Hey.
on the 17th of march, monday evening i received my macbook. it was pretty late, around 9.45 then i received it.
on 21st of march, in the morning, i noticed some creaking sounds made when i tried to open my macbook. I thought it'd be just some minor problems, and I went off to work.
when i came back from work, i used my laptop again, and the creaking sounds became even more prominent. I gave Apple Customer Service a call, and they told me they could do nothing about it, and that what they only could do, was to gimme a case number and referred me to any service centres in singapore.
on the 22nd of march, saturday, i went down to Sapura and Wheelock to get my macbook checked. The person manning the counter, once noted my problem, brought my macbook in, to let the supervisor see what could be done to it. I quote him, "We could not do anything to this macbook, as this case is very rare and happens pretty rarely with the macbooks. Did you get this macbook via any shops or online?"
I replied "online."
The sales person said that they'll refer this case to apple international for me. but i said that i already had a case number, and i gave it to them. They said they'll call me up when there's any follow up to it.
On the 24th of march, monday, at around 1pm, i have not received a call from any one (i was being pretty impatient), and i decided to give Apple customer service a call again, to find out if Sapura had already told them about my case. They told me that the case is being processed at the moment and asked me to go down to another service centre (they said QCD). I was like, alright, why not?
I called up QCD, and this guy (let's just call him john), answered the phone.
(i called the main helpline). I explained my case as what is being typed down here to john. I also added that "Apple hasn't gave me a solid reply as of now, and I'm a pretty impatient person".
John, being so 'kind', decided to raise his voice at me and said, "HUH? Like that ah? I don't know eh, I mean, you bring it down to QCD also no use, you have to either wait for apple to give you a reply, or you'd have to LIVE WITH IT". I said thanks, and put the phone down.
(who could LIVE WITH a macbook which created creaking sounds during the first 5 days of its use?)
30 mins later, Sapura called me and told me that I could get an exchange for my macbook. They told me to call up QCD to arrange for a courier person to come down to my place to pick it up. I, being a newbie in macs, really called back QCD. And John said, "YOU WERE THE PERSON WHO CALLED JUST NOW AH? I TOLD YOU TO WAIT FOR APPLE INTL TO CALL YOU BACK ALREADY, WHY NOT BE A BIT MORE PATIENT?"
I was furious, I said, "yes they already called me back, and they told me to ask you to arrange for a courier person to come down to my place to pick the macbook up, and they told me i could get a replacement."
John said, "WHAT?! WE DONT DO REPLACEMENT LA. SAPURA GOT IT ALL WRONG. I TELL YOU, DONT TRUST OTHER SERVICE CENTRES, SOMETIMES IT'S BEST TO CALL APPLE STRAIGHT. YOU GO YOU GO, GIVE APPLE CUSTOMER SERVICE A CALL. THEY'LL ARRANGE FOR ME, AND NOT ME." I said thanks, and I could hear him grumbling to his colleagues in the background.
Tsk. Then, i called Apple customer service again, and they picked my macbook up the next day (tuesday, 25th march) and only returned it to me on the 31st of march, as it was a public holiday on the friday, and they said they only delivers on working days).
Okay, i need to ask this, is it really true that some service centres do not know what they're talking about? (the case above), should sapura have told me to call Apple customer direct?