Valhalla Island

Yesterday I linked to an article at The Boy Genius Report about Apple’s lack of care for a customer who spilt water on his Macbook. It initially struck me as stupid but after reading it over again, it’s worse than I thought.

The basic story is an upset customer complaining that Apple was going to charge $300 to diagnose how much damage there was to his “water damaged” Macbook Pro. I put water damaged in quotes because “water damage” suggests that it was some kind of natural phenomenon like a flood or tsunami that he had no control over — if that was the case insurance would cover the cost of diagnosis or repair if it was possible. The truth is that he’s had a glass of water too close to his computer or he was using the computer in the kitchen or he put it through the washing machine, anything, the point is, computers don’t get water in them unless you put it there. The customer took full responsibility for the damage.

Without going into how it was actually reported yet, this customer is obviously wrong. He expects hours of service diagnosing what would be a difficult to diagnose problem, for free. The fact he has AppleCare is irrelevant, if the computer claimed to be water proof, then sure, but it’s not the fault of the computer that it allowed water to be spilt on it. The guy complaining about this is the same guy that’d sue Apple with the argument there wasn’t a warning against filling the Macbook with liquid.

The title at BGR reads:

Apple doesn’t care about its customers

The article reports on a single customer that Apple doesn’t sympathise with. What a sweeping, generalising, sensationalist statement. I ate some pizza a couple of weeks ago that made me sick, maybe I should write an article with the headline “Food makes people sick”.

The first item in the “report” is a photo of Steve Jobs presenting a keynote. Images for the sake of images. Searching Google images for “Steve Jobs” on an article about Apple certainly adds another level of integrity.

From the customer’s email to sjobs@apple.com, which is quoted in full at The Boy Genius Report:

It is very worrisome to me that the only way to get my computer fixed is to pay almost $300.00 up front with no guarantee that this will fix the problem.

Surprise surprise, a computer full of water isn’t black and white to diagnose. Apple probably has an expert system with the question “is the computer full of water? If yes, restart” Argh! The BGR finds it entirely reasonable, you can tell because they ask themselves a question and then answer it:

Reasonable? We think so.

No, it’s not reasonable, it’s stupid.

Apple’s reply in full:

This is what happens when your MacBook Pro sustains water damage.They are pro machines and they don’t like water. It sounds like you’re just looking for someone to get mad at other than yourself.

Steve

The BGR follows:

We find that response totally comical! Don’t you? While we’re guessing Steve Jobs himself wasn’t on the other end of this, it’s certainly a direct response from the @apple.com domain, which is only available to employees of the company. This means that someone directly representing Apple was responsible for this stunt.

Hehehe, isn’t it just so totally comical? Don’t you think? Yeah? Of course you do. I wouldn’t consider setting a customer straight after contacting Apple through an undocumented, unofficial email address a “stunt”.

They end with:

Come on, Apple. Seriously, this isn’t a good way to treat your customers, though you do get major points for the witty and comical response.

Yeah, come on Apple, seriously, you could have at least patronised the customer with things like “we understand how difficult this situation must be for you” after he’s already wasted hours of your call centre’s time. Bonus points for the witty and comical response? “Bonus” points suggests that there were points handed out to begin with but only a sentence ago BGR wasn’t impressed with Apple’s outrageous behaviour at all.

No better way to make friends than to sympathise with poor customers that have been wronged by the big bad corporation.