RE: Apple iMac 27 Hard Disk Replacement Complaint

Question

Dear Customer ServiceManager,
RE: Apple iMac 27” Hard Disk Replacement Complaint
On May 12, 2011, Ibought an iMac 27”  for my daughter from your official Hong Kong website (www.apple.com/hk).
I am writing tocomplain about my dissatisfaction of your poorproduct quality, irresponsibleattitude of your customer service, and most importantly my painful experience with your Apple Careservice.  I am also very disappointed with how your Apple Care staff made a discriminating comment about your low income Hong Kong customers.
On July 28, 2011, mydaughter received an email from your company ([email protected]) informing her that the hard disk of her newly purchased iMac wasdefective due to factory error. You promised to replace the defective hard disk with a brand new onefree of charge, but when she asked your HK Apple technical support if therewould be on-site replacement service, your staff told her that she can onlyeither carry the 30-pound iMac herself to their service center or pay HKD1200for the Apple Care which offers the on-site replacement service. 
First of all, I foundyour request very unreasonable.  Mydaughter was not the one who broke the hard disk, your company informed herthat you gave her a defective one. So why is the responsibility and the cost of taking the iMac for repairshould be borne by her, as an innocent customer, who paid HKD18, 000 for aniMac directly ordered from your official website?  She did nothing wrong but your company required her to barethe cost of transporting a 30-pound iMac and the risk of causing damage on theway. 
Secondly, I believeyour company has deceitfully forced my daughter to buy your Apple Care, whichis completely against her original will. Since she is just a 22-year-old girl, it is impossible for her to carrythe 30-pound iMac by herself.  Andclearly, she was not given a choice but had to pay HKD1200 for the AppleCare.  This made me doubt if thisis a scam of your company.  Is thisa way of how Apple make extra money by giving your customer faulty products anda mission impossible, then forcing us to pay for a service that we did notneed?
Anyway, thepainfulness of enjoying your Apple Care service has just started…
On Aug 10, 20111:30pm, your service man came to change her hard disk with just a look as ifthe process was very ‘efficient’ and left after half an hour, even her Mac OShas not yet been completely installed. After he left, my daughter found that the OS could not be installed, soshe called your service center immediately and under her strong request, he hadto come back on the same day and check the new hard disk.  He found it proved to be a defectiveone again.  I was shockinglysurprised that your company, which always claims to produce products of highquality, selling at an expensive price, replaced my claim-to-be defective harddisk with a defective one again.  Iwonder how Apple’s quality control is done?  Your company didn’t even bother to check if the new harddisk is working before replacing it for customers. 
My daughter requestedfor a new one, but then your service center said they had no new stock andasked her to wait until further notice. But without any definite date, it means my daughter’s brand new computercannot be used for… I don’t know how long.  Please notice that I paid HKD18,000 to buy a first-classproduct of high quality, as claimed by your company all over the world.
So my daughter had tocall your service center again and forced them to return her original harddisk.  Till 5:00 pm on the sameday, another technician came to reinstall her original hard disk into hercomputer.  Surprisingly, all thedata in her original hard disk was still there, which means there is a riskthat all her personal data and information had been accessed by your servicecenter staff.   
As a father, I had totake over the matter from my daughter and called your hotline [phone] at5:00pm on Aug 10, 2011.  After 30minutes, I could finally talk to one of your technical support staff for 10minutes about my complaint.  Heasked me to hold the line and wait for him to transfer my call to his seniortechnical support colleague, so I kept on waiting for 15 minutes, but finallythe line was being cut and no body contacted me and my daughter again.
I had to call yourhotline again at 6:00 pm and waited for another 15 minutes to reach one of youradvisors.  He passed my line toyour senior technical support advisor located in Singapore.  He said he is just a technical supportadvisor, so he could not take my complaint directly. He needed to talk to meagain on the next day with a customer service advisor.  He promised if he could not reach me onmy mobile phone, he would leave his direct line for me so that I would not haveto waste another half an hour to reach him through the hotline.
On Aug 11, 2011 5:28pm, I received a voice mail from your senior technical support advisor asking me to call him back but he didn’t leave any direct telephonenumber as he promised.  So I triedto call back the caller ID, which was shown on my phone.  However, the auto reply of this numberwas, “This is an invalid number”. I asked the Hong Kong Telephone Company to help me to call but even theycould not reach this number.  Theytold me this number was from Shanghai, China.  So I had no choice but to call your hotline again.  After 25 minutes, one of your advisorstook my call and I had to repeat my story to him again in order to have him putme through to talk to your senior staff 42058 again.  I asked him why he didn’t leave his direct number for me tocall him back as he promised.  Hesaid he forgot!  What a surprisinganswer to leave your customer nothing but a number that he knew clearlycouldn’t be reached. 
By that time, I havewasted nearly 45 minutes to reach him, and it was already 6:20pm and thecustomer service advisor was off work. Therefore, I made an appointment with him again and we agreed that hewould call me between 9:31-10:00am on Aug 12, 2011 morning.  I took half day-off from my work towait for your senior staff to call me.
Unfortunately, Iwaited until 10:10 am and nobody contacted me again (I left both my mobilenumber and email to them).
Finally, I called the hotline again and waited for 15 minutes, an advisor put me to your on-dutyCustomer Service Manager, Ken.  After I told him my name, he realized that he should be theone responsible for calling me this morning, but since he had a meeting thatmorning, he forgot to call me again! The Apple staff didn’t keep their promises after all which disappointedme a lot.  It seems to me thatApple is unwilling to accept negative feedbacks from customers.
Ken told me thatthere was nothing he could do. 
At the end, I wasreferred to a Customer Relations staff, Ms. Wing Liu.  Her response was also there is nothing she can do exceptgiving me a case number of my complaint. Since then, I never get any response from Apple regarding my case.
I believe Apple has afull record of all my conversations with your staff and thus, should be able tolook into my case thoroughly.  Isincerely hope that Apple can take my feedback seriously and respond to my complaintin a responsible manner, but not just trying to suppress your customers, whohave already been treated unfairly, from claiming their rights.   Otherwise, it is really a shamefor Apple to claim itself delivering high quality products and services allover the world.
Yours truly,
Tommy Fong
Apple Customer
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Answer 1

I just realize Apple might have blocked my daughter's Apple ID from posting in your discussion forum. 
My daughter was trying to go to this Community Page by logging into her account.  But your Communities webpage displays a "We'll be back soon" webpage.  Then I try to login with my Apple account and it works fine. 
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