10 ms·

Apple courier may have stolen 2 MacBooks, ... Apple is not going to help

146 points by Toutouxc 2y ago

netsharc 2y ago
Trillion dollar company uses exploitative company's (Uber) labor, leaves customer with the bill when poorly vetted and paid labor steals the goods. Customer is afraid to issue chargeback because they might get kicked out of the digital feudal state...
- pulse7 2y ago
  They need to increase the revenue (=> new sales) and decrease the costs (=> Uber delivery) so that shareholders are happy...
- miki123211 2y ago
  > Customer is afraid to issue chargeback because they might get kicked out of the digital feudal state. It's wild to me that the credit card companies (and the law in general) actually allow this. The chargeback procedure was created exactly for situations like this, and designed to be maximally friendly to customers at the expense of vendors. One would think that "you cannot exact revenge on customers when a transaction goes wrong" would be credit card rules 101.
  - soco 2y ago
    I issued over the years a few chargebacks and never had any issues about it, they asked a couple decent questions and solved it was. But I'm also not living in the USA fwiw.
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      The person who lost his MacBooks lost them from Apple Canada, for what it's worth
      - woleium 2y ago
        canada has great consumer protection laws. in this case the sale of goods act would say that the contract of sale was invalid as the product was not supplied. ianal
  - TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
    The first time I had to agree to a card processing merchant agreement, it contained a very clearly stated and strict provision requiring the signer to agree that they wouldn’t take any adverse action against customers on the basis of chargeback requests or the outcomes of those chargebacks. Haven’t seen that language in awhile.
- 5350-uiop-1130 2y ago
  if u order a gram of heroin and the drop man doesnt show up, what are u gonna do about it
avidiax 2y ago
Apple owes him his two laptops. He can chargeback, or he can sue, depending on the arbitration laws in Canada. Lastly, there may be a government agency similar to US states' attorney general that might take a complaint and evidence of a pattern of abuse.
- ponector 2y ago
  And Apple can block his icloud account without notice and with no explanation without any chance to get it back.
- vman81 2y ago
  That may result in is icloud account being locked out, apparently. I'm sure he can take them to court over that, but losing access to your files and services for an indeterminite amount of time is a big deal for most people.
graemep 2y ago
> Once I do the chargeback Apple blocks the card from being used with them and can lock my iCloud account. That is a very significant part of the problem. The hold cloud service providers have on customers. I am pretty sure this would be illegal. In the UK I would be going to the small claims court, or trading standards (a government agency) or the card company (which has joint liability for anything bought with a credit card here - not true for debit cards).
- Szpadel 2y ago
  if they just block the card number, issuing a new virtual card from your bank (or use revolut or something like that) would easily solve this
  - Maxious 2y ago
    > "connect all physical and virtual versions of a card" https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/products/documents/visa-token-service-payment-account-reference-inquiry-fact-sheet.pdf https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/products/docume...
  - catlikesshrimp 2y ago
    The scary part for an iphone user shackled to Apple is: > "can lock my iCloud account."
  - Aachen 2y ago
    If they didn't have trouble getting a card at all in the first place. Credit scores aren't always accurate (I didn't even know Europe had such a thing before moving to Germany and starting with a blank slate that defaulted to "and so we can't guarantee anything so: no") and you need one of these numbers to do normal things in life like getting a hotel room on occasion. "Just get another one" isn't a choice one can necessarily make. Generating another number isn't an option my bank has either (eventually got a card after finding some else to be co-guarantor which this bank accepted — I don't even want to buy on credit, I just want to be able to fairly pay for things up front, and that's how this card seems to function in the first place)
sebra 2y ago
Apples only delivery choice in Sweden is UPS which is notorious for messing up deliveries here. I ordered a MacBook and the delivery is supposed to be hand over with signature required. The UPS guy left it outside my apartment door in the stairwell in the morning. I was lucky it was still there when I got home from work. Apparently I signed that delivery (the UPS guy probably signed it himself...)
- vbezhenar 2y ago
  Tell them you didn't receive macbook and get second one for free.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    That's fraud.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  Delivery drivers in the UK regularly do this. They get to 11am, realise they won’t meet the delivery slots for the afternoon deliveries, so bulk mark everything as delivered and sign themselves, then take their time and deliver after the slot later that day. This is illegal. Signatures are legally protected in the UK (and elsewhere I’m sure) and forging a signature is a crime. I got like 3 Hello Fresh deliveries in a row when I complained of their repeated forgeries before I cancelled.
  - Tempest1981 2y ago
    Is this the real reason Amazon has their drivers take pictures of each delivery? I assume they track with GPS too.
    - switch007 2y ago
      This is also security theatre at some companies. One famously will take a photo of your parcel in a bush in a garden 3 streets over (Hermes) Though at the more scrupulous companies they take photos slightly more seriously. Just slightly
lostlogin 2y ago
This is incredible. Is there any regulatory body that can be contacted? If I did that I’d be had up for fraud.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > If I did that I’d be had up for fraud. You wouldn’t be. That is hyperbolic. This happened like a week ago. The police is investigating a crime. These things take time to be resolved. It is sad that it happened and it could have been handled better by Apple but the poster whose laptops were not delivered should take several deep breaths, accept that this will take time and politely but insistently apply the tools at their disposal for a resolution.
  - lucraft 2y ago
    It's interesting though - I'm not sure why they submitted a police report... they weren't robbed, Apple was.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      But who is out of pocket?
killingtime74 2y ago
"I'd make a trip to the Apple Store and pick up, next time." Um next time I don't think this person is buying a Mac. I wouldn't in this situation.
- lmm 2y ago
  Normally you'd think that, but in my experience Apple users will excuse any amount of poor behaviour by the company.
  - freefaler 2y ago
    Sadly, current state of OS choice and hardware make MacOS the least bad of the lot :(
    - herbst 2y ago
      Personally I think this was never less true than today. Many durable, more cost efficient, machines that run Linux perfectly fine :)
      - richrichardsson 2y ago
        I suppose your smiley at the end means you're not seriously suggesting Linux is a better OS choice for the average potential Apple customer with a straight face?
        Aachen 2y ago
        I think it's quite normal for people to smile when happy about something, such as free software being an actually decent alternative currently, as I can also attest to (Of course, whether a given person is capable of installing an OS manually (be it macOS or Linux Mint), is going to vary. You may have to ask a friend if what you want isn't pre-installed)
        sgjohnson 2y ago
_1tem 2y ago
Chargebacks in Canada are more often decided in favour of the merchant instead of the consumer, as I've found out the hard way. By the way, good luck with arbitration, courts, or the police in Canada. They can't even stop brazen car thefts, even if you track down your vehicle and are able to locate it at a rail yard [1]. 28,550 vehicles were stolen in Canada in the first half of 2024. Even rape cases and murder are being dismissed because courts don't have the resources [2]. The legal system is collapsing in that country. I say that as a Canadian who recently left the country for good. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-man-finds-stolen-truck-in-uae-1.7083615 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-man-finds-stolen-truc... [2] https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/we-have-no-judge-for-you-man-s-assault-charges-dropped-weeks-before-trial-due-to-lack-of-judges-in-toronto-1.6883117 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/we-have-no-judge-for-you-man-s-as...
- throwsks 2y ago
  Canda sucks. Low wages, high taxes and high crime
- amatecha 2y ago
  Curious where you went? Indeed, there are some pretty noteworthy issues here. Though, the one chargeback I've ever done was accepted, but you can always sense just how fragile every interaction is with nearly all systems we deal with every day. It can go badly for you and you typically have zero recourse. I mean, ToS of basically all services says you can be banned for any reason and without explanation, so that's cool (though not specific to Canada of course).
arzke 2y ago
I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court? One year ago, I had to contact Apple support because the FindMy feature wouldn't work on my Airpods Pro, which still were under warranty. It looked like they were already associated with another account, which wasn't mine. That made no sense as I bought them myself at the Apple store and only have a single iCloud account. I went to the store and they acknowledged the issue, and immediately got a replacement which turned out to have the exact same issue. I then had to spend hours on the phone with their customer support. After trying everything without success, the person on the phone told me I'd get a call back in one week to either issue a refund or find a different solution. That phone call never came. All my following messages to that person were ignored. I finally gave up, but found out I was far from being the only one they had ghosted like that. Reading these stories reinforces my belief that Apple is terrible in terms of accountability when something goes wrong.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  > I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court? My naive understanding would be that you entered into a contract with them to supply a MacBook in exchange for a sum of money. The money was paid, but the MacBook was not delivered to the customer, so Apple are in breach of contract. I would imagine that a credit card company charge back would be the easiest solution if it was paid for by one.
- Aachen 2y ago
  Took me a couple reads to put this one together. Based on that you mention being able to see they're associated with someone else's account, you mean that you got a unit that was not factory reset before being given to you right? (And you can't do it yourself because they're Apple-locked for theft reasons.) Not that it got stolen and now you can't find it? Then you say you went to the store, were given a replacement, and it turned out the same. You didn't try out in the store whether these ones are functional? Which makes sense because why wouldn't they be, but could have saved the trouble. You haven't tried going back to that store, perhaps even at the same time and day of week so that you are likely to get the employee who remembers that they provided support in this situation (by handing out a replacement unit, in this case)? Then you could immediately try out, before taking it out of the store, whether this unit is functional Either way, they have an obligation to meet the claims put out in marketing statements, including features like FindMy since they say on the website it can do that. If you've exhausted the easy options, you can always take it to something like small claims and get at least a refund that way. Often, a letter saying you intend to suffices
lrem 2y ago
I’m about to buy a Mac and it will be in the physical store, but for a different reason. In Switzerland if you buy online, you cannot make a return in store. Got a DoA Mac last November. Four people spent a total double digit number of hours on the phone with Apple, who were incompetent to the point it looked like malice. E.g. after taking about half an hour of my time, the lady decided my claim is legit, but she cannot process it because she’s in the wrong country(I called the Swiss number, they never told me they’re transferring the call abroad). But she’ll transfer me to someone who can just press a button now… After a couple minutes of music the same lady picks up, tells me she cannot find Switzerland in the list of countries, so I need to hang up and start from the scratch. In the end got my money back, but it was processed only in the February cycle.
tgma 2y ago
We recently had a similar problem with BestBuy. We had a launch day order of a Google Pixel 9 XL but we got the base non-Pro model inside the box. Tracking showed it as delivered, obviously. Chat told me to go to store. I went to store and they told me they would be able to take it back but not exchange it, which would make me lose the trade-in promotional value and suggested us to call and have BestBuy online store folks ship a replacement. Some agent was good and did it, but it tripped some fraud detection thing (apparently because the original IMEI showed as activated, which probably did because they switched ours with someone else who is happily and quietly enjoying a better phone than they ordered). That saga took a couple months to get resolved and only after the threat of legal action and sending them scary letters (thanks ChatGPT).
neom 2y ago
This is why we have small claims court in Canada.
x62Bh7948f 2y ago
Since I had some trouble getting my credit card accepted at the apple store I always order my apple products by phone and pay with cash on delivery. When the delivery person comes with the box and leaves with the cash it feels good.
theshackleford 2y ago
I had a similar case only with the local courier. Courier company couldn’t provide proof of my signature (cause I never gave it). I don’t know what happened at the courier end but Apple shipped me another MacBook and told me to forget about the other one and to leave it with them. Crazy to think it could have gone this way.
- m000 2y ago
  In the end it's a game of numbers. - Couriers make more errors (or are more inclined to outright steal) because working conditions are crap. - Courier companies save big $ on courier wages because of how much they squeeze out their delivery personel. - Apple saves big $ on their courier deal because of how much the courier companies squeeze their employees. In the end, a laptop may be lost from time to time and a customer will be left in distress for a fair amount of time until the issue is sorted out. Someone will need to pay for the laptop, but that has now become part of the cost of doing business.
  - cosmotic 2y ago
    And it seems like Apple and the courier company have managed to externalize this risk to the customer (assuming the OP's story is true).
maxehmookau 2y ago
Apple is absolutely in the wrong here. What on earth are they doing using a taxi firm to deliver $3000 equipment?
- anonymousiam 2y ago
  Closer to $6000. He ordered two of them.
KingOfCoders 2y ago
I had Amazon once send me an empty package instead of a phone, and only getting the police in solved the problem, everything else failed.
- raxxorraxor 2y ago
  Currently have such a case open with Amazon. Support has said I will be reimbursed, but it has been a few weeks already. I will give them a few days until I will cancel the transaction, which might get my account locked. In my case I got a wooden toy instead of a GPU. Reordered the same thing from the same shop and got the right product. But the other case was probably a logistic member stealing the contents. Perhaps an honest mistake, but big tech has the tendency to hire low quality third party services to save a few dollars. I would immediately fire the managers responsible, because this way you do significant damage to the brand that is way beyond paying delivery services a fair amount. It already is established that Amazon deliveries have a statistically significant amount of fraud.
- amatecha 2y ago
  I've started recording videos when I open packages (when the package contains something of greater-than-trivial value), because I've heard stories like yours. Maybe not bulletproof, but at least it's something…
- anonymousiam 2y ago
  I had the same thing happen with an iPhone ordered from AT&T. I have Ring video of the delivery guy placing the empty box near my gate. You can see from the way he waves the box around that it has very low inertia, and could not possibly have had a phone in it. Fortunately, I had no trouble with my claim.
noja 2y ago
Small claims court. They did not fulfil their contract.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  How will that unblock his blocked Apple account? But yes, maybe a court order is less likely to block his account, compared to a charge-back.
  - bryan_w 2y ago
    Maybe it's time for him to sever his connection with apple anyways. Take a backup and use a different vendor
baoluofu 2y ago
I had a similar situation earlier this year with an iPad delivery. The delivery company missed the target date, then the following day I got a notification that it had been delivered - it hand't been - despite actively following the tracking of the driver in their app and seeing him not come to my house and drive away after delivering to various properties near me, as well as actively watching out for the driver when he was close enough. The delivery company themselves were extremely unhelpful. Apple on the other hand was very understanding and helpful. It took a few days for them to go through the necessary process with the delivery company, but once done they sent out a replacement, critically with a different delivery company. Apple was proactive in keeping me updated throughout, and always seemed to side with me over the delivery company. The only snag after that was the pre-purchased Apple care was tied to the undelivered iPad, so it took about a week for one of their specialist teams to transfer it over to the replacement.
flumpcakes 2y ago
When I have had items delivered from Apple using a private courier (probably reusing Deliveroo/Uber/whomever) I have separately got a text/message from Apple directly to ask/confirm if it was delivered.
switch007 2y ago
In the UK the law is clear (IANAL). The seller is responsible for delivering the goods to you (or otherwise as per your instructions). I stress, to /you/. If they don't, they have failed in their contract. You can take them to the small claims court. I believe it's the same in most of the EU. Make them call you a liar in court. Remedy is not dependent on the good graces of the credit card companies but of course if that's open to you can start there. A lot have people have been brainwashed in to believing the customer is required to deal with the delivery company or that the seller has no responsibility once the item has been collected by the courier. Also, I find it wild that Apple use Uber. Apple exclusively use UPS in the UK I believe (including service collections and deliveries), who I've never had a problem with, and if they stopped that I would only ever purchase from a store
amatecha 2y ago
This is crazy, what a mess. Definitely convincing me to not buy expensive items via delivery, if I can avoid it. I hope the person who had their shipment stolen (OP) gets "made right" in the end!
OutOfHere 2y ago
Pro tip: Switch to Linux. Get a Linux supported laptop from one of many companies that sell it. Require signature on delivery. Don't look back.
rickyc091 2y ago
I ran into a similar situation, but it was with UPS. UPS "lost" my package and it went back and forth between several locations. It was never marked as delivered, just forever in transit. I even got a call from someone claiming to be UPS to see if my package was delivered. I contacted Apple and the same thing happened, they couldn't do anything. Talk to UPS. UPS said talk to Apple. Both parties kept blaming the other party. UPS said internal investigation yielded nothing. I was telling them it clearly still said in transit and it's bounced around for several weeks. They said maybe it'll get there eventually. I contacted Tim Cook's email and someone from the team responded and worked with me through the situation. Fortunately, we had a lucky outcome, and we got our payment refunded, but the entire ordeal took around a month and lots of calls to the CS/live chat support.
- frizlab 2y ago
  Same in France for a company. We did not contact Tim Cook; support was enough.
greentxt 2y ago
Go to the store people! You cannot buy things safely online in this day and age. An UBER driver is not going to be a person you can trust, they're often financially desperate people, and the customers are all too well off for them to care much about. Brick and morter retail solves a lot of security problems.
swat535 2y ago
I had this problem with Apple when I purchased an expensive iMac. When I reached out to support I got a phone call the next day and they offered to send me a replacement or refund my money. I wonder if the support I got was because of my purchase history. I buy a lot of Apple devices and they didn't want to lose a good customer..
- karakot 2y ago
  I really doubt that they in support(low paid, hourly wage, with no 401K or any sensible benefits) care about a good customer.

146 points by Toutouxc 2y ago

Trillion dollar company uses exploitative company's (Uber) labor, leaves customer with the bill when poorly vetted and paid labor steals the goods. Customer is afraid to issue chargeback because they might get kicked out of the digital feudal state...

pulse7 2y ago
They need to increase the revenue (=> new sales) and decrease the costs (=> Uber delivery) so that shareholders are happy...
miki123211 2y ago
> Customer is afraid to issue chargeback because they might get kicked out of the digital feudal state. It's wild to me that the credit card companies (and the law in general) actually allow this. The chargeback procedure was created exactly for situations like this, and designed to be maximally friendly to customers at the expense of vendors. One would think that "you cannot exact revenge on customers when a transaction goes wrong" would be credit card rules 101.
- soco 2y ago
  I issued over the years a few chargebacks and never had any issues about it, they asked a couple decent questions and solved it was. But I'm also not living in the USA fwiw.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    The person who lost his MacBooks lost them from Apple Canada, for what it's worth
    - woleium 2y ago
      canada has great consumer protection laws. in this case the sale of goods act would say that the contract of sale was invalid as the product was not supplied. ianal
- TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
  The first time I had to agree to a card processing merchant agreement, it contained a very clearly stated and strict provision requiring the signer to agree that they wouldn’t take any adverse action against customers on the basis of chargeback requests or the outcomes of those chargebacks. Haven’t seen that language in awhile.
5350-uiop-1130 2y ago
if u order a gram of heroin and the drop man doesnt show up, what are u gonna do about it

avidiax 2y ago

Apple owes him his two laptops. He can chargeback, or he can sue, depending on the arbitration laws in Canada. Lastly, there may be a government agency similar to US states' attorney general that might take a complaint and evidence of a pattern of abuse.

ponector 2y ago
And Apple can block his icloud account without notice and with no explanation without any chance to get it back.
vman81 2y ago
That may result in is icloud account being locked out, apparently. I'm sure he can take them to court over that, but losing access to your files and services for an indeterminite amount of time is a big deal for most people.

graemep 2y ago

> Once I do the chargeback Apple blocks the card from being used with them and can lock my iCloud account. That is a very significant part of the problem. The hold cloud service providers have on customers. I am pretty sure this would be illegal. In the UK I would be going to the small claims court, or trading standards (a government agency) or the card company (which has joint liability for anything bought with a credit card here - not true for debit cards).

Szpadel 2y ago
if they just block the card number, issuing a new virtual card from your bank (or use revolut or something like that) would easily solve this
- Maxious 2y ago
  > "connect all physical and virtual versions of a card" https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/products/documents/visa-token-service-payment-account-reference-inquiry-fact-sheet.pdf https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/global/products/docume...
- catlikesshrimp 2y ago
  The scary part for an iphone user shackled to Apple is: > "can lock my iCloud account."
- Aachen 2y ago
  If they didn't have trouble getting a card at all in the first place. Credit scores aren't always accurate (I didn't even know Europe had such a thing before moving to Germany and starting with a blank slate that defaulted to "and so we can't guarantee anything so: no") and you need one of these numbers to do normal things in life like getting a hotel room on occasion. "Just get another one" isn't a choice one can necessarily make. Generating another number isn't an option my bank has either (eventually got a card after finding some else to be co-guarantor which this bank accepted — I don't even want to buy on credit, I just want to be able to fairly pay for things up front, and that's how this card seems to function in the first place)

sebra 2y ago

Apples only delivery choice in Sweden is UPS which is notorious for messing up deliveries here. I ordered a MacBook and the delivery is supposed to be hand over with signature required. The UPS guy left it outside my apartment door in the stairwell in the morning. I was lucky it was still there when I got home from work. Apparently I signed that delivery (the UPS guy probably signed it himself...)

vbezhenar 2y ago
Tell them you didn't receive macbook and get second one for free.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  That's fraud.
danpalmer 2y ago
Delivery drivers in the UK regularly do this. They get to 11am, realise they won’t meet the delivery slots for the afternoon deliveries, so bulk mark everything as delivered and sign themselves, then take their time and deliver after the slot later that day. This is illegal. Signatures are legally protected in the UK (and elsewhere I’m sure) and forging a signature is a crime. I got like 3 Hello Fresh deliveries in a row when I complained of their repeated forgeries before I cancelled.
- Tempest1981 2y ago
  Is this the real reason Amazon has their drivers take pictures of each delivery? I assume they track with GPS too.
  - switch007 2y ago
    This is also security theatre at some companies. One famously will take a photo of your parcel in a bush in a garden 3 streets over (Hermes) Though at the more scrupulous companies they take photos slightly more seriously. Just slightly

lostlogin 2y ago

This is incredible. Is there any regulatory body that can be contacted? If I did that I’d be had up for fraud.

krisoft 2y ago
> If I did that I’d be had up for fraud. You wouldn’t be. That is hyperbolic. This happened like a week ago. The police is investigating a crime. These things take time to be resolved. It is sad that it happened and it could have been handled better by Apple but the poster whose laptops were not delivered should take several deep breaths, accept that this will take time and politely but insistently apply the tools at their disposal for a resolution.
- lucraft 2y ago
  It's interesting though - I'm not sure why they submitted a police report... they weren't robbed, Apple was.
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    But who is out of pocket?

killingtime74 2y ago

"I'd make a trip to the Apple Store and pick up, next time." Um next time I don't think this person is buying a Mac. I wouldn't in this situation.

lmm 2y ago
Normally you'd think that, but in my experience Apple users will excuse any amount of poor behaviour by the company.
- freefaler 2y ago
  Sadly, current state of OS choice and hardware make MacOS the least bad of the lot :(
  - herbst 2y ago
    Personally I think this was never less true than today. Many durable, more cost efficient, machines that run Linux perfectly fine :)
    - richrichardsson 2y ago
      I suppose your smiley at the end means you're not seriously suggesting Linux is a better OS choice for the average potential Apple customer with a straight face?
      - Aachen 2y ago
        I think it's quite normal for people to smile when happy about something, such as free software being an actually decent alternative currently, as I can also attest to (Of course, whether a given person is capable of installing an OS manually (be it macOS or Linux Mint), is going to vary. You may have to ask a friend if what you want isn't pre-installed)
        sgjohnson 2y ago

_1tem 2y ago

Chargebacks in Canada are more often decided in favour of the merchant instead of the consumer, as I've found out the hard way. By the way, good luck with arbitration, courts, or the police in Canada. They can't even stop brazen car thefts, even if you track down your vehicle and are able to locate it at a rail yard [1]. 28,550 vehicles were stolen in Canada in the first half of 2024. Even rape cases and murder are being dismissed because courts don't have the resources [2]. The legal system is collapsing in that country. I say that as a Canadian who recently left the country for good. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-man-finds-stolen-truck-in-uae-1.7083615 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-man-finds-stolen-truc... [2] https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/we-have-no-judge-for-you-man-s-assault-charges-dropped-weeks-before-trial-due-to-lack-of-judges-in-toronto-1.6883117 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/we-have-no-judge-for-you-man-s-as...

throwsks 2y ago
Canda sucks. Low wages, high taxes and high crime
amatecha 2y ago
Curious where you went? Indeed, there are some pretty noteworthy issues here. Though, the one chargeback I've ever done was accepted, but you can always sense just how fragile every interaction is with nearly all systems we deal with every day. It can go badly for you and you typically have zero recourse. I mean, ToS of basically all services says you can be banned for any reason and without explanation, so that's cool (though not specific to Canada of course).

arzke 2y ago

I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court? One year ago, I had to contact Apple support because the FindMy feature wouldn't work on my Airpods Pro, which still were under warranty. It looked like they were already associated with another account, which wasn't mine. That made no sense as I bought them myself at the Apple store and only have a single iCloud account. I went to the store and they acknowledged the issue, and immediately got a replacement which turned out to have the exact same issue. I then had to spend hours on the phone with their customer support. After trying everything without success, the person on the phone told me I'd get a call back in one week to either issue a refund or find a different solution. That phone call never came. All my following messages to that person were ignored. I finally gave up, but found out I was far from being the only one they had ghosted like that. Reading these stories reinforces my belief that Apple is terrible in terms of accountability when something goes wrong.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
> I can't understand how Apple can possibly get away with this. Is there any chance for them to win if the case were brought to court? My naive understanding would be that you entered into a contract with them to supply a MacBook in exchange for a sum of money. The money was paid, but the MacBook was not delivered to the customer, so Apple are in breach of contract. I would imagine that a credit card company charge back would be the easiest solution if it was paid for by one.
Aachen 2y ago
Took me a couple reads to put this one together. Based on that you mention being able to see they're associated with someone else's account, you mean that you got a unit that was not factory reset before being given to you right? (And you can't do it yourself because they're Apple-locked for theft reasons.) Not that it got stolen and now you can't find it? Then you say you went to the store, were given a replacement, and it turned out the same. You didn't try out in the store whether these ones are functional? Which makes sense because why wouldn't they be, but could have saved the trouble. You haven't tried going back to that store, perhaps even at the same time and day of week so that you are likely to get the employee who remembers that they provided support in this situation (by handing out a replacement unit, in this case)? Then you could immediately try out, before taking it out of the store, whether this unit is functional Either way, they have an obligation to meet the claims put out in marketing statements, including features like FindMy since they say on the website it can do that. If you've exhausted the easy options, you can always take it to something like small claims and get at least a refund that way. Often, a letter saying you intend to suffices

lrem 2y ago

I’m about to buy a Mac and it will be in the physical store, but for a different reason. In Switzerland if you buy online, you cannot make a return in store. Got a DoA Mac last November. Four people spent a total double digit number of hours on the phone with Apple, who were incompetent to the point it looked like malice. E.g. after taking about half an hour of my time, the lady decided my claim is legit, but she cannot process it because she’s in the wrong country(I called the Swiss number, they never told me they’re transferring the call abroad). But she’ll transfer me to someone who can just press a button now… After a couple minutes of music the same lady picks up, tells me she cannot find Switzerland in the list of countries, so I need to hang up and start from the scratch. In the end got my money back, but it was processed only in the February cycle.

tgma 2y ago

We recently had a similar problem with BestBuy. We had a launch day order of a Google Pixel 9 XL but we got the base non-Pro model inside the box. Tracking showed it as delivered, obviously. Chat told me to go to store. I went to store and they told me they would be able to take it back but not exchange it, which would make me lose the trade-in promotional value and suggested us to call and have BestBuy online store folks ship a replacement. Some agent was good and did it, but it tripped some fraud detection thing (apparently because the original IMEI showed as activated, which probably did because they switched ours with someone else who is happily and quietly enjoying a better phone than they ordered). That saga took a couple months to get resolved and only after the threat of legal action and sending them scary letters (thanks ChatGPT).

neom 2y ago

This is why we have small claims court in Canada.

x62Bh7948f 2y ago

Since I had some trouble getting my credit card accepted at the apple store I always order my apple products by phone and pay with cash on delivery. When the delivery person comes with the box and leaves with the cash it feels good.

theshackleford 2y ago

I had a similar case only with the local courier. Courier company couldn’t provide proof of my signature (cause I never gave it). I don’t know what happened at the courier end but Apple shipped me another MacBook and told me to forget about the other one and to leave it with them. Crazy to think it could have gone this way.

m000 2y ago
In the end it's a game of numbers. - Couriers make more errors (or are more inclined to outright steal) because working conditions are crap. - Courier companies save big $ on courier wages because of how much they squeeze out their delivery personel. - Apple saves big $ on their courier deal because of how much the courier companies squeeze their employees. In the end, a laptop may be lost from time to time and a customer will be left in distress for a fair amount of time until the issue is sorted out. Someone will need to pay for the laptop, but that has now become part of the cost of doing business.
- cosmotic 2y ago
  And it seems like Apple and the courier company have managed to externalize this risk to the customer (assuming the OP's story is true).

maxehmookau 2y ago

Apple is absolutely in the wrong here. What on earth are they doing using a taxi firm to deliver $3000 equipment?

anonymousiam 2y ago
Closer to $6000. He ordered two of them.

KingOfCoders 2y ago

I had Amazon once send me an empty package instead of a phone, and only getting the police in solved the problem, everything else failed.

raxxorraxor 2y ago
Currently have such a case open with Amazon. Support has said I will be reimbursed, but it has been a few weeks already. I will give them a few days until I will cancel the transaction, which might get my account locked. In my case I got a wooden toy instead of a GPU. Reordered the same thing from the same shop and got the right product. But the other case was probably a logistic member stealing the contents. Perhaps an honest mistake, but big tech has the tendency to hire low quality third party services to save a few dollars. I would immediately fire the managers responsible, because this way you do significant damage to the brand that is way beyond paying delivery services a fair amount. It already is established that Amazon deliveries have a statistically significant amount of fraud.
amatecha 2y ago
I've started recording videos when I open packages (when the package contains something of greater-than-trivial value), because I've heard stories like yours. Maybe not bulletproof, but at least it's something…
anonymousiam 2y ago
I had the same thing happen with an iPhone ordered from AT&T. I have Ring video of the delivery guy placing the empty box near my gate. You can see from the way he waves the box around that it has very low inertia, and could not possibly have had a phone in it. Fortunately, I had no trouble with my claim.

noja 2y ago

Small claims court. They did not fulfil their contract.

actionfromafar 2y ago
How will that unblock his blocked Apple account? But yes, maybe a court order is less likely to block his account, compared to a charge-back.
- bryan_w 2y ago
  Maybe it's time for him to sever his connection with apple anyways. Take a backup and use a different vendor

baoluofu 2y ago

I had a similar situation earlier this year with an iPad delivery. The delivery company missed the target date, then the following day I got a notification that it had been delivered - it hand't been - despite actively following the tracking of the driver in their app and seeing him not come to my house and drive away after delivering to various properties near me, as well as actively watching out for the driver when he was close enough. The delivery company themselves were extremely unhelpful. Apple on the other hand was very understanding and helpful. It took a few days for them to go through the necessary process with the delivery company, but once done they sent out a replacement, critically with a different delivery company. Apple was proactive in keeping me updated throughout, and always seemed to side with me over the delivery company. The only snag after that was the pre-purchased Apple care was tied to the undelivered iPad, so it took about a week for one of their specialist teams to transfer it over to the replacement.

flumpcakes 2y ago

When I have had items delivered from Apple using a private courier (probably reusing Deliveroo/Uber/whomever) I have separately got a text/message from Apple directly to ask/confirm if it was delivered.

switch007 2y ago

In the UK the law is clear (IANAL). The seller is responsible for delivering the goods to you (or otherwise as per your instructions). I stress, to /you/. If they don't, they have failed in their contract. You can take them to the small claims court. I believe it's the same in most of the EU. Make them call you a liar in court. Remedy is not dependent on the good graces of the credit card companies but of course if that's open to you can start there. A lot have people have been brainwashed in to believing the customer is required to deal with the delivery company or that the seller has no responsibility once the item has been collected by the courier. Also, I find it wild that Apple use Uber. Apple exclusively use UPS in the UK I believe (including service collections and deliveries), who I've never had a problem with, and if they stopped that I would only ever purchase from a store

amatecha 2y ago

This is crazy, what a mess. Definitely convincing me to not buy expensive items via delivery, if I can avoid it. I hope the person who had their shipment stolen (OP) gets "made right" in the end!

OutOfHere 2y ago

Pro tip: Switch to Linux. Get a Linux supported laptop from one of many companies that sell it. Require signature on delivery. Don't look back.

rickyc091 2y ago

I ran into a similar situation, but it was with UPS. UPS "lost" my package and it went back and forth between several locations. It was never marked as delivered, just forever in transit. I even got a call from someone claiming to be UPS to see if my package was delivered. I contacted Apple and the same thing happened, they couldn't do anything. Talk to UPS. UPS said talk to Apple. Both parties kept blaming the other party. UPS said internal investigation yielded nothing. I was telling them it clearly still said in transit and it's bounced around for several weeks. They said maybe it'll get there eventually. I contacted Tim Cook's email and someone from the team responded and worked with me through the situation. Fortunately, we had a lucky outcome, and we got our payment refunded, but the entire ordeal took around a month and lots of calls to the CS/live chat support.

frizlab 2y ago
Same in France for a company. We did not contact Tim Cook; support was enough.

greentxt 2y ago

Go to the store people! You cannot buy things safely online in this day and age. An UBER driver is not going to be a person you can trust, they're often financially desperate people, and the customers are all too well off for them to care much about. Brick and morter retail solves a lot of security problems.

swat535 2y ago

I had this problem with Apple when I purchased an expensive iMac. When I reached out to support I got a phone call the next day and they offered to send me a replacement or refund my money. I wonder if the support I got was because of my purchase history. I buy a lot of Apple devices and they didn't want to lose a good customer..

karakot 2y ago
I really doubt that they in support(low paid, hourly wage, with no 401K or any sensible benefits) care about a good customer.