November 18, 2003

Rotten Apples

rotten_apple.jpgIt's day 41 of Apple Watch ... the depressing experience of trying to find out from Apple when the two powerbooks I ordered back at the start of October will arrive.

Today's story is that they were going to be handed over to TNT today. I pointed out that yesterday, I was told they would definitely be given to TNT that day. The Apple guy hastily revised his statement to say they went to TNT yesterday. I asked why they weren't showing up on the TNT web-based tracker in that case. The Apple person hastily corrected himself again, and told me that in fact they had been handed over to Flextronics yesterday.

I asked him why we were told they were going to be given to TNT when they weren't, and when Flextronics would pass them on to TNT. He couldn't answer. Being an unreasonable sort of chap, I told him to put me through to someone that could tell me that, or to get someone at that end to pick up a phone to Flextronics and find out that information for me. He put me on hold for the "Logistics Team", but told me they weren't answering their phones. I'm not bloody surprised.

Bear in mind that at this point, we've been told a dozen different likely delivery dates and at least as many conflicting stories regarding where the Powerbooks are.

After holding for a further ten minutes, I was told that I couldn't hold up the telephone line any longer, and that the supervisor would call me back as soon as they had new information. I thanked the guy at the end of the line for doing his best and apologised for being a PITA.

I'm not expecting a telephone call, even though the information they have appears to change every ten minutes since last Wednesday. After all, they didn't phone me yesterday after I emailed them with an outline of the problem and an urgent request for help.

Posted by savs at November 18, 2003 11:12 AM
Comments

I have had similar types of experiences with every order I have placed via the online Apple store. They have the worst order fulfillment system of any online retailer I have ever dealt with =/

-Brian

Posted by: Brian McCallister at November 28, 2003 1:15 AM

Strange... A colleague just ordered an iBook - bought on friday, shipped on saturday from taiwan, arrived on wednesday.

Posted by: Thom at December 8, 2003 1:24 PM

I have been demystified. I was always under the impression that Apple was different from other companies, from their products to their customer service. How wrong I was. Clearly the spell has been lifted.

I ordered my powerbook, ipod and printer from them on 25th Nov. I was told 5-7 shipping days.

The ACTUAL order was not placed until 5th Dec. The machine was built and shipped on 11th Dec. But their crappy tracking system does not work. They also never provide any feedback or communication. I have phoned in about 20 times, each time they promise to get back to me. I will continue to do so until they actually do.

The powerbook is sitting somewhere in their "Europe Hub centre" for the last 3 days, and they still havn't passed it on to TNT. 6 potential delivery days have also been lost due to Weekends.

Don't even get me started on those Apple store employees (>_<). They are Paid to Lie!

Posted by: Cheka at December 18, 2003 12:30 PM