[Macpartners] Apple Powerbook Display Scam

[Matthew Walburn]

> The article with Apple's policy is here:
>
> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=22194

I understand the policy.

My primary issue is that since this IS their policy, that they owe it 
to their customers to make this policy known at the time of purchase. 
It's unethical and misleading to sell a $3000 computer in good faith to 
someone and then have this little "policy" hidden away to cover them 
when things go wrong. It's blatant deception of consumers... executed 
because apparently Apple won't stand behind the quality of their 
displays.

If this is going to be their policy, one of the following should be 
true: a) customers need to be educated of this policy at the time of 
purchase, so that they can decide if they want to take the risk, or b) 
customers need to be allowed to examine the merchandise they are about 
to spend that considerable amount of cash on. Why doesn't Apple allow 
these things? Because if they did they wouldn't be able to sell as many 
LCDs.  They'd be be forced to step up their quality control and that 
would affect their profit margins. Instead, Apple (literally) gives you 
a black box, one that you're not allowed to open before purchase. How 
convenient for them.

Would you buy a car if you weren't allowed to kick the tires a bit and 
take it for a test drive? I don't think so. The only reason I didn't 
insist on this with the laptop is because I was told I had 10 days to 
return a defective item, with no stipulations explained to me as to 
what constitutes "defective". It is not the consumers responsibility to 
dig through Apple's knowledge base to become educated on the gotchas of 
their return policy, it's the responsibility of Apple and their sales 
people.

<rant off>

-Matthew

--
Matthew Walburn, RHCE
Network Assistant - x. 3-4995
MIT Department of Mathematics