One of my family members decided to buy an iPod video. It was partially a gift, so it was opened more than fourteen days after it arrived. I called today to say it wasn’t working properly and ask if it was possible to return it. I got disconnected after waiting about ten minutes. No person answered and spoke with me.

I called back — I wait another ten minutes. The first person told me the answer was no, you can only return it within fourteen days. Swell. The battery shows dead immediately after you charge it and you cannot turn it off. Seems like a defective product to me. They say sorry the best we can do is have you talk to tech support. They transfer me and I wait again. Eventually the guy picks up and laughs (after taking the time to get my name and so forth which takes a couple of minutes) because he is in the computer division. He has to transfer me again. I wait longer this time and eventually some lady I can understand, but only if I listen really carefully to talks me through a powerdown and reset. She says that should clear the battery problem and the problem with it turning off is that I don’t know how to use the thing. In fact I don’t know how to use the thing, but the family member who bought it does, and they tell me that it sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t — which is also what I told the lady.

After all of this, she sends me two email links with a “no-reply” address. And now, after the call is over, she tells me oh by the way, this was your one free support call and if you need us again it is $49 per call or $59 for two years. This is a new defective product — the hardware may not be bad, but the software definately had a glitch or she wouldn’t have been so concerned to check the version of updates before having me reset the machine it seems. Why should I pay anything for that. I called to ask about returning the thing. And if it was my one free call, perhaps they should have told me before, not after the call.

Let’s just cut to the chase: the Apple product I never bought — and I was just thinking I might actually like one of those things — is the last Apple product I plan to buy anytime soon. Good-Bye Apple.

I like the support of many other companies (Best Buy Customer Care excluded, they suck too). I should probably not depart without giving kudos to some good companies. I always buy LinkSys products because the support is so solid. I have Earthlink high speed because the support is so solid. It is time for people to support people with support.

This article was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2006 at 1:23 am