Disclaimer: This is a very long post! I wish I could condense it but I really need to get all the details out there to the other people affected by this black screen issue. Everyone interested in this topic should take the time to read all three of my posts to see just how badly Apple is handling this ordeal and in my case, how enough persistence and knowledge of your rights can get the resolution you want, not the resolution they try to force on you.
Part 1 -
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8649853#8649853
Part 2 -
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8670471#8670471
Well here it is, my third and final update on this issue...
Sent my MBP out for it's second repair for the black screen of death on 12/29 and got it back yesterday morning. Opened the box and immediately checked the service details paper to see what they did:
016-0001 REALIGN:AdjustmentPerformed (Adjusted the LCD display)
620-4630 ASSY DISPL DRP&SLD DVT M98 (Found out later this is a case replacement)
I felt a bit of dismay when I saw nothing mentioning the logic board or GPU. So I unboxed the MBP and fired it up. First thing I did was go to "About This Mac" to see if the hardware revision had changed for the 9600 but I was shocked to see the very first window report my machine had a 2.53 CPU, especially since for the past three months and since I ordered it I had a 2.8 CPU. What the ****??
On top of that, the case was noticeably different! The black hinge on the back protruded out like it wasn't put on correctly and the lid when closed didn't align properly to the lower section anymore. It just looked very sloppy and added to my frustration level, which before was just about the black screen but now included a secret CPU downgrade and case problems.
Without even bothering to try to reproduce the black screen I got on the phone with Apple support by just calling the 1-800 number right off the bat.
The first tech I got I explained to him that somehow I had been downgraded CPU's during the course of a repair which should of had nothing to do with the CPU at all, yet alone messing with the LCD or case! He was shocked and immediately put me through to customer relations because by then I brought up that enough was enough and I think I want a full refund because I'm done messing with this defective MBP that they just made even worse via repair.
Customer relations heard me out and essentially tried to calm me down a bit and I think they were going to suggest a third repair before I firmly stated that repair was out of the question and couldn't be trusted by me anymore. I kept pushing the refund hard and he contacted sales since my purchase was made via the apple online store. I stayed on hold while he told me he was talking to sales which then escalated to a sales manager for refund approval. After about 15 minutes on hold (I was on the phone for about 50 minutes at this point) he came back and told me that the sales manager had refused my refund stating that my purchase was well past the 14 or 30 day limit for which they would consider to do a refund.
The customer relations guy proceeded to tell me that refunds were nearly impossible to get without a history of hardware related repairs. I was dumbfounded by this because both of my repairs were strictly hardware related, the first being a battery and logic board replacement (but apparently Apple doesn't consider the battery as hardware) and the second being an entire new case! After arguing about the hardware repairs he basically tried to tell me my only option at this point was a replacement, which he called "doing the right thing for you". I almost bought into it at first, he almost convinced me that was my only option at that point but after some quick thought about it, I definitely didn't want this to seem like I was ok with a replacement, and I didn't want to have to start this process all over again when I got the black screen on the replacement which I was sure I would.
So, at nearly the end of the conversation about the replacement I told him to cancel the replacement. He was confused at first, so I explained that the replacement is not my only option since I'm protected by California law (Song-Beverly Warranty Act or "lemon law"). He said he didn't know California law, but I kept hammering on the details of the Song-Beverly act and I think he got the impression that I knew enough about the subject that he couldn't argue with me about it. I finally asked him, so who do I talk to about a refund now? He said he was the person, but I told him that wasn't true because he said a sales manager had refused my refund. So at that point I told him to get me on the line with sales right now and he put me on hold to connect me.
Within a few minutes (total on the phone now was about an hour and 20 minutes) I was connected to a customer support person for sales. Before I even began I made sure that she was the person who could authorize a refund or not, and she was so I started.
I told my whole story, from the multiple black screens all the way up to the wrong processor and jacked up case. 3 months worth of frustration dumped out in a long winded rant about how Apple is not handling this situation well at all, and how I didn't want to have to take this to small-claims for a lemon laptop or round up everyone in the US that is getting screwed by Apple on this MBP black screen defect, or post about it on every website, etc. I was being very serious about all of this and finally I went into the Song-Beverly Warranty Act and basically wrapped up the whole speech asking her to do the right thing and let me wash my hands of this nightmare, also known as my first and probably last Apple computer.
She put me on hold for just about a minute and quickly returned and asked for me to confirm my email address. I did, and asked why she needed me to do that. She told me that they were going to email me FedEx shipping labels and I would print them out and within 3-5 days of them receiving my MBP they would issue me a full refund. I thanked her for being the only person that I talked to that would finally do the right thing and finally got off the phone, about an hour and 40 minutes after first dialing the 1-800 number.
All in all, I know that computers can have problems. Sometimes a piece of hardware is faulty and that is ok, as long as the company behind the fault is honest and has or is working on a fix quickly. In this case, it seems that Nvidia produced an entire faulty line of GPUs, the 9600. Apple quickly jammed them into their new laptops and possibly missed this problem (although I'm not sure how) before they got to market.
I gave them 2 chances and 3 months to come up with a fix, but each repair did nothing but leave me without a laptop and in the case of the last repair, they essentially removed a $300 CPU upgrade without any notice (notice that anything involving the CPU wasn't mentioned on the service details page!).
When this happens, Apple can't expect their consumers who trusted them with their money (and a lot of it!) to sit around and wait with a broken laptop, or continue sending their laptops in for repair that does nothing to fix the ultimate issue.
In my case, refund was the only thing Apple could do to make this right. It's basically them telling me that they screwed up, they can't fix it, so to make things even they'll make it seem like my purchase never happened.
I'm fine with that.
