Customer service

One very bad side effect of the technology revolution that we’re in is that we get very poor customer support and communication. Voice mail is an example. Look how many times you have problems and companies keep telling you that it’s another company’s fault? Or that you must be mistaken.

Well, if you’ve been led to expect a certain shipment date then that’s part of a contract with you. Gross miscommunication about when you’ll get your product is wrong. But people these days have a hard time getting anything done about it or changed. I’m sure that it violates some laws, it’s certainly close to fraud. Small claims court is a very cheap way to go but you’ll have to indicate that you had good reason to believe that you’d have the computer long before now. One guy got $5000 in small claims court in San Jose for having 2 bad pixels on his screen (Apple couldn’t show any public documents referring to their ‘spec’) so it can be won.

But, why don’t you just buy an iBook at Sears or somewhere and not deal with Cyberian Outpost again. I myself don’t deal with them after a weird credit card dealing on their part. Chalk this one up to a learning experience.

I’ll share another story. On the few occasions that I arranged to get something early from inside Apple, I got horribly let down. Once it was for a LaserWriter, which was available in stores a few days later. It finally showed up, from Apple, 8 months later at twice the price. Right now I’ve been promised the new large LCD screen from a top person within Apple, but I really doubt that I’ll get it. In the meantime, I didn’t place an order elsewhere for this product so I probably won’t see one until very late in it’s life span. But at least I know what to expect from prior dealings so I’m not mad like you are.

As a loyal customer, you deserve the best treatment possible from Apple and Cyberian Outpost. But Apple would probably say that they can help you best if they are profitable by selling lots of iBooks to first time buyers.