Why I buy Apple

I believe in buying Apple refurbished systems at apple.com because of the hundreds of $ in savings, however my last 2 experiences (and only 2 experiences) have been less than wonderful.

I got a MacBook Air for work in May of 2009, refurbished, and out of box the display was ghosting terribly. I got that fixed after 3 days with a Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP). Then bluetooth wasn’t working, so I once again needed to bring the Air to the AASP for repairs and was without my system for longer. It is likely that bluetooth didn’t work since day 1, but I hadn’t tried it until this point. Finally after two fixes, the out-of-box issues were resolved, issues that should have never happened in the first place.

Now fast forward to a week ago. I ordered and received a refurbished 17″ MacBook Pro from Apple with a sweet discount from my Apple rep. It seemed fine for 2 days until I installed SMCFanControl and iStat Pro and realized the left fan was stuck at 0 RPM. Crap. Temps were normal but a stuck fan is still no good. I ran Apple Hardware Diagnostics and sure enough it immediately reported an error.

Well wtf. Two refurbished systems, both have out-of-box problems, and I am stuck bringing the laptop in for repairs right after getting it. This is unacceptable and my faith in Apple to deliver on the refurbished front is dwindling. I need a laptop for school and the fact that I need to take it in for days worth of repairs immediately after purchase puts a real snag in my schooling. A little annoyed, I sent an email to Apple (sjobs) outlining the issue I was having and stating that I was only sending this email to “bring to your [Apple] attention the possible flaws in the refurbishment and recertification processes.”

Well 2 hours later I got a call from Ryan at Apple Executive Offices apologizing about the issue. I thought that was above and beyond as I wasn’t even expecting a reply. Then he told me Apple would replace my broken, refurbished system with a upgraded model (2.6GHz to 2.8GHz, 320GB HD to 500GB HD, refurbished to new) free of charge and ship it out next business day.

This was a very pleasant surprise as I wasn’t expecting a reply from Apple and ended up getting a new system because of my troubles. It is bad that Apple has a spotty refurbishment process but they made it right in the end. This is why I buy Apple. Customer Support is top notch.

Apple shipped the system next day air from China, meaning I got it 2 days later (1 day to the US, 1 day to me). Everything worked perfectly, and it came in a real box compared to the refurbished system I had that came in a generic box. It was brand new, and I got basically a $700+ upgrade free of charge. Yeah it was a hassle that the system didn’t work right out of the box, but Apple made good on the problem and in the end I am more than satisfied with how the issue was handled.

Thank you Apple.