Friday, October 26, 2007

Woes: baseball metaphor courtesy of Fenway

I think I'll hesitate from ordering things from Apple online from now on. Don't get me wrong, I love their products. They're right for me, and I've become a devoted user; no problems there. The problems lie in their shipping.

Last year, when I ordered my Macbook, shipping was repeatedly delayed without them notifying me and I ended up making repeated calls and finally getting a discount. Essentially, my hard drive upgrade was free. I was pissed, but after using the computer I forgave them, because I love it.

This week, my dad and I preordered the family bundle of Leopard from the online store, simply because they guaranteed it would be delivered to our door today, the release date. It's not here. Apple's phone rep was prepared to promise me that it would arrive tomorrow, until I asked him to verify it and he told me to double check with Purolator. I figured that this was the guy who took 5 minutes to find my account and order on the computer, so I probably couldn't take what he said at face value.

Purolator said it would arrive on Tuesday, and Apple said we'd have to just wait, since they couldn't cancel our order and they weren't going to discount it. Unacceptable. The order is now set as a return, and they were going to make us pay for the shipping cost - all of this because of their mistake - until we told them that wasn't acceptable either. They're now covering the cost and I have a copy of Leopard from Westworld Computers sitting in front of me on the ottoman. We would have bought it from London Drugs, but Apple didn't ship the family bundle to any of their locations.

This is two strikes for Apple's online store. I'm not even sure I should give it another pitch.