[Macpartners] Apple Powerbook Display Scam

[Theresa M Regan]

Hi Matt,

sorry to hear of your experience...

I will forward this note to our Apple representatives and request that 
they or any appropriate Apple representative contact you.

Regards,
Theresa


On Monday, February 16, 2004, at 04:17 PM, Matthew Walburn wrote:

> MacPartners,
>
> I wanted you all to be aware of the following should you be 
> considering purchasing a new Powerbook. I'd also like to know what 
> other experiences people have had with Apple regarding similar > matters.
>
> My girlfriend and I purchased a new Powerbook G4 at the Apple Store at 
> the CambridgeSide Galleria this weekend. We went for the 15" 1.25 GHz 
> model. As you might imagine, we were pretty psyched. That is until we 
> got home. That's when we noticed that the screen had a broken pixel in 
> the middle of the screen, causing it to display green and only green.
>
> We were bummed, but since the salesperson we bought it from told us we 
> had 10 days to exchange a defective item, we weren't too worried. We 
> went back the Apple store the very next day to do the exchange.
>
> "We don't consider that to be defective," the manager told us.
>
> I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The thing was screwed up before 
> we even took it out of the box and we tried to return it within 24 
> hours. We weren't given the option to examine the thing for problems 
> before we bought it. We weren't told about that little "gotcha" in the 
> return policy. The return policy didn't define defective as, "anything 
> but 1 to 7 pixels out in your LCD monitor... if that happens you're 
> screwed." Who would buy something with that kind of policy? Not us... 
> so why are supposed to just accept a policy that was obscured from us?
>
> "1 in 5 LCD screens manufactured today have minor pixel problems like 
> that, it's normal," was another justification he gave us.
>
> That's strange... I've placed countless orders for laptops for people 
> at MIT and we have numerous LCD monitors in my department. None of 
> them came to me with bad pixels. If it's that prevalent of a problem 
> maybe they should let people know up front. They should probably say 
> something like, "By the way, I should let you know that you've got a 1 
> in 5 chance of getting a bum display when you drop $3000 on a 
> Powerbook... we won't be able to help you if you're the unlucky one, 
> care to roll the dice?"
>
> These computers are too expensive for consumers to not get exactly 
> what they are paying for. No one buys a computer thinking that it 
> might be slightly defective. When you spend that kind of money you 
> deserve perfection, nothing less.
>
> Does MIT have a point of contact with Apple that I can discuss this 
> with? I hate to think that we're stuck with this defective display 
> that we spent all this time saving for.
>
> Any advice you all might have would be much appreciated.
>
> -Matthew
>
> --
> Matthew Walburn, RHCE
> Network Assistant - x. 3-4995
> MIT Department of Mathematics
>
> _______________________________________________
> Macpartners mailing list
> Macpartners at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/macpartners