I'm disappointed with Apples customer service

Posted by PCG1 on May 4, 2012 07:16 pm 40

Seriously!

I purchased an iPad 2 (wifi) nine months ago, I love it, one of the best things I own... But I really need to vent about the customer service experience I've received.

The home button went within a few weeks, replaced after a costly trip to a distant Apple store, but good service. I get one with a dead pixel issue, happen to be working near an Apple store for a day so I take it in and after some persuasion get it replaced. My current iPad, the wifi has gone, no longer picks up wifi anywhere.

Give Apple a call, we run through all the troubleshooting steps (which I'd already done)... Customer service person politely offers a replacement, I ask simply for a refund as I can't be dealing with hassle (especially with the warranty going in a few months). Get escalated to her boss, basically get told a refund cannot happen, but they will replace. I explain how hard it is to get to an Apple store, so she agrees to a UPS pickup... she certainly is not friendly about it.

My call was on Wednesday, the return box came today, on reading the details I have to pay for the pick-up or travel to the depot which is even further away than the Apple store. Additionally, It won't be picked up until Tuesday, which means I'll probably be about two weeks without the iPad. I've almost spent 10% of the ownership (and warranty) time with the product broken..!

So yes, I understand that the fail rate for the product are low and I understand that Apple service is generally good. But argh this has been super frustrating on so many levels.

EDIT: I don't get why people are only commenting on the denied refund, its a minor part of this story... I'm okay with not getting a refund, I simply asked on the call so mentioned it here. The key points are that I have to pay for postage and that my iPad has been out of action for such a long time with no offer of warranty extension or goodwill offer from Apple.