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Apple Customer Service Gripe (.Mac Auto-Renewal) |
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 This is one of those rare occasions when I have a gripe with Apple. For months I had been debating over whether or not to renew my .Mac account. Well, the deadline for me was October 7th. As some of you may know, Apple started a policy of automatically charging your credit card for you on that day if you didn't renew .Mac yourself (how kind!).
Well, the ethics of that particular little business practice notwithstanding, Apple did email eveyone and let them know about this. To disable auto-renewal, you have to log into your account and uncheck the box for it. Only problem is, stupid me, I unchecked the box and hit ok, not noticing that the form didn't actually submit because I had left one of the fields for my credit card blank. It was written in very small black text in a very unobtrusive place, so I didn't notice that I hadn't really unchecked the auto-renew box.
Ok, so .Mac has renewed itself. "Fine", I said to myself, as I was thinking about paying for it anyway. Well, another problem was that .Mac was set up to pull from a bank account I was planning on getting rid of (the bank blows, but I won't name them *COUGHbankoneCOUGH*) and had no money in it. So WHAM - a $28 overdraft charge! Totally my fault, but now this auto-renewal business has me pretty steamed. I called Apple to see if they would reimburse me for the $28 charge, and if so, as I told them, I'd stay a .Mac customer.
Long story short, I had to talk to a supervisor, and he essentially told me that I'm dumb, it's my fault, I never unchecked auto-renew and Apple wouldn't do anything about it. Granted, I AM dumb, but whatever happened to good customer service?
Also, in the process of checking to see why I hadn't been able to uncheck auto-renew, the supervisor had to reset my .Mac password. I told the supervisor guy (pretty much an ultimatum, because he was calling me stupid and I was very upset at this point) I would like for Apple to either reimburse me the $28 and I'll be a .Mac customer, or to refund the entire amount and screw .Mac. I told him to decide and do either one by the next business day.
Well, over a week had passed, and nothing had changed with my bank statement. I called today about it, and nothing had been done by Apple - and yet I haven't been able to use .Mac because my password had been reset to something I don't know!
Now the guy on the other end was very nice, and said he would refund the money for .Mac (not the overdraft charge mind you), but he also said the account would be pro-rated from today --- even though I haven't been able to use .Mac for the last 10 days! He said there was no record of my previous call (I know my call was negative, but to not even track it?) and that he would have to pass the information up the ladder a rung and they would decide when the account would be pro-rated from. No one is going to contact me, they're just going to decide and then do it.
Humpf.
Well, I know every company has it's good and bad, and I don't think ANY company is both loved and hated by it's customers as much as Apple is. It's a company whose products people are actually passionate about. This event hasn't diminished my love of the Mac or Apple, as customer service gaffes are bound to happen, but I do feel that Apple was wrong in this case.
So what do you think? Have you had similar issues wth Apple? Was I being an idiot for asking Apple to pay my $28 overdraft charge? Is Apple trying too hard in some cases to grow marketshare and increase revenue for certain products/services? Just how far removed is Steve Ballmer from his primate cousins? Does Phil Schiller look better in a speedo, or a night-gown? These are the burning questions that need to be answered? I mean ... need to be answered! |
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October 20 2003, 12:44 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| rlhamon |
10/20/03, 2:57 PM EDT |
well i can tell you that no one would of gave you the 28 bucks back. apple is just following the common business practices that is going on today. face it man your in the wrong according to apple or anyone else that use the renewal service.
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| Mikey T. |
10/20/03, 2:58 PM EDT |
It was an accident. And while it would have been extremely nice of Apple to pick up the fine charged to you by your bank, they are not obligated. It was dumb of you to make that assumption. And even worse to get upset over it!?!
Also, whenever you add, update, modify, change any kind of billing information, I would suggest that you pay more attention to what you're doing and what the system is trying to tell you.
It's a funny world we live in these days... no one seems to want to take responsibility for their actions. Accidents happen, mistakes are made, accept it, pay for it and move on. And if you can't afford it, then you need to be more careful.
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| sweetjimmyhugs |
10/20/03, 4:40 PM EDT |
Auto renewal of a service is very shady business if you ask me. Which you did. It reminds me of those CD clubs that send you a CD at the beginning of the month just because you forgot to send in the stupid card. Now I'm stuck with "Wham!'s Greatest Hits" and I hate Wham! I do agree with Mikey T. though, you need to be more careful when it comes to doing business online.
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| Jonahan |
10/20/03, 4:57 PM EDT |
Maybe I should have been a little more clear. I wasn't upset about Apple not paying my $28 overdraft charge, but about the (as sweetjimmyhugs says) 'shady' business of the auto-renewal PLUS the attitude from customer service PLUS the pro-rated days I lost even though there's no way in hell I could have used the service. I realize the 10 days or so I'll be paying for .Mac is miniscule, but it's the point of the matter.
Anyhow, I guess this whole thing has made me realize one thing: The whole time I haven't had .Mac, I haven't missed it one iota!
That's $99 (or so) dollars saved. =-)
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| sweetjimmyhugs |
10/20/03, 5:14 PM EDT |
And who cares if you ARE dumb. At least you're still pretty.
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| Mikey T. |
10/20/03, 8:59 PM EDT |
Not even iSync? iSync alone is worth $100/yr. to me. I can't imagine living without it anymore. Damn automation!
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| Chris |
10/21/03, 4:18 AM EDT |
I had Apple give me a headache about my first mac, the origional flat-panel iMac. I was amongst the first to order the machine after it was announced in January 2002 but Apple managed to lose my order completely. I spent about eight hours on the phone with them trying to convince them to sell me a $1799 computer! In the end they had records that I ordered it early but since they didn't put the order through I had to wait two months longer than I would have waited had they not screwed up.
That's my best "Apple C.S. blows" story.
Speedo.
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| Jonahan |
10/23/03, 9:54 AM EDT |
Ok, it's been a couple days, but I figgered I'd pick this thread back up ...
Yeah Mikey T., I really am still not missing anything about .Mac. iSync was nifty for both addy book contact and safari bookmarks, but I'm sure there's a way to do that manually - I just haven't needed to yet.
Plus, I just ran across this bad CS story on atAT:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected] [email protected]
Yeesh!
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