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Apple iMac

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Tim of Monument CO (9/21/05)
Switched to Mac after years of IBM compatible use. Thought I would try it since I needed to upgrade anyway and some friends raved about the product. While the product has some nice features, the customer support and service are the worst I have ever encountered and I will not purchase one more thing from Apple. My first complaint was about a shady rebate offer that they did not honor and my second complaint was that I had spend over $2200 on a new IMac less than six months prior to calling about a simple issue with my wireless mouse and they would not talk to me without paying them an addition $50 for "telephone" service.

When I wrote to customer service about the rebate issue they effectively said thanks, your complaint has been logged. Same thing (after waiting 15 minutes on hold) when I complained about the tech support. For the price of this IMac, I could have gotten a top of the line "IBM" compatible. As soon as this IMac lives out its useful life, that is exactly what I am going to do.

While Mac machines are pretty good quality, you can get similar quality for less money and much better tech support and customer service from some of the better Windows based PC companies.

Erin of Fayetteville AR (1/5/04):
I was a comfortable PC user when my husband took me to an Apple dealer. The iMac knocked my socks off, especially iMovie and iTunes. We bought one that day. With my first attempt to work with iMovie the program would unexpectedly shut down. I had purchased the extended care ($129) so I was confident they'd help.

Long story short, I was made to jump through hoops and finially told to reinstall iMovie. By this time I had lost all confidence in iMovie. Yes! I was defeated by an Apple product and never went back.

Along the way I've had numerous run-ins with the tech department and today's was the last straw. I was getting "panic kernals." In other words the whole darn computer was crashing. After 3-4 talks with Apple they decided I needed to create a new user. I needed to transfer information from the old user to the new one. I talked with 3 of their "product specialista" and got 3 different methods of moving this information. I had a 1700 song library and today I have 298. The tech couldn't figure out what happened and suggested I buy a Norton retrieval program.

I called customer relations and was told I was out of luck. They would send me a retreival disk but other than that I was SOL. I feel like they have put one bandaid after another on my machine and I expect it's not though with me yet.

Lou of Oakland CA (12/23/03):
I am trying to purchase a permiter battery for an imac. They will not sell the battery unless I pay Apple or an authorized Apple dealer to install the battery. I have a competent service man who has been taking care of my three Apples for over 4 years, and do not want to carry my computer to a store or have some other third party service the equpment. Isn't Apple required to sell me a replacement part?

It took three phone calls and over 30 minutes to have someone finally tell me that they can not sell me a battery unless I bring a computer in for them to replace. What kind of support is this?

Carole of Webster NY (5/2/03):
We bought an Imac G 4 for our daughter's senior year at Syracuse University. Prior to this she used a $600 computer that we bid on over the net which she rarely had a problem and never needed support. Her new Imac has broken down numerous times. Despite the fact that the individual computer helpers have been polite and understanding, the computer continues to shut down or fails to perform. Yesterday, her computer would not copy cds and when the Apple care representative attempted to solve this problem, the computer crashed.

Now we are told that they will have to reprogram the hard drive and she will lose everything. She is in the middle of writing papers for her senior year finals and will lose all her work. When we asked about retrieving the material from her hard drive - we were told that it would be at our expense. When we asked to speak to a supervisor, we were referred to Cliff. He was unsympathetic, cold, and robot like. He might as well as have put a tape on which reviewed apple (note the small a) care policy. The timing could not be worse.

It should also be noted that we purchased this computer for our daughter so that she would have what we thought was the best and it has turned out to be the worst. When we asked to speak to Cliff's supervisor, we were told that he was the final word and that there was no one we could talk to. We are very frustrated.

Craig of Springfield MA (6/28/01):
Bought an Imac computer one year ago, May 2000. In the course of one year machine has constantly crashed, froze up and the DVD drive stopped working. Replaced the DVD under warranty, and one month after warranty expired (the 13th month of ownership) the modem stopped working. Apple custome service was rude and not very helpful. What they told me primarily was "Warranty invalid ... you got it". I will never buy an Apple product again. Very disgusted.

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