I Got a Lemon, Not an Apple

Now what?

2009-06-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have no clue what to do. I am so frustated. I told the tech to go help someone else and hung up on him

reset sync history?

2009-06-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, we are trying to sync after we reset sync history. Of course it is not working. He asked me for my suggestion, which of course is to send me a 3GS. He said he can't

Next step is to try a restore. But if we restore and then load 3.0, aren't we going to be at the same place?

He wants to try a restore!!! I FUCKING HATE APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

next step

2009-06-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

ok, let's just try syncing the applications, Raymond says. So we unselect everything, click "Apply" and........"Backing up Paul's iPhone...."

"Can I put you on hold?" "What if I say "No"?" So he just asks the guy next to him for help.....

Now I hear nothing......did he mute me?

No, he's there.....let's try syncing everything but applications......I check and uncheck, click "apply" and.......

"backing up.........." SHIT!!!!!

Here we go again.........

2009-06-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

So, 2 and half hours into the syncing, it was about 60% through the back up.....and low and beholf, someone calls me!!! Shit, I did not answer the phone, but I guess that stops the process anyway. And itunes reported "backing up iphone".....from scratch!! OH NO!

Guess what, time to call tech support!

On the phone now with Andrew Raymond at Apple Tech Support.....I explained what happened, he said that if I have facebook on my iphone, facebook saves every picture I have ever looked at on the phone and that is what is taking so long. BS of course

He said uninstall facebook and re-sync. BUT I CAN'T SYNC! Cause the initial back up is taking years....

"Do you mind if I put you on hold" he asks and I say yes......

2 minutes, he comes back....what USB port do you have the phone plugged in? The one on the front? I say "No, on the side, it's a MacBook"

Have you tried rebooting the phone and computer.........?

No, let's try it.....

While we are rebooting, he asks if I have played with any of the new features yet, making small talk? OF COURSE NOT, it has been backing up for the past 3 hours!!!!

Back on hold........

damn, this iphone backup is slow

2009-06-17T12:36:00.001-07:00

only about 50% done with the backup............

still syncing

2009-06-17T11:30:00.001-07:00

about 10% through the backup......

iPhone 3.0

2009-06-17T11:17:00.001-07:00

Ok, might as well start now. Just installed the Iphone 3.0 update and after the install, my apps were gone! So now I am sync, let's see what happens

On the phone now with AT&T

2009-06-09T14:51:00.001-07:00

Ok, if I were to cancel now, it is only $130. So if I buy the new iPhone I pay $499 + $18. If I cancel, I pay $130 + $299, only $429!

So you tell me, does it make sense? I ask the guy on the phone to give me a good reason why AT&T would charge more than the cancellation fee to upgrade, and even before I give him a chance to answer, I tell him I know he does not have an answer.

Supervisor got on the phone. Of course the answer was that they can not do a thing because of the contract with Apple. So I said how about giving a deal on the AT&T services. No, he can't do that either.

Ok, I said, what about your supervisor? "I will have him call you, but he is out of the office until Monday" Ok, his supervisor? Ok, he can call you within 24 hours

But there is nothing any of them can do.

So he gives me the "Is there anything else I can do to help?" and I say, well, you have not done anything to help yet, so how can there be anything else?

And we go around like this for a minute or two, he says that this call is being very unproductive. And I hang up

Over it already

Stay tuned for my next steps.......

WTF - Apple & ATT want to screw those who own and use their products?

2009-06-09T14:44:00.001-07:00

Oh my god, I can not believe it when someone told me I would have to pay $499 + $18 to upgrade my iPhone 3G to the 3G s!!!

But it's true. It would be cheaper to cancel me contract, pay the $175 cancellation fee and buy a new phone for $299, right?

Ok, let's call AT&T and talk to them

wow, he called back

2009-04-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, Eric wants to try something else. Need to reinstall itunes 8.1. Downloaded it, installing now, says it will take 1 hour 14 minutes......no wait, now 1 hour 23 minutes...

ok, let it run, I let Eric give me his email to shoot him off a message when it is done. He will call me back, right? :)

no go

2009-04-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

well, itunes 8.0.1 has the same issue....2 hours on the phone. Eric is going to digg around and see what else might work. I do not want to have to type in all these appointments

will Eric call me back?

still on the phone

2009-04-04T12:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, we are trying itunes 8.0.1. We went to reset isync history, and isync appears to be doing something.

And, I noticed, the date of the upgrade was 3/18 as well as when the calendar stopped working. Hopefully it is itunes 8.1!

iphone saga continues

2009-04-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been on the phone with Eric from Tech Support for a good maybe 30-40-50 minutes. We just tried making a new account and only sync the calendar data from the phone .....and.....guess, what? Doesn't work. Is the calendar corrupt on the iphone?

We are running out of options.

Is it iTunes 8.1? Will rolling back to itunes 8.0 work?

Eric is back.

iphone can not merge data

2009-04-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

So, Eric does say that there are a few other things we can try before we are left with wiping the iphone. Hmmmm, I wonder if they will work.

that does not work.... DAMN

next attempt - rename SyncServices Folder and resyncing now

iPhone can merge calendars

2009-04-04T11:30:00.001-07:00

So, i think since i upgraded to itunes 8.1, my iphone and my mac book stopped syncing calendars. Finding time here and there, every once and a while, i spent time searching the apple forums and internet for a solution.

Once vagua posting on the apple forums offers a solution that says "may" work. And of course it doesn't.

So now it's Saturday and I say, let's waste some more time and call Apple Tech Support. The first technician found the same article and of course, it does not work.

Now I am on the phone and have been escalated to Eric who is now trying to help me solve the problem. Since the time i have not symced, I have added probably 200 appointments on my iphone and maybe 10 - 20 on my macbook.

Eric says that we have to replace the iphone data with the computer!!!! NO ! NO ! NO!.

I tell him that the iphone is more current, but apparently the replacing process only goes one way.

He says I manually have to enter the data into my computer! I ask how I can print the appointments from my phone so that I can enter them, of course knowing this can not be done

Welcome to America

2009-02-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, let's try another number, and another number and another number.....time flies when you are travelling around the globe.

Probably another 30 minutes later, and I finally was able to talk to America! God Bless Us!

Since I was already pretty beat down from travelling to India so many times, I decided to go with the flow initially with Tom (not his real name) Privett at Dell Laser printer tech support. I let him go through his standard troubleshooting tech support screen ...

pause - talking to Jason Holloway @ DELL ILS Support right now

Firmware Update

2009-02-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

Dell used to publish firmware updates in nice little .bin files you would download and install from the interface on the printer. I guess too many stupid people out there, so they decided to bundle the .bin with an installer.

I downloaded the little program, ran it and it went to look for the printer. None found! I said ok, let me look for the .bin and do it manually. Of course, it is nowhere to be found on the dell site. Shit, I said, well, let's have some fun, get aggravated, and call Dell Tech Support (OH NO! Do I really want to do it)

Ok, I made the call to the generic 800-WWW-DELL - Welcome to India!!!!! of course, the usual run-around, what's the express service code, what's the service tag? is it a desktop or a laptop? a printer? oh no, that always confuses them, and about 5 times in a row, you get put on hold, told you will be transferred to the right department, only to end up back where you started.

This went on probably for a good 30 minutes.........

Ok - Dell this time!

2009-02-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

Well, another nightmare of tech support! This time with Dell and a 1815dn MF Laser.

We have had the printer for about 2 years, it came with a nice feature of being able to email every incoming fax. Set it up, it worked great!

For some reason it stopped emailing 3 weeks ago. Finally got around to looking into the settings to see if maybe someone changed something. All looked good and I figure while there, I would update the firmware.

BEGIN NIGHTMARE!

Bad iSight

2008-12-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

So I have this iSight camera that broke. I called Apple Care (do they) on Thursday to see what my options where as far as repair/replacement. Since there are no options when you call to get iSight repair, the nice lady transferred me to Desktop support.

Wrong, but what choice did I have? So after talking to the guy for about 30 minutes (most of that time on hold listening to Apple's famous scratchy music), he comes back and asks me for my address. I start to give it to him, and we get disconnected. He of course does not call back

I call back, get Rachel on the phone, tell her I just wasted my time, asked her if the nice guy might have put notes on my account. Lo and behold, no notes. So I explain the whole story to her, after 45 minutes she says "Ok, we will send a new camera" and I gave her my info. Yippee!!!!!

On my way home, driving, my cel phone rings - it's Rachel. "I just need the serial number on the camera"

"Where is it?" I ask.

She doesn't know. As I am driving, I am looking for the serial number on the camera. Can't find it. I ask her if she can call back in 20 minutes as I will be home and will be able to better look. Of course she says "No" (probably cause it is the end of her day and she wants to go home)

So as I am driving and looking, and she is trying to find more info as to where the serial number is, I get home.

Hush

2008-09-25T15:44:00.001-07:00

Flash Back to Wednesday (while the Static Music on Hold Continues)

2008-09-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

So, Wednesday I start replying to Corey's email (wirecorey@apple), cc'ing Rob Henderson (rhenderson@apple.com) and just for the heck of it, throwing in a few steve@apple.com, sjobs@apple.com, etc.

Hey, why not, right?

-------

Back to now. Nick has supposedly walked over to the department that needs to be contacted and talked to people there. They are going to get back to him now. (Even though 10 minutes earlier Nick had told me the department was gone for the day)

So I stupidly have just taken Nick's word that he will get back to me by 7pm my time

Nick from Apple

2008-09-25T15:16:00.001-07:00

Now on the phone with Nick from Apple, Nelson's supervisor?

Nick has such a nice soothing voice, I guess that is why he gets escalated calls. Calmly he apologizes and feels my pain, verifies my contact information and promises to go see what he can do.

"Ok, Paul, I will let you go"

"Oh No", I retort. I am not letting you go until I get this resolved.

STATIC MUSIC ON HOLD.........

Here and Now

2008-09-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

Still on the phone with Nelson B at Apple (I won't give up his contact info yet). So he took all my info again, my credit card #, etc. He said that he now has all the info to process the order, and said I should be getting an email TOMORROW with 2 forms that need to be signed before anything is done. I was told this too many times, so I am now on hold waiting for his supervisor.

--------

Monday Night Flash Back

Corey (wirecorey@apple.com) left the voice mail on my cel phone. I called her back about 10 minutes later, got her voice mail. She leaves a pretty useless message saying that she works from 8am to 7pm Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, but fails to leave which TimeZone. I leave her a nice message to call me back.

No word Monday Night, ok, that's fine
No word Tuesday morning, ok, that's fine

I call her back Tuesday at noon - voice mail - leave message - no call back
I call her back Tuesday at 2pm - voice mail - leave message - no call back
I call her back Tuesday at 4pm - voice mail - leave message - no call back
I call her back Tuesday at 6pm - voice mail - leave message - no call back

Well, now it's late, not matter what time zone she is in, according to her message, if I do not reach her Tuesday, she will not be back until Friday!

So, once again i call the ever annoying 800-APL-CARE, days on hold, explain the story, etc, finally get to someone who gets me in touch with Robert Henderson (rhenderson@apple.com). I explain to Robert the situation, he apologizes, something Apple seems to do alot lately, and this is where we discover that all the contact info (email, shipping address) that Rob the Apple Tech Support guy put on my case was all incorrect!!!! Corey had sent an email about the case, but no to me, to someone else out there!!!! So Robert forwards the email to me, said he would stay on top of this issue and see it through to the end. Well, that was the first and only time I heard from Robert Henderson @ Apple (rhenderson@apple.com) Thanks for the support Robert

(Still on hold with Nelson, not letting him go until I get a positive solution, not just stories - just asked for his supervisor) (I HATE STATIC MUSIC ON HOLD, APPLE)

Flash Back.... Sunday Night....and here and now again

2008-09-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

So, Robert says on Sunday that someone will get back to me on Monday.

Monday night around 7pm EST, I get a call on my cel phone from 512-674-2000. I missed the call

----------------

Back to now, Nelson had me on hold, Robert called me back, I put Nelson on hold, Robert could not get a hold of David Penn. I gave him Taryn Basauri (tbasauri@apple.com) number 800-APL-CARE 88 x7385
(Taryn Basauri  CPU T2  Boise  Ext. 7385  Reggie Camps). He said he would try and call her but there is nothing else he could do.

Now back with Nelson, he said he is going to process the whole thing again. Replacing the MacBook Pro 2.5 with the same unit. I said no, I said I had given Taryn my credit card for the MacBook Pro 2.6 $250 upgrade. He now has said he was going to put me on hold for 2 to 3 minutes and asked me if that is ok, of course I said No, so I am not on hold, just listening to him breathe.

He has come back and said it is going to take him a couple minutes more, and is still beathing.

Finally, Approval for a replacement

2008-09-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

(Apple Care update - 5 minutes on hold with James)

So Rob explains to me that he can put the approval for a replacement MacBook Pro. I am so happy!!!!

He enters my phone number and stuff in his system, he explains that the replacement department is closed, as it was Sunday, but that they would call me on Monday with all the information

UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - Breaking News

Ok, while still on hold with James, a Natalie from Apple called me on my cel phone. Sarah (the previous Apple Tech person who hung up on me) had given Natalie my info to call me to help get this resolved. While talking to Natalie, another incoming Apple call came in on my iPhone, and Low-and-Behold - it's Robert!!! - Apple Technician who approved the replacement system!

We discussed how somehow his original went through with an incorrect email address and ship to address. Robert just told me he was going to talk to David Penn and get right back to me

Ok, 2 minutes late, Nelson has now called me, James the last Apple Care guy who had me on hold for 20 minutes, while Natalie and Robert called, has apologized for all the problems and resolves to fix everything - I DOUBT IT

He has now taken my Ship To and Email address again! and promised to get back to me! I have of course said no! Put me on hold, tell me where to send this LEMON back to and lets move on!

I am now on hold