Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Arrogant Apple
12/18/2007
Last week I visited our local Apple store (for the last time) to purchase an iPhone for a friend. We called the store and they would not take his credit card over the phone and hold the purchase until I could pick it up. So, my friend gave my cash. I arrived at the store, told the salesperson I would like an iPhone and was directed to a cashier. He placed the iPhone on the counter and I got out the cash. Sorry, he says, we don’t accept cash for iPhone purchases. What??!! I politely asked him if here were kidding. No, he answered, he was not. I, a little more loudly, said you have got to be kidding. I told him he could check all the bills to determine they were genuine and not counterfeit. No, he said, that was not the issue. I asked a little more loudly, why they did not accept the legal tender of this country. At that point a manager type person came over and asked if there was a problem. I told him indeed there was, that I wanted to purchase an iPhone and wanted to pay cash. He said it was Apple policy to not accept cash for iPhones. I asked him why. He said it was Apple policy to not accept cash for iPhones. He told me if I was unhappy with that I could make a complaint. I said I would indeed. If the purchase was for myself I would have immediately left the store. Since it was for a friend, who was leaving town the next day, I gave him my credit card and paid for the iPhone. I then told the manager person that this policy was ludicrous and that it was going to cause Apple to lose a customer. A customer who in fact two days later had intended to purchase a 23 inch widescreen Apple monitor. A customer who in fact when he received his bonus in March had intended to purchase an Apple computer and was interested in exploring software development on the Mac. A customer who would never make another purchase from iTunes. Two days later I purchased an HP w2408 24 inch widescreen monitor. BY the way, not one person who worked in the store apologized in any way for anything.
When I returned home, I searched on the web and found out why Apple did not accept cash for the purchase of an iPhone. In fact there were a couple reasons. First, any customer is limited as to the number of iPhones they can buy. Huh??!! And if they accepted cash they would have no way of keeping track of how many a given customer had purchased. They wanted to make sure that everyone that wanted an iPhone had a chance to purchase one. Actually I was not surprised as Apple has never been able to forecast demand for any one of their products. The other reason Apple refused to take cash was they wanted to know who had iPhones to track how many of those iPhones were used with AT&T service and how many were unlocked to be used with any service the purchaser wanted to use. My feeling is that is none of their business. If I want to purchase an iPhone and use it for anything I so desire, I can. I purchased the product, I didn’t lease it.
I then went to the Apple web site and found a link to provide feedback on Apple retail stores. I filled that out, sharing essentially what I shared above. The next morning I noticed on the receipt a link to a web site at Apple where the feedback went not only to Apple but to the store from which the receipt was generated. I filled out that feedback survey and at the end it asked if I would consent to being contacted by phone about me y experience. I indicated I would indeed and left my cell number. Three days later I received a call from the manager at the store. He wanted to know how they could improve their service for my next visit. I politely informed him it would not be possible. I shared my concerns again. He was clearly well trained by Apple to not concede anything but did at least say he was sorry my experience was negative.
This whole experience epitomizes Apple arrogance. They want to control it all. All the hardware, any software that runs on their hardware. Everything. Never will I enter an Apple store again. Ever.