I am not a careful person and have a really clumsy husband (am sure the majority in the world is the same as me!) so my gadgets always had little dents and bumps.
Plus! I always have problems with my gadgets.
And apple only do replacement, no repairs.
I still remember when my bf dropped his 3G Iphone into the water. I fought and fought and fought.. But I don't think I got a response after that. Back in 2008, Apple/Singtel don't have the $350 policy. It's worse because you have to pay in full $1050 if I rem correctly to get a new set. This price was a special offer from Singtel. -_-'''
When my Iphone 3GS dropped into the water in Feb 2010, I rushed down to Singtel and had to pay a bloodsucker price of $350 to get a refurbished set. That was on top of the $600+ phone price I paid to get 3GS. And of course, they took back my old phone.
I just bought Iphone 4 in Jun 2011. And I was having problem already - overheating, lousy battery life. But I am pretty good with the phone. So I didn't bother to do an exchange. I gotten it from Singtelstore.com.sg, so I couldn't test the phone. And then... soon... there is a dent and I forgotten why. By Dec 2011, I wanna do an exchange because I was in Singtel comcentre to get a new phone. So the Singtel guy shone a torchlight everywhere on my phone. And like a kid who finally found a sweet, he found an excuse to reject my set - "Mdm, you see? This dent is too deep, it hit the glass, so we cannot exchange for you. I can check for you with my boss but I don't think you can get it replaced." and so, he left and come back in 5 mins. "Sorry Mdm, we cannot exchange it for you. Do you want to get a refurbished set at $350?". I was sick back then, I don't wanna argue with him!
I gotten my ipad 2 during the first day of the launch. But overtime, I had problem with the wifi connection. I was bothered by it but I don't have time to head down to Epicentre to send it in for replacement. So I dragged. and one day, suddenly got the dent! Super suay. So I procrastinated again.. In Dec, finally found time to go down. Sent in for diagnosis and the person said will try to ask Apple for approval. 1 week past, the Epicentre person called my husband, "sorry, Apple rejected your replacement application. You can either collect it from us or we can offer you a special price to buy a refurbished set. If not, you can call this number and quote your case number to appeal" < dunno exact words but that's abt the content.
I am like WTF! It's not my problem, you can give me a refurbished set with the same dent! But do something about it. So I finally called in and this Filipino lady picked up. I gave her the case number and she asked for serial number. So I asked her, "is the case number not sufficient? The epicentre guy only gave me case number. They didn't mention that I need to quote my serial number" "Sorry mdm, I need the serial number to verify." "I don't have the serial number, I am at work, I don't have the box, I don't have the Ipad because I already sent in for repair" "No mdm, I need your serial number to verify the case" "Is there anything else I can provide you with? Like the name, address or contact number" "Mdm, it's better that you give me your serial number" "Do you really need the serial number? If yes, can you feedback that you should inform the Epicentre guys to give the customer case number PLUS serial number because they only gave me case number" "Mdm, I need the serial number"
By now, my blood started to boil AGAIN. She don't get my point and I am on the verge of shouting at her. "I will go get the serial number but please tell your guys to tell epicentre to provide customers with Serial number as well".
Called Epicentre. and finally gotten the serial number. Provided the feedback but the woman is probably taking me as a joke.
Called back Apple and I am soooooo glad that a human person is attending to me. I told him my situation "see, my set is wifi only set. I cannot connect to wifi and what do you want me to do?" blah blah blah... And he helped me bring up the case with his superior. They told me wheelock had already assessed it to be a hardware issue (damn!) but don't change for me because of the dent. The dent is not too big so they will help me out. This two wonderful people are Richmond and Marianne. The two most humane people I ever talk to. They understood what I am going through. I feel that this is the core of apple's service. Apple should review their vendor because they never try to get to the root of the problem! Whatever the problem we raised to them, there are only three options - Replace, buy or take it back. I wonder how many customers got cheated of the $350.
Then I tried to find for a link to provide a good compliment letter to this two wonderful people. BUT there is no such link. Sigh. I faced this problem three years back as well.
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