low the printer can alert you, and tell you to buy more.  When it thinks that the toner is gone, the printer won’t print anymore.  All of that makes sense, except that level indicator is not accurate.  It’s not even close to accurate.  Apparently it assumes that every page uses color.  So, you can ‘run out’ of color toner even if you only print in black and white!

I realized this as my wife wanted to print something in black and white and the printer would not work.  I then did a little looking and found this …

At the control panel: Press the right arrow twice (System Setup). Next press the Select Key (check mark). Then, press the right arrow twice (Print Quality), then Select. Next, press the right arrow (Replace Supplies), then Select (Stop at Out). Press the right arrow (Override Out), press Select.

I followed those instructions and then printed a test page.  Perfect color!  I understand that this will eventually run out, but I wonder how many people just run to the store and spend the $250 on new toner when they don’t really need to.   I’m glad I found this setting, and I would encourage you to check your printers to see if there is something similar.

This is not out of toner at all

This is not out of toner at all

By Hans | Posted in Technology | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The History of kahlerfamily.com (Part 2)

September 7, 2009

This is the second part of the story of this website.  To read the first part click here.

As I recovered from the shock of seeing some strange family on my website, I set out to see what had happened.  I had let my domain registration slip.  Since I wasn’t checking email on my old account very often, and spam was such an issue, I simply missed it.

Someone had picked it up, and set it up as an ad site.  The thought behind sites like this is that site visitors will click on the links on the site, generating revenue for the site owner.  You typically see this on domains that are close in spelling to another ‘legitimate’ domain.  Some ad sites also try to get ranked high in google for a specific term or set of terms, then have links to sites that actually sell items.  I understand the thoughts behind this, but couldn’t understand why someone would use kahlerfamily.com for this.  It’s not like it was associated with anything commercial. Read More »

By Hans | Posted in Internet | Tagged , | Comments (0)