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Does Apple really have a “process” for picking items up? I ordered a maxed out iMac Pro for around $15,000 and waited nearly a month for it to finally arrive at

Does Apple really have a “process” for picking items up? I ordered a maxed out iMac Pro for around $15,000 and waited nearly a month for it to finally arrive at the store. I got a voice mail and an email instructing me to come pick it up. Only upon driving all the way to the store was I finally informed in person that they “accidentally” gave my iMac Pro to the wrong customer an hour ago who had merely ordered a base model iMac. Their solution was to reorder mine and I’d need to wait yet another month to get it. I don’t really see how it’s possible to hand an online order to the wrong customer. The customer name is in large bold text on the barcode sticker on the box that they scan before completing the sale. The employees weren’t able to explain how it happened. They didn’t even try to articulate a process by which they would discover who was responsible. Just told me they were totes sorry and stuff. They went to great lengths to avoid any communication about the theft taking place through Apple’s systems. They intentionally made me waste my time to come in person before telling me what would happen next. I believe an Apple Store employee knew what orders were coming to the store and he wanted mine for himself, so he conspired with his friend to come pick it up for the price of a base model iMac. I was recently interested in buying a maxed out Mac Pro for 50k+ but this experience has frightened me into avoiding expensive custom orders from Apple. Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I’m probably not going to order a Mac Pro until I can find bodyguards to hire to escort me from the store through the shopping center and to my car. Which means I’ll probably never order a Mac Pro. None of this is sarcasm or hyperbole. Are you listening, Tim? Probably not.

dhbanes 7y ago
Ship it to your office, private mail box, or home?
- ajphdiv 7y ago
  His fault for ordering it to the store -- and expecting it to be no problem to pick it up there?
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 7y ago
Can you get it delivered directly to your home/business? Might be a solution.
- torgian 7y ago
  and get it tossed out of the UPS truck as it does a slow drive-by your address.
  - ganoushoreilly 7y ago
    The irony here being that UPS / Fedex ship to the stores.
  - tjakab 7y ago
    Anything worth over $500 is going to automatically require a signature on delivery, so little chance it’ll just get tossed off the truck.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      Hah. About half the Signature Required deliveries I've received from Apple (and Dell, to be fair) at my home... haven't.
      - vxNsr 7y ago
        You need to ask them to ship it as “adult signature required” I’ve never been able to get out of it when they need an adult to sign.
    - bluedino 7y ago
      Ups will leave a brand new MacBook Pro on your front lawn at 8 at night
      - kube-system 7y ago
        When my MacBook was delivered, FedEx gave me a call when they found I wasn’t at home and asked if I would prefer they drop by my office instead. I told her I was already on my way home, and she said she’d stop by again in about 30 minutes.
fingerlocks 7y ago
Or perhaps an incompetent employee really just gave it to the wrong customer? Maybe they were tired and distracted after a long day at their insufferable retail job? Maybe someone forgot to put your identifying sticker on the box? Seems unlikely that hussle pulled on you would work more than once, ever.
- cco 7y ago
  I've worked at jobs where this same exact scam was done for three orders of magnitude less profit, this seems totally reasonable.
  - weaksauce 7y ago
    and i've worked at computer big box stores and incompetent staff just fucked up accidentally. not saying either way here but it's certainly within the realm of possibility that it's a messup.
speedgoose 7y ago
If you need a bodyguard when you buy a new computer, perhaps it's a sign that you are spending a bit too much money on it.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  What's the alternative? For the right professions, compute is time is money (software builds, video encoding, 3D rendering, etc.), and not all of them distribute nicely (I've never even seen distcc actually used).
  - speedgoose 7y ago
    The alternative is to spend less, to share resources between employees, or to rent. You can rent a much more powerful rendering farm in the cloud for less money than a full option Mac pro. Video encoding can be done in good quality and good time on a 200€ smartphone. If you push the settings to the max, you still don't need a 50k€ computer... And for software builds, just take a coffee break whenever you feel like rebuilding everything on your local machine. The company should have build servers too.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
If you’re going to spend $50,000 on a computer, you can probably hire two security guards / off duty cops for an hour each at $250 an hour?
- angry_octet 7y ago
  The whole notion of employing off duty police as security is antithetical to the proper administration of justice and highlights systematic malaise. As well as the fear of robbery for such a low value and traceable item. Edit because I can't reply: Just off duty police. Police have significant powers, even off duty. In addition, if you pay them well they might do favors for you when on duty. Like looking for someone in the police databases, telling you about police operations etc. There are many security guards who are not people who failed to become police. Some are ex police, ex Army etc, but there are limited situations when an armed response is rational, and a $50k Mac is not one of them. An insurance policy is much cheaper. Having said that, I recommend Samoans (wide) and Sudanese (tall) for unarmed intimidation potential.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Do you oppose security guards in general, or only off-duty police officers working as security guards? I ask because as far as I can tell the practical alternative is to hire some guy who flunked out of the police academy and became a security guard instead, which seems... worse. Personally I navigate life without hiring any security guards. But I recognize that some people and/or circumstances might have legitimate need for one.
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      I think the beef is with the idea that police have a trusted role in society, that is incompatible with being "goons for hire"
    - madengr 7y ago
      I’d just open carry my .45 into the Apple store. Probably wouldn’t go over well with the typical Apple crowd, but guarantee you won’t be robbed.
wuunderbar 7y ago
If you have it shipped you're not responsible for it until you sign for it.
jrockway 7y ago
In the minds of the corporate workers that came up with the Apple Store Brand Story, every Apple Store employee is your best friend and will jump at the opportunity to assist you, Apple's most loyal customer, with anything you need. So of course they're not going to make you wait in line like the PC Guy from those ads from 10 years ago would; they will be waiting for you when you walk in, just like Hachikō waited each night for his owner at Shibuya station. For nine years after he died. Over in the real world, the employees have spent 10 hours of their 12 hour shift explaining to the world's least-technically-adept people how to activate their Verizon service with 4 prepaid debit cards and a ripped $20 bill. Sixty times. While being yelled at. So... they might accidentally not notice you if you just come in and don't aggressively try to attract their attention. I do not blame them.
- soperj 7y ago
  >ripped $20 bill This is a hilarious problem to anyone who has been using polymer bills for nearly a decade.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    Um, polymer bills rip too.
    - soperj 7y ago
      only if they're cut. In practice I can tell you how many ripped bills I've dealt with since we've had them. 0.
      - pasquinelli 7y ago
        I can only think of one ripped dollar i've ever had and it's because i happen to have it in my wallet right now.
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
im3w1l 7y ago
A maxed out computer is a perishable good - it's not going to be maxed out for long - and when it isn't the price falls rapidly. Did you get compensated for one month's depreciation?
- warent 7y ago
  The fact that there seems to have been no compensation is evidence to me that this was an intentional scam by the employee and they're doing what they can not to call attention to it. In my experience Apple is extremely generous with compensating for errors like this. For example, when I sent my MBP 2016 in for a keyboard repair, they decided to take that opportunity to upgrade the SSD from 256GB to 1TB. This is just one example of many. I used to do technical support for Apple in the beginning of my tech career and they gave us a huge budget to throw money at people.
  - amylene 7y ago
    How does q corporations unwillingness to spend money connect with the idea that it’s a scam? I mean, it could be a scam.. but how does this specific piece of evidence connect? It sounds more like a piece of unrelated information that you are leveraging to support the story you told yourself.
    - warent 7y ago
      The premise is that Apple is very generous with apology compensation / gifts, even outside of repairs. An agent doing so over a certain $ amount draws additional attention to the individual from the business. These coupled with the fact that they received no compensation or gift indicates a number of things, among which is that they chose not to gift anything to minimize attention brought to themselves. I'm just hypothesizing. Regardless, they clearly need to be retrained.
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    The upgrading stuff in computer when it’s sent in is not uncommon though.
awinder 7y ago
I know Marco Arment has talked about some kind of Apple representative who you can order through when you’re the kind of customer who is spending bank there. Maybe something to look into, I didn’t get the impression that it was the same thing as Apple business but this was years ago I heard, maybe things change. I feel like if you ask Apple may have some experience with dealing with security around the walking with a massive purchase thing. Now I’m kinda wondering if you could build a nice “rich people buying shit logistics” lifestyle biz though.
- chrissnell 7y ago
  You'd be surprised how unsophisticated it actually is for the rich. I have a friend who has this taxi driver guy go buy everything she needs out on the town and deliver it to her. Yes, a yellow cab driver. Groceries, clothing, a new laptop, whatever. He brings it and she pays him well.
  - awinder 7y ago
    That’s pretty wild. I wonder how those relationships develop and how sticky they are. C’mon, someone go halfsies with me on a Trunk Club spin on postmates et al
    - chrissnell 7y ago
      In her case, he took her to the airport once and she liked him, so she started always using him for rides there. Then she started having him run little errands for her and it just expanded from there. This is what taskrabbit looked like for the wealthy in 1992.
    - X-Istence 7y ago
      Friend of mine makes hourly what many people earn in a week ($1k hourly billable), so while they lived in LA it made sense to have someone drive them from the airport back home because what should take ~20 minutes at most usually took 2 hours. During those two hours they could work, and thus make money, it didn't make sense to drive themselves. Their company hired a particular car hire service and the drivers would get rotated through a schedule, but they ended up having a particularly good relationship with a particular driver. So they dropped the contract with the company, and basically just paid the one driver himself, basically a personal chauffeur, but with a schedule that is known two weeks ahead of time, with some emergencies, but not 24/7. Eventually this allowed said driver to buy a couple of cars, and start a company himself, while always making sure to take care of my family member first and foremost himself. They trusted the driver with their children, and for certain purchases the driver would either go pick up items (such as jewelry/high end clothes) or their driver would drive a consultant (personal shopper) to go do the shopping/pickups. My friend moved away from the LA area, but used the same driver for ~6 years or so, the driver now runs a high-end private car hire service that offers services to cater specifically to people that need services like that. No advertising, word of mouth only, and everyone involved is highly vetted and trusted. It's pretty amazing how much time you get back when you can pay someone else to do the things that take time but don't really provide happiness in life. Such as cleaning/driving/cooking/household chores that the rest of us have to do ourselves, and thus is all billable time.
travbrack 7y ago
They can get away with this because they're essentially a cash machine. As long as people keep buying their products and putting up with bad experiences, this will continue. Why spend money on improving customer experience when you have record sales?
birdyrooster 7y ago
Tim already has you covered, it's called shipping with required signature. They can deliver to your home or work.
- Klinky 7y ago
  So you're saying "he's ordering it wrong"?
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I see what you did there. in all seriousness though, yes? if you have to wait for the item to be shipped regardless, why would you order it to a store instead of your front door? it's the worst of both worlds.
    - Piskvorrr 7y ago
      The trustworthiness of last-mile delivery could have something to do with it.
- stefco_ 7y ago
  Amusingly enough I've had that method fail while ordering an iMac a few years ago. I requested delivery-with-signature on a $4k iMac and it got delivered to another house three blocks away. They didn't ask for the signature (though they were supposed to); they just left a $4k computer on the curb. It was marked as delivered. I'm lucky to have an honest neighbor who brought it to my doorstep (no thanks to Apple and their logistics partners).
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    Apple's lucky that you have an honest neighbour. The computer wasn't your responsibility since you never signed for it.
  - yardie 7y ago
    That's the couriers problem then. If a signature was required for a $4k item it's contingent on them to get it into the receiver's hands. Your neighbor saved you and the courier a great deal of money. Apple would have filed a claim and sent you another $4k iMac that UPS/Fedex/DHL would be paying for.
mr_toad 7y ago
They probably get paid on commission for walk-in sales. I’ve seen other stores appropriate internet orders to make a sale. From the salespersons perspective they don’t have much to lose.
- tpmoney 7y ago
  Apple retail employees aren’t paid on commission AFAIK. Flat rate whether you buy an iPad or a $15k Mac Pro. The theory was to avoid the “grandma got talked into a multi thousand dollar computer and a billion accessories she didn’t need because that’s how the employee gets the most money.
  - nloladze 7y ago
    Yeah I got jipped at AT&T with a bunch of add-ons which were not explained and ended up with like three lines. Flat rates are the way to go but something has to be done about issues like employees conspiring.
MeltySmelty 7y ago
lol, 15k oh my lord, sucker every minute
hxyhsjsxycy 7y ago
>Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I laughed. This is why customer interaction is often kept minimal, rediculous concerns like this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
adaisadais 7y ago
>Are you listening, Tim? Probably not. This is a question for Jeff Williams, COO at Apple. I am often surprised with the amount of 3rd parties that Apple interacts with and the lack of integration between each group. Apple is the company of seamless integration after all...
derefr 7y ago
> Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I don't think this is the right mindset—theft from your own employer is a white-collar crime. The type of people who would even be morally okay with stealing iMacs out of people's hands wouldn't be bothering to work for the store in the first place; they'd be bribing security to get in and then shuttling boxes into a van. Or holding up a delivery truck full of iMacs. Also, getting a job specifically to steal from your employer is a pretty long-term strategy; it doesn't pay off if you only do it a couple of times. If you're doing this, you're probably doing it because you have a specific play that allows you to do it over and over without increasing the compound probability of getting caught—i.e. one that doesn't really generate any evidence personally implicating you (like the testimony of hired goons when later caught by the police), only equivocal evidence (like the fact that the person who came in to buy an iMac is a friend of the employee.) Really, generating negative utility for any individual (rather than just a corporation) in your theft, is a pretty surefire way to have someone (e.g. that same individual) take a look into what's going on.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If you're doing this, you're probably doing it because you have a specific play that allows you to do it over and over without increasing the compound probability of getting caught— No, most people who do it are just irrational. If you were doing it rationally, sure, that would pretty nearly require what you say to be true, but assuming that everyone acts rationally is...inaccurate.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Most crimes have a pretty poor return on investment. That's why criminals tend to be poor. For example, the people around criminals tend to know they are criminals (and criminals often brag about begin criminals). People don't trust criminals and don't want to do business with them - leaving the criminal with fewer legitimate options for making money.
    - 7y ago
Guest42 7y ago
Out of curiosity, why would you go with a top-end Mac Pro instead of a server at that price point?
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  What server? The closest thing Apple sells is the rack mount mac pro. (I'm assuming it needs to run Mac OS for application compatibility)
dboreham 7y ago
You could have bought your machine via craigslist next day for a nice discount then cancelled the order.
- Piskvorrr 7y ago
  Which would not raise any red flags at all, while also not painting a target on you marked "cui prodest".
raverbashing 7y ago
Corporate would love to hear this story.
auggierose 7y ago
Why are you ordering this to the store and not to your home?
- gambiting 7y ago
  Not OP, but I usually order items to the nearest store not my home - I can't control when something is delievered to my home, and if I miss the delivery I have to go to the nearest depot which is a massive pain in the back. Instead I can get most things delivered to a store nearby and just pick them up on my way back from work.
rayhendricks 7y ago
Had a similar but less dramatic experience happen this last December when I decided to trade in and purchase an iPhone 11. There was a dead pixel on the screen so I return + exchanged it, however Apple quoted me a different price after the exchange. No idea house this happened, but they still let it go through. What takes the cake is when the genius at the pickup line tried to give me two pairs of AirPods as I was leaving the store “you bought these right?” I had to respectfully decline the free AirPods and left wondering at the pre-Christmas chaos that was taking place.
- froindt 7y ago
  My girlfriend's track pad was acting up. The Genius said it wasn't working because she had Google Chrome installed, and wasn't using Safari. I'm not an Apple guy myself, but I lost a lot of respect for them as a company.
temac 7y ago
Of course you were going to buy a $50k computer to a luxury brand but can't find bodyguards. Which maybe it is even the case; and in that case you probably should think hard about if you are not slowly drifting away from the reality as experienced by the vast majority of other people. Yep, Apple probably does not care much about your profile as a prospect.
sizzle 7y ago
"was recently interested in buying a maxed out Mac Pro for 50k+.." Wow what do you do that requires a $50k computer?

dhbanes 7y ago

Ship it to your office, private mail box, or home?

ajphdiv 7y ago
His fault for ordering it to the store -- and expecting it to be no problem to pick it up there?

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 7y ago

Can you get it delivered directly to your home/business? Might be a solution.

torgian 7y ago
and get it tossed out of the UPS truck as it does a slow drive-by your address.
- ganoushoreilly 7y ago
  The irony here being that UPS / Fedex ship to the stores.
- tjakab 7y ago
  Anything worth over $500 is going to automatically require a signature on delivery, so little chance it’ll just get tossed off the truck.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    Hah. About half the Signature Required deliveries I've received from Apple (and Dell, to be fair) at my home... haven't.
    - vxNsr 7y ago
      You need to ask them to ship it as “adult signature required” I’ve never been able to get out of it when they need an adult to sign.
  - bluedino 7y ago
    Ups will leave a brand new MacBook Pro on your front lawn at 8 at night
    - kube-system 7y ago
      When my MacBook was delivered, FedEx gave me a call when they found I wasn’t at home and asked if I would prefer they drop by my office instead. I told her I was already on my way home, and she said she’d stop by again in about 30 minutes.

fingerlocks 7y ago

Or perhaps an incompetent employee really just gave it to the wrong customer? Maybe they were tired and distracted after a long day at their insufferable retail job? Maybe someone forgot to put your identifying sticker on the box? Seems unlikely that hussle pulled on you would work more than once, ever.

cco 7y ago
I've worked at jobs where this same exact scam was done for three orders of magnitude less profit, this seems totally reasonable.
- weaksauce 7y ago
  and i've worked at computer big box stores and incompetent staff just fucked up accidentally. not saying either way here but it's certainly within the realm of possibility that it's a messup.

speedgoose 7y ago

If you need a bodyguard when you buy a new computer, perhaps it's a sign that you are spending a bit too much money on it.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
What's the alternative? For the right professions, compute is time is money (software builds, video encoding, 3D rendering, etc.), and not all of them distribute nicely (I've never even seen distcc actually used).
- speedgoose 7y ago
  The alternative is to spend less, to share resources between employees, or to rent. You can rent a much more powerful rendering farm in the cloud for less money than a full option Mac pro. Video encoding can be done in good quality and good time on a 200€ smartphone. If you push the settings to the max, you still don't need a 50k€ computer... And for software builds, just take a coffee break whenever you feel like rebuilding everything on your local machine. The company should have build servers too.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

If you’re going to spend $50,000 on a computer, you can probably hire two security guards / off duty cops for an hour each at $250 an hour?

angry_octet 7y ago
The whole notion of employing off duty police as security is antithetical to the proper administration of justice and highlights systematic malaise. As well as the fear of robbery for such a low value and traceable item. Edit because I can't reply: Just off duty police. Police have significant powers, even off duty. In addition, if you pay them well they might do favors for you when on duty. Like looking for someone in the police databases, telling you about police operations etc. There are many security guards who are not people who failed to become police. Some are ex police, ex Army etc, but there are limited situations when an armed response is rational, and a $50k Mac is not one of them. An insurance policy is much cheaper. Having said that, I recommend Samoans (wide) and Sudanese (tall) for unarmed intimidation potential.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Do you oppose security guards in general, or only off-duty police officers working as security guards? I ask because as far as I can tell the practical alternative is to hire some guy who flunked out of the police academy and became a security guard instead, which seems... worse. Personally I navigate life without hiring any security guards. But I recognize that some people and/or circumstances might have legitimate need for one.
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    I think the beef is with the idea that police have a trusted role in society, that is incompatible with being "goons for hire"
  - madengr 7y ago
    I’d just open carry my .45 into the Apple store. Probably wouldn’t go over well with the typical Apple crowd, but guarantee you won’t be robbed.

wuunderbar 7y ago

If you have it shipped you're not responsible for it until you sign for it.

jrockway 7y ago

In the minds of the corporate workers that came up with the Apple Store Brand Story, every Apple Store employee is your best friend and will jump at the opportunity to assist you, Apple's most loyal customer, with anything you need. So of course they're not going to make you wait in line like the PC Guy from those ads from 10 years ago would; they will be waiting for you when you walk in, just like Hachikō waited each night for his owner at Shibuya station. For nine years after he died. Over in the real world, the employees have spent 10 hours of their 12 hour shift explaining to the world's least-technically-adept people how to activate their Verizon service with 4 prepaid debit cards and a ripped $20 bill. Sixty times. While being yelled at. So... they might accidentally not notice you if you just come in and don't aggressively try to attract their attention. I do not blame them.

soperj 7y ago
>ripped $20 bill This is a hilarious problem to anyone who has been using polymer bills for nearly a decade.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Um, polymer bills rip too.
  - soperj 7y ago
    only if they're cut. In practice I can tell you how many ripped bills I've dealt with since we've had them. 0.
    - pasquinelli 7y ago
      I can only think of one ripped dollar i've ever had and it's because i happen to have it in my wallet right now.
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

im3w1l 7y ago

A maxed out computer is a perishable good - it's not going to be maxed out for long - and when it isn't the price falls rapidly. Did you get compensated for one month's depreciation?

warent 7y ago
The fact that there seems to have been no compensation is evidence to me that this was an intentional scam by the employee and they're doing what they can not to call attention to it. In my experience Apple is extremely generous with compensating for errors like this. For example, when I sent my MBP 2016 in for a keyboard repair, they decided to take that opportunity to upgrade the SSD from 256GB to 1TB. This is just one example of many. I used to do technical support for Apple in the beginning of my tech career and they gave us a huge budget to throw money at people.
- amylene 7y ago
  How does q corporations unwillingness to spend money connect with the idea that it’s a scam? I mean, it could be a scam.. but how does this specific piece of evidence connect? It sounds more like a piece of unrelated information that you are leveraging to support the story you told yourself.
  - warent 7y ago
    The premise is that Apple is very generous with apology compensation / gifts, even outside of repairs. An agent doing so over a certain $ amount draws additional attention to the individual from the business. These coupled with the fact that they received no compensation or gift indicates a number of things, among which is that they chose not to gift anything to minimize attention brought to themselves. I'm just hypothesizing. Regardless, they clearly need to be retrained.
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  The upgrading stuff in computer when it’s sent in is not uncommon though.

awinder 7y ago

I know Marco Arment has talked about some kind of Apple representative who you can order through when you’re the kind of customer who is spending bank there. Maybe something to look into, I didn’t get the impression that it was the same thing as Apple business but this was years ago I heard, maybe things change. I feel like if you ask Apple may have some experience with dealing with security around the walking with a massive purchase thing. Now I’m kinda wondering if you could build a nice “rich people buying shit logistics” lifestyle biz though.

chrissnell 7y ago
You'd be surprised how unsophisticated it actually is for the rich. I have a friend who has this taxi driver guy go buy everything she needs out on the town and deliver it to her. Yes, a yellow cab driver. Groceries, clothing, a new laptop, whatever. He brings it and she pays him well.
- awinder 7y ago
  That’s pretty wild. I wonder how those relationships develop and how sticky they are. C’mon, someone go halfsies with me on a Trunk Club spin on postmates et al
  - chrissnell 7y ago
    In her case, he took her to the airport once and she liked him, so she started always using him for rides there. Then she started having him run little errands for her and it just expanded from there. This is what taskrabbit looked like for the wealthy in 1992.
  - X-Istence 7y ago
    Friend of mine makes hourly what many people earn in a week ($1k hourly billable), so while they lived in LA it made sense to have someone drive them from the airport back home because what should take ~20 minutes at most usually took 2 hours. During those two hours they could work, and thus make money, it didn't make sense to drive themselves. Their company hired a particular car hire service and the drivers would get rotated through a schedule, but they ended up having a particularly good relationship with a particular driver. So they dropped the contract with the company, and basically just paid the one driver himself, basically a personal chauffeur, but with a schedule that is known two weeks ahead of time, with some emergencies, but not 24/7. Eventually this allowed said driver to buy a couple of cars, and start a company himself, while always making sure to take care of my family member first and foremost himself. They trusted the driver with their children, and for certain purchases the driver would either go pick up items (such as jewelry/high end clothes) or their driver would drive a consultant (personal shopper) to go do the shopping/pickups. My friend moved away from the LA area, but used the same driver for ~6 years or so, the driver now runs a high-end private car hire service that offers services to cater specifically to people that need services like that. No advertising, word of mouth only, and everyone involved is highly vetted and trusted. It's pretty amazing how much time you get back when you can pay someone else to do the things that take time but don't really provide happiness in life. Such as cleaning/driving/cooking/household chores that the rest of us have to do ourselves, and thus is all billable time.

travbrack 7y ago

They can get away with this because they're essentially a cash machine. As long as people keep buying their products and putting up with bad experiences, this will continue. Why spend money on improving customer experience when you have record sales?

birdyrooster 7y ago

Tim already has you covered, it's called shipping with required signature. They can deliver to your home or work.

Klinky 7y ago
So you're saying "he's ordering it wrong"?
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I see what you did there. in all seriousness though, yes? if you have to wait for the item to be shipped regardless, why would you order it to a store instead of your front door? it's the worst of both worlds.
  - Piskvorrr 7y ago
    The trustworthiness of last-mile delivery could have something to do with it.
stefco_ 7y ago
Amusingly enough I've had that method fail while ordering an iMac a few years ago. I requested delivery-with-signature on a $4k iMac and it got delivered to another house three blocks away. They didn't ask for the signature (though they were supposed to); they just left a $4k computer on the curb. It was marked as delivered. I'm lucky to have an honest neighbor who brought it to my doorstep (no thanks to Apple and their logistics partners).
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  Apple's lucky that you have an honest neighbour. The computer wasn't your responsibility since you never signed for it.
- yardie 7y ago
  That's the couriers problem then. If a signature was required for a $4k item it's contingent on them to get it into the receiver's hands. Your neighbor saved you and the courier a great deal of money. Apple would have filed a claim and sent you another $4k iMac that UPS/Fedex/DHL would be paying for.

mr_toad 7y ago

They probably get paid on commission for walk-in sales. I’ve seen other stores appropriate internet orders to make a sale. From the salespersons perspective they don’t have much to lose.

tpmoney 7y ago
Apple retail employees aren’t paid on commission AFAIK. Flat rate whether you buy an iPad or a $15k Mac Pro. The theory was to avoid the “grandma got talked into a multi thousand dollar computer and a billion accessories she didn’t need because that’s how the employee gets the most money.
- nloladze 7y ago
  Yeah I got jipped at AT&T with a bunch of add-ons which were not explained and ended up with like three lines. Flat rates are the way to go but something has to be done about issues like employees conspiring.

MeltySmelty 7y ago

lol, 15k oh my lord, sucker every minute

hxyhsjsxycy 7y ago

>Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I laughed. This is why customer interaction is often kept minimal, rediculous concerns like this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

adaisadais 7y ago

>Are you listening, Tim? Probably not. This is a question for Jeff Williams, COO at Apple. I am often surprised with the amount of 3rd parties that Apple interacts with and the lack of integration between each group. Apple is the company of seamless integration after all...

derefr 7y ago

> Furthermore I don’t want to risk some rogue employee’s goons taking it to the next level by physically attacking me and robbing me on the way to my car. I don't think this is the right mindset—theft from your own employer is a white-collar crime. The type of people who would even be morally okay with stealing iMacs out of people's hands wouldn't be bothering to work for the store in the first place; they'd be bribing security to get in and then shuttling boxes into a van. Or holding up a delivery truck full of iMacs. Also, getting a job specifically to steal from your employer is a pretty long-term strategy; it doesn't pay off if you only do it a couple of times. If you're doing this, you're probably doing it because you have a specific play that allows you to do it over and over without increasing the compound probability of getting caught—i.e. one that doesn't really generate any evidence personally implicating you (like the testimony of hired goons when later caught by the police), only equivocal evidence (like the fact that the person who came in to buy an iMac is a friend of the employee.) Really, generating negative utility for any individual (rather than just a corporation) in your theft, is a pretty surefire way to have someone (e.g. that same individual) take a look into what's going on.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> If you're doing this, you're probably doing it because you have a specific play that allows you to do it over and over without increasing the compound probability of getting caught— No, most people who do it are just irrational. If you were doing it rationally, sure, that would pretty nearly require what you say to be true, but assuming that everyone acts rationally is...inaccurate.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Most crimes have a pretty poor return on investment. That's why criminals tend to be poor. For example, the people around criminals tend to know they are criminals (and criminals often brag about begin criminals). People don't trust criminals and don't want to do business with them - leaving the criminal with fewer legitimate options for making money.
  - 7y ago

Guest42 7y ago

Out of curiosity, why would you go with a top-end Mac Pro instead of a server at that price point?

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
What server? The closest thing Apple sells is the rack mount mac pro. (I'm assuming it needs to run Mac OS for application compatibility)

dboreham 7y ago

You could have bought your machine via craigslist next day for a nice discount then cancelled the order.

Piskvorrr 7y ago
Which would not raise any red flags at all, while also not painting a target on you marked "cui prodest".

raverbashing 7y ago

Corporate would love to hear this story.

auggierose 7y ago

Why are you ordering this to the store and not to your home?

gambiting 7y ago
Not OP, but I usually order items to the nearest store not my home - I can't control when something is delievered to my home, and if I miss the delivery I have to go to the nearest depot which is a massive pain in the back. Instead I can get most things delivered to a store nearby and just pick them up on my way back from work.

rayhendricks 7y ago

Had a similar but less dramatic experience happen this last December when I decided to trade in and purchase an iPhone 11. There was a dead pixel on the screen so I return + exchanged it, however Apple quoted me a different price after the exchange. No idea house this happened, but they still let it go through. What takes the cake is when the genius at the pickup line tried to give me two pairs of AirPods as I was leaving the store “you bought these right?” I had to respectfully decline the free AirPods and left wondering at the pre-Christmas chaos that was taking place.

froindt 7y ago
My girlfriend's track pad was acting up. The Genius said it wasn't working because she had Google Chrome installed, and wasn't using Safari. I'm not an Apple guy myself, but I lost a lot of respect for them as a company.

temac 7y ago

Of course you were going to buy a $50k computer to a luxury brand but can't find bodyguards. Which maybe it is even the case; and in that case you probably should think hard about if you are not slowly drifting away from the reality as experienced by the vast majority of other people. Yep, Apple probably does not care much about your profile as a prospect.

sizzle 7y ago

"was recently interested in buying a maxed out Mac Pro for 50k+.." Wow what do you do that requires a $50k computer?