Apple Charging Policy

Copey1977

To be fair the issue of me backing anything up isnt what i posted to the forum - its the fact that im getting charged to given my own property back. I have given the data recovery company the dianostic report from Apple and they have qouted me today, which is all cool. its not the price its the principal

looks like im a bit too old school these days.

cheers for the advice from everyone its all helpfull

shortchanged_2

Lesson learnt. Don't bother with apple.

securityguy

Copey1977 wrote: »

To be fair the issue of me backing anything up isnt what i posted to the forum - its the fact that im getting charged to given my own property back.

You've been given a choice.

Either fit a disk provided by the manufacturer as a warranty replacement for the failed unit, and pay the labour and sundries. The manufacturer gets the drive back.

Or fit a new disk paid for over the counter, in which case you keep the failed one.

It's a shame that it's not been presented to you like that, as it would make it much clearer.

securityguy

Big_Graeme wrote: »

Buy a new hard drive and fit it yourself, it isn't hard.

Have you opened an iMac? I'm pretty competent with hardware (to the point that I've designed and built small devices) but I'm perfectly happy to pay someone who's got the tools, spares and practice to crack iMac cases and fiddle with the cabling. I've swapped drives and RAM in older Mac Minis, in a range of laptops from various manufacturers and I've cobbled Suns together out of various broken machines, but iMac disk swaps are fifty quid well spent.

Johnmcl7

Copey1977 wrote: »

i have paid for 2 hard drives - 1 inc when i purchased the MAC and they are charging me £120 plus VAT for the new one inc fitting

What does that £120 consist of exactly? It's certainly normal for manufacturers to charge for keeping the faulty drive (some business warranties allow it but tends to be cheaper just to buy new drives when they fail), are you getting the drive under warranty and then paying the £120 for fitting? That makes sense for the money but seems a bit odd that the hard drive warranty and PC warranty would be different.

I agree with the comments about replacing a drive in an iMac, it's a really fiddly job as it involves a lot of torx screws and you have to get the display out to get to the drive on the few I've done.

John

marleyboy

shortchanged wrote: »

Lesson learnt. Don't bother with apple.

Have to admit, I was reluctantly saving up for an Apple, solely to edit my GoPro footage (rather than converting files to run on a Windows based lapttop), but this idea of Apple charging me to have any of my property back whether or not it works, has put me right off the idea.

I was originally reluctant because I dont like Apple's insistence I use apple based software n hardware just to run it.

The very idea of buying an Apple, that effectively I wont own if it breaks down due to replacing items under a warranty has clearly made my mind up not to touch them.

At least my existing laptop and desktop warranties, not only cover me for repairs\replacements, but I get to keep my original "paid for" devices, whether or not they work.

thescouselander

I think everyone has lost sight of the fact the drive is the Op's property. It should be returned to them no questions asked.

securityguy

marleyboy wrote: »

At least my existing laptop and desktop warranties, not only cover me for repairs\replacements, but I get to keep my original "paid for" devices, whether or not they work.

I ran an estate with about five million quid's worth of computers for a decade, and I signed a lot of expensive maintenance contracts.

Every single one of them left the failed hardware with the maintainer, not me. The engineer turned up with a working and tested (not necessarily new) power supply, processor board, disk, whatever, swapped it with the failed part and took the failed part away. When I had to deal with some protectively marked data in a corner of one of the data centres, I had to specifically negotiate a contract which allowed me to hold on to the failed parts in order to dispose of them in line with the security manual, rather than them leaving in the boot of the engineer's car. One of the reasons why disk encryption is so attractive, by the way, is that because it de-rates the data at rest on disks, it greatly simplifies disposal.

You cannot RMA hard drives to Seagate or WD without giving them the failed disk. So if such a drive fails under warranty, you either need to lose the failed part or just pay up and buy a new one. And the replacement is not guaranteed to be new, either: some huge proportion of RMA'd drives are "no fault found" and they just get wiped and shipped back out as replacements. Apple are, I suspect, giving the OP the choice to either buy a new part or have the failed drive RMA'd for a free replacement; I can't see any reason to object to this, and I can't believe that any other vendor wouldn't treat hard drive replacements the same.

marleyboy

Sounds more like Apple are repairing them and shipping them out to other unsuspecting customers as brand new replacement parts. I bet their raking in a fortune on this money making scam.

gjchester

marleyboy wrote: »

Sounds more like Apple are repairing them and shipping them out to other unsuspecting customers as brand new replacement parts. I bet their raking in a fortune on this money making scam.

Not really, they may test them and any no fault found ones be returned to the spares collection but if it's faulty is cheaper to bin than repair..