Thursday, September 07, 2006

Another hilarious tale of Indian tech support

Just had (yet another experience) with an Indian tech support house.

I decided to get the AppleCare Protection Plan for my iPod nano, since I've had to return my old iPod mini once (disk died), return my nano once (screen died), and return my in-ear headphones twice (just died). Also I was getting a little paranoid, since my screen seemed to have a funny tinge to it the other day. I really don't want to risk losing my nano it was a real pain last time I got it replaced, but at least I didn't have to pay for it.

So yeah, despite their nice design, Apple products really are quite fragile in my opinion. Either way, I paid up $100 for what essentially amounts to an extended warranty, which is probably a bit of a ripoff, but hey. I like my iPod.

So today I get one of those 'you missed a delivery' courier cards saying that I missed a delivery from "Apple Computors". I'm kinda used to this procedure, since my parents are both nearly always out of the home, and my sister and I are at school, from 9 - 5 most days. Usually, whenever I order something online, I have to call the courier to reschedule delivery for the next day (leaving a card with my signature on it to 'authorize them to leave the package'). A bit of a pain but I can deal with it.

However, I don't remember ordering anything that comes in "1 carton" from Apple recently. Anyway, in the hopes that I'd accidentally received a MacBook or something, I called up the courier to reschedule delivery.

"Yes, we can redeliver tomorrow between 9am and 5pm, but there will need to be someone there to accept the package." They don't do the 'authorized-to-leave' thing. Okay.. that kinda sucks, but my mum says I can have it delivered to her workplace. No can do. "You'll have to call Apple."

So I do, and after waiting ten minutes or so (there's actually no appropriate option on the menu for 'Delivery Fuck-ups', so I chose the 'AppleCare' one), I get through to a friendly Indian woman. Well, not so friendly. She basically asks me what I ordered ("I don't know, I just ordered the extended warranty, why are you sending me a carton of shit?") and I discover that apparently (this was not explained to me when I ordered), Apple's sent me an 'enrolment form' for AppleCare. You see, you can't just order the 'protection plan' and be done with it; Apple needs to send you an enrolment form, which you then fill out or something (not exactly sure), and then send back to them so that they can enroll you in AppleCare. Hurray! Surely this could come through the mail though? Not to mention the fact that it took 10 minutes to get the information out of the woman because I had to quote a "web-order number", which was in one of the PDFs Apple sent me to confirm my 'order'. Just one of them though. They sent me about five. Good thing I keep my mail on Gmail I suppose.

Anyway, I explain that I need to reschedule the delivery, since the courier company sucks. "Sorry, delivery department's closed, please call back between 9 and 5pm tomorrow." "It is 5pm. You mean Sydney time?" "Yes." "Well I can't do that, I will be busy during the day. Why can't you reschedule it?"

After about 5 minutes of complaining (you know, "ARE YOU EVEN IN AUSTRALIA?", that sort of thing that makes you feel good about yourself) she finally agreed to send it to another address. WELL THANKS, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE DONE THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE? I then proceeded to tell the woman the address (again, another 5 minute process).. apparently, she wasn't familiar with the use of a person's name as the name of a company.. ie. "John Brown Real Estate" "OK so you want me to send it to John Brown, on Real Estate Street".. what the fuck.

So hopefully I'll be getting my enrolment form tomorrow. Fuck yeah!

I never had these problems when receiving other deliveries from Apple (new iPod, fixed iPod). Why is it that it's so hard to send me an 'enrolment form'? And why do you have to send it to me in a carton?

If only there were other mp3 players that didn't suck - or better yet, another company made the iPod. Or maybe I just shouldn't deal with the 'AppleCare division'. Sort your shit out, and get a courier company that doesn't suck balls (ie. pretty much every other courier company I've ever dealt with).

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