The cruelest month, part 1
On April 2, my computer's hard drive melted down, taking with it an external hard drive and all the data on both. Since the utility I'd been employing to diagnose my computer's minor ills was supplied by Apple Computer as part of its subscriber-only Protection Program, I thought it fitting that Apple should do its utmost to fix the problem.Thus began a crazy joyride of bad to satisfactory to contradictory customer service that isn't yet done, but I thought I should post something because people have been asking if I was dead.
At issue for me, and indeed for America, is Volume Structure. Micromat's TechTool utility, which is provided with a subscription to Apple's AppleCare Protection Plan, is a low-rent Norton Utilities which often as not only diagnoses problems rather than fixes them, I used TechTool when my otherwise-healthy PowerBook was having trouble recognizing a firewire hard drive.
On the hard drive was the most recent backup of all my pictures, documents, and music. I had loaned the drive to a client who had stepped on the power cord and shorted it. I got a new power cord but the drive was still having trouble spinning up. I thought that the short might have corrupted the file system but I was not worried. At worst, I thought, I would just format it and immediately back up my PowerBook again. In addition, I had several DVDs of my work, but none more recent than three months ago.
TechTool found a problem with the volume structure of my PowerBook after it, too, could not recognize the external hard drive. It suggested I fix it by pressing "Fix". I did.
In two minutes everything was gone.
Restarting my computer I was greeted with "kernel panics", which resemble a curtain coming down on the desktop rather than a healthy smattering of files, folders, and screen savers. I was not worried.
After an hour of attempting to boot up the computer with various CDs, I started worrying. TAARG asked when I might be ready to leave for the afternoon. I told her I couldn't. I felt my stomach sinking.
In 1989 I had returned from school to find my car in the process of being stolen from an Osco parking lot in Winthrop, MA. The thieves threw a screwdriver (a Phillips, it turned out) at me as they drove away in my Pontiac 6000 (later recovered in Quincy). In the trunk was everything I had written for the past three years on computer disks and yellow legal pads. It was all in a very handsome case. The case was never recovered. I felt a kinship to 1989 every time I watched that curtain drop.
I walked over to TAARG's PC and sat down. I began searching for "TechTool" and "kernel panic" and immediately retrieved hundreds of articles. The same issue had snared many people before. When I upgraded my operating system from 10.3 to 10.4 (Panther to Tiger), TechTool went from relatively benign and useless to dangerous.
I thought I'd go down to my local Apple Store and request the updated version of TechTool, the one that didn't destroy computers.
I went to the store at the Glendale Galleria. It was Sunday afternoon and crowded. I approached a sullen Mac Genius in the back and explained my issue.
If you are not familiar with Apple stores, they are all laid out similarly, except for a couple of variations in prime real estate, like The Grove in Los Angeles and in Manhattan. In the back is an area called the Genius Bar, where people reserve time to ask questions or get things fixed. I have never been unsatisfied with a Genius Bar visit.
Maybe because I have been employed off and on for the past 10 years as a help desk technician, call center representative, IT Director, computer consultant, software instructor, web designer, database developer, etc., I usually know the right questions to ask any lowly help desk representative. They deal with stupid questions from people who should have read the manual all day long. I pride myself on not wasting anyone's time.
I approached Marc, a morose 20-something Mac Genius, and explained that I wanted an updated version of TechTool because the previous one had just toasted my hard drive. He replied that they were on sale a few aisles away.
"Why should I have to pay for it?" I asked pleasantly.
"Why should you not pay for it?' he replied, not looking at me.
In the ten years I have performed the duties listed a few paragraphs up, I concluded later, I have purchased, authorized the purchase, or recommended the purchase of over half a million dollars of Apple merchandise for schools, entertainment companies, medical institutions (which was a stretch) and individuals. I didn't think that this obligated Apple in any way to be nicer to me, but I immediately regretted having done it.
"Think of it this way," I said slowly, not wanting to embarrass him at his job. "Apple provides one piece of software along with its $300 extended warranty program. I use that piece of software in good faith with the reasonable belief that it will fix my computer rather than destroy it. It toasts my hard drive. Now you're saying I have to buy the updated copy? You should provide it for free."
"I can't do that," he said, still not looking at me.
The not looking at me part was the unforgiveable part.
I sat down on a carpeted bench and called Apple. I explained that the Mac Genius was a Mac Retard and the person on the phone seemed sympathetic. Apparently there were issues with the Glendale store. The guy on the phone suggested a few options I might ask the Genius to try. I thanked him and hung up.
The options involved pieces of software that it was reasonable to expect would be behind the desk. One was the latest version of Apple's OS. Marc attempted to start my computer with this via a firewire had drive and the machine would not read it. The other option was a piece of software called Disk Warrior, which in some cases allows a user to rebuild damaged blocks of a hard disk. Marc said he didn't have it.
"That's not it right there?" I asked, pointing to a Disk Warrior box.
"You have to buy it," he replied.
I determined that he must not have understood that it was Apple's responsibility to undo their mistake. I had tried earlier to blame myself for following TechTool's advice to "fix" my volume, but I was now confident that if Apple had not made any effort to inform its subscribers of the catastrophic results of the utility it provided to subscribers, the company was liable.
"You don't have Norton Utilities back there?" I asked.
"I don't like Norton," he shared.
"So you suggest I buy Disk Warrior?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "We'll try it."
I hadn't expected to lose anything but time and gas on this issue, but I spent $109 for Disk Warrior, returned to the back of the store, and watched as it delivered the verdict in two minutes that it, too, could not fix my problem.
I was still of the opinion that my data was not irretrievably lost and that Apple would get it back. I also knew that I would probably have to re-install my applications and would need to buy a new external hard drive. Because of this, I refrained from saying, "I've lost everything".
I wasn't interested in being vindictive when there was a much larger problem to contend with. I know people for whom vindictiveness is a welcome escape from actually dealing with the problem. I knew I'd get a refund for Disk Warrrior later, but asked Marc anyway. He said No. I expected that. I didn't want to get him fired at that point, but I thought about it later, and did.
I called Apple again on the way home, and ended up speaking with someone for about three hours. Everything he suggested failed, but he copped to Apple's culpability and was distressed about my experience at the store and with a previous phone operator who had disconnected me and not taken any notes. Despite being no closer to getting my computer fixed than several hours before, I didn't want to punch anyone.
The next morning my case got bumped up to Customer Relations, and I was given a refund for Disk Warrrior and was told to bring my computer to a certified data recovery place in Burbank. I wasn't surprised that I wasn't sent back to an Apple store.
I was told by the Apple customer relations guy (his name was Zach) that Apple would take care of the $150 diagnostic fee and then I would be reimbursed for any other costs. I said OK and brought my sad PowerBook in. I haven't seen it since.
Since then I've been told over a few occasions that my data "looks good". This means that I'll have to reinstall my applications but I will need to manually rename something close to 40,000 files: 6,000 pieces of music, 30,000 pictures, and maybe 3,000 documents. At least I've been told they still exist.
The data recovery place (Melrose Mac on Olive Ave. in Burbank) then said that Apple hadn't authorized funding for the several hours of data recovery required. I said Oh Yes they did. They said Oh No they didn't. I called Zach back but he didn't return my calls.
I managed to get another Apple customer relations guy and he flatly contradicted Zach's promises. "We never pay for data recovery," the guy said. "No one pays for data recovery. We gave you $150 as a goodwill gesture because you'd had a bad experience in the Apple store. It is everyone's responsibility to backup their own data."
I didn't know what to say. Finally I asked if the call was being recorded.
"I'm not sure," the guy said.
"Maybe it should be," I said. I used words like fraudulent and unethical, "good faith" and "half a million". I said I couldn't believe Apple admitted responsibility for my computer's demise but wouldn't do anything about it. I asked how many people had Apple screwed over with this TechTool fiasco who hadn't had the sense to complain about it.
He just listened to me (to his credit), then put me on hold. He came back and offered a larger amount of money, as a special exception, for data recovery. I am now of the impression that I'll still have to pay $150 out of pocket for this. I agreed. I started thinking about the letter I'd write.
I called up Melrose Mac and explained the new deal, dimly aware that maybe I shouldn't be the one making all these calls. "You're a squeaky wheel," the technician said.
"Or something," I said.
This is not the squeakiest I've been, but I'm always sad that consumers need to make a huge effort to just get the service implicitly promised to them, whether in landlord/renter situations, with car dealers, or with elected officials.
I've been without my computer for three weeks and my output has been cut by 80 percent. I've been using my wife's computer and we both resent it. The other day, when I was expecting to get my PowerBook back, I got a call from Melrose Mac.
"Who else have you brought this to?" the guy asked.
"No one but you and Apple, about a year ago," I replied.
"Oh," he said. "There's some screws missing."
"OK," I said. "I didn't notice, but is there a problem?"
"It might have something to do with why your trackpad isn't working and this transistor is fried," he said.
"The trackpad was working before I brought it to you," I said.
"Well, it's still under warranty so we can send it to Apple," he said.
I have just about zero faith in Apple at this point, but the alternative is equally if not more depressing.
The experience has made me dubious of institutions I'd had great faith in. It's like if AAA stopped towing my car or Costco no longer provided quality Kirkland products.
I'm borrowing a Mac for the duration of my PowerBook's convalescence and pondering the cost of real-time data backups and offsite storage. I'd just prefer that my expensive computer never break, but there you go.
posted
by Marty Barrett at Sunday, April 23, 2006
7 Comments:
Wow. Wow. Whoa. Glad to see you're back, but not under these circumstances. If it makes you feel any better, in January of 2004, my pregnant wife and I were driving from New York to Boston in a soon-to-be-dead mini-van, at 5 a.m., in a snowstorm. The car died between exit 70 and 71 on 84-E, I called AAA, and after giving them this information, they told me they couldn't tow my car because I couldn't tell them what city I was in. They were not sympathetic of my plight at all - trapped in a increasingly cold car, in a blizzard, with a pregnant woman. Don't these people make the maps that tell you exactly where you are in between exits? If it hadn't been for a policeman who drove by, we would have been there freezing for hours until I worked up enough courage to go walking through the snow to a service station. I canceled my AAA, and haven't used it since.
My God, man! and I was going to shun you for not reviewing Mr. Pickles on your blog. You have my deepest condolences.
DUDE that sucks.. There is nothing, nothing, nothing more frustrating than that. I hope it all works out for you.
MW
Looooser get a life Apple rocks and you suck. Go to Microsoft and never touch a Mac again.
OK. Any other suggestions? Should I buy a Corvair, too? An exploding Pinto? Did you read the article? Sorry I said something bad about Apple and their service, little guy. Sorrier still that it was true.
FROM: Long-time reader, first-time poster.
[File under sympathy.]
[& insert appropriate clip art]:
[pg. 1] In this, your time of need...
[pg. 2.] ...think of the good times, or, like...uhh...something.
You poor fellah. Ye have been lead astray, and your trust abused, yer nerves shattered. (He writes, on his battered Mac PowerBookG4 with the as-yet-unrepaired-busted-CD-DVD-drive...among other things...but that's another story...sigh...)
And anonymous, go and suck a m*therfuckin' d*ck, shtraight up. At the very least. Goodness me, who raised you? DAMN! What was you THINKIN', you "anonymous" piece of gutless sh*t? This guy's hurting.
(Anyway, hope it all works out. And doesn't drive you into the arms of Bill Gates. Who is waiting, always, BTW. The bastard.)
Celebrating my 3rd wife's demeeese,
I am
BD
Oh yeah... I'm working on my 4th ;-) Just log in with yer Yahoo ID to get to the dirty details on Yahoo's "Cheaters Exposed" site tee hee.
BD
Ben Deily at "Cheaters Exposed"
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