Bad Experience :(

Hi,
I made my switch about a year back and have a macbookpro ... an ipod touch and a .mac account. My .mac account is expiring in 1.5 months time and I wanted to renew (i received a mail to the same effect from apple saying that I could renew it in advance) ... I'm going to be incredibly busy in the coming couple of months and wanted to get it over and done with. Well, i logged on to mobile me and tried to update my billing details. Firstly, whenever I'm entering my card details... a server validation error is cropping up. I called up my bank to see whether there was any issue at their end... which they checked and confirmed was not the case. I then proceeded to call apple customer care and explain the situation. Just as a side note... I'm presently in India for a few months .. but my credit card is a US one.

So this guy picks up .. and I explain my situation to him.. and he goes ranting about how mobileme isn't supported for India and that I won't be able to renew it. i kept telling him to concentrate on just figuring out why my billing details were not being updated properely on mobileme .. at which point he kept me on hold for a while and when he came back on... he said ... sir .. it's nearing closing time ... will appreciate if you call back tommorrow..!!!! i mean ... wht the!! ... and then he starts blabbering half incoherently about chatting with a customer care exec .. or mailing the .mac team instead of calling up apple...

i have had no resolution to my problem and instead had to deal with a pathetic customer care guy ... totally not what i expect from apple!.... feeling very frustrated at this point. (end of rant) ..

 

Ouch, sorry to hear that. My experience with customer service was a good one, but I guess they still do have a few bad apples (OH THAT PUN WAS HORRIBLE!). I think you should have informed him that you paid for AppleCares phone service for a reason.

 

That sucks, sorry to hear that. One option is to buy the .mac retail package which is typically cheaper than apple's .mac renewal rate and use the code to renew your .mac account online; that way you don't have to deal with inconsistent or unacceptable billing/address information with apple support.

 

Did you get the name of the guy? I would call back again tomorrow and talk to someone whos in charge, that guy should be fired. That's what I'd do, but that's me, I can't stand incompetent people.

 

I guess that's an option ... Apple's presence in India is non-existant so to speak. I guess I'll order one from amazon and get it shipped to a friend's place and they can then get me the activation code. Is there anything that comes with the mobileme box that I really need apart from that? I know there's a dvd that comes along with it...I'm guessing that it's the mobileme installation disk ... but that can be done online as well. Any one shed any light on this?

In the meantime, I've mailed mobileme support and they've told me that they'll be getting back to me in 24 hours with some sort of feedback on my issue... let's see...

 

No DVD, at least nothing like that in my .mac retail package; just a code. There's really nothing that needs installing as .mac is built right into OSX. Some online retailers will give you the option to charge you a small fee (about $3) with no shipping cost added and what they'll do is email you the code in the package. No shipping involved. They typically offer the same with applecare packages too.