You mean I have to go to the manufacturer for the warranty?!?

[carryonnow]

I just simply cannot accept that the customer service agent was not willing to drive to SC's home, pick up the iFruit device, drive to the iFruit Gifted and Intelligent Bar, deal with the iFruit employees, and return with the new iFruit device for the SC. I mean SERIOUSLY....there were other options to resolve this poor pitiful soul's crisis.

[wolfie]

Really the conversation should have ended at:

NSC: Sucks that I have to go through iFruit. Would you happen to know the nearest iFruit store in my area?

Fixed that for you. If the conversation ended that way (i.e. customer having a minor gripe that the situation sucked, but rather than taking it out on you they ask for information on how to get the situation taken care of through channels, they're a NON-Sucky Customer.

I just simply cannot accept that the customer service agent was not willing to drive to SC's home, pick up the iFruit device, drive to the iFruit Gifted and Intelligent Bar, deal with the iFruit employees, and return with the new iFruit device for the SC. I mean SERIOUSLY....there were other options to resolve this poor pitiful soul's crisis.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I hope you're being sarcastic.

I can be as sarcasm-blind as anyone on the internet, but even I picked up on the sarcasm in that one.

[Mr Hero]

I can be as sarcasm-blind as anyone on the internet, but even I picked up on the sarcasm in that one.

My Sarcasm Detector confirmed that it was indeed sarcastic.

[VComps]

My Sarcasm Detector confirmed that it was indeed sarcastic.

Mine overloaded.

The guy who doesn't like iFruit's service clearly hasn't dealt with them... like ever. They have one of the best customer service departments I've had to deal with. And I sell computers (including iFruits) for a living.

[Josh]

Biggest clue x4
' That's so stupid. Usually I can just call you people and you can send out another phone in a few days'

Means the phone has a little scratch and life has no more meaning unless it gets replaced with a pristine one. Knows what to say and what to do to make it a warranty claim, but since taking it to ifruit means it will be properly checked and most likely found fubared by the customer or have nothing wrong, he refuses to go there.

I have been several times to ifruit and I have found their customer service is outstanding, unless of course you did something to your phone that hosed it.

[mathnerd]

unless of course you did something to your phone that hosed it.

Even then they might replace the device anyway. My son's phone stopped charging a few months back. We went to the Fruit Store to have it looked at. The tech replicated the problem and started his inspection. He was about to give up and say "I have no clue why this is happening" when he noticed a very small curve in the phone. My 12 year old son had managed to actually bend the phone through an OtterBox Defender series case. Even though they didn't have to, they made an exception to the policy and replaced the phone free of charge. My guess is that they were amused that a kid had the jaw strength* to pull that off, and they decided to cut me a break.

*The child would occasionally bite down on the corner of the phone and push the bottom of the phone up, which is what caused it to bend. This was something he would do when he got frustrated with something, but still, he's 12 and kinda puny, so the fact that his teeth were strong enough to not get damaged before the phone was kind of impressive.

[BeeMused]

As for Fruit stores, here in Hamburg we just had a case where a guy beat up 2 employees, because there was a line to the service desk!

[MadMike]

The only time I got bent out of shape about having to deal with the manufacturer was because I was lied to by a salesperson who was trying to sell us a service plan. My son's grandma and myself pitched in to get my son a laptop from a now-defunct store I'll refer to as "Circuit Shitty." We ended up going with an Acer (another mistake on our part), and the guy mentioned their service plan. He told us, "If you have any problems with it, just bring it in, and we'll take it back, no questions asked!"

A few weeks later, the thing started shutting itself off randomly. So we took it back to the store like the salesman said to do. Not only were there "questions asked", we got a complete and total runaround. They told us we'd have to send it back to the manufacturer, since it was still under the original factory warranty. The service plan didn't kick in until the factory warranty expired. I guess the salesman forgot to mention that. It must have slipped his mind.

What followed next was a months-long frustrating cycle of shipping it to the manufacturer, them glancing at it for a nanosecond and deciding they "couldn't re-create the issue", and sending it back to us. And that's when we got to know and hate yet another company, whose initials I was told stand for "Drop it, Hide it, Lose it." They kept trying to deliver it when no one was home, despite us telling them repeatedly that it needed to be delivered after 4 pm. I guess they think nobody works during the day. After the third day of coming home to a notice of attempted delivery while they were told we were at work, I went over and picked the damn thing up myself. And when they finally found it, there was a huge bright pink sticker on it that said "Deliver after 16:00." But I guess that was kind of vague...

I don't remember what ended up happening with that laptop. I think my son may have figured out how to fix it himself and then sold it to someone else. But after that, I never shopped at Circuit Shitty again. And I certainly didn't shed any tears when they went under.

Oh, and I refuse to buy any service plan now. My apologies to anyone who's under pressure to push these things, but Circuit Shitty ruined it for everyone else.

[Argabarga]

You aren't alone, that story sounds exactly like the experience of a friend of mine who had to deal with the same issues with his computer when it started manufacturing, including the endless cycles of shipping it out, waiting, playing delivery-truck-tag, and finally getting it back unfixed....

[raudf]

My son's handheld gaming system from a Japanese company with a famous plumber started doing that.. We'd send it back in on their dime and keep sending it back in, until the warranty died. We took it a part then and used it to fix another. No warranty = we take a crack at fixing it and if we do, great and if we don't, we have spare parts!

However, we do not take it to a repair company in pieces... while it's under both warranty and service contract. Arkansas is apparently full of wannabe small engine repair people, because it wasn't uncommon to have a customer bring in their push mower, in a box, in many, many pieces, while it was still under warranty or service contract.

Neither service contract nor warranty covered customer abuse. Wanna imagine how loud the screaming was when they found out they'd now be better off buying a new mower, because the PITA tax for putting it back together again was well beyond the cost of the mower? And yes, that was done on purpose, to keep us from having to deal with their stupidity. Only once was the exception made, and that was when the neighbor of the owner, after having been told "Don't touch the mower, I'll take it in tomorrow," decided to touch it with many tools... I heard that police were involved in that one.