iPhone Touchscreen Dead: Still Under Warranty, but no one helping.
The top half of my wifes iPhone 2G suddenly stopped responding to touch on Wednesday this week after 8 enjoyable and trouble free months. We have tried to do a reset and install new software but the problem still persists.
As it is still under warranty (it was bought in the UK in April last year) we rang customer support in Australia where we are now living having recently moved over from the UK where we originally purchased the device. The team walked us through the reset process, but with no luck and they advised that we should ring the UK support to discuss how to get it fixed under warranty as they were unable to help as the 2G model was never stocked in the Australian market.
Fair enough.
So, anyway we've just got off the phone with UK support and to be honest more than a little disappointed with the service. Apparently they require us to send it to someone (one of our "friends or family" in the UK, who then in turn, has to call Apple to arrange a local courier to pick up the device for repair or replacement. All fine and dandy until you realise that we are in Australia and we would find it difficult to find someone able to do this for us in the UK. We asked if we couldn't just send the item directly to Apple via international courier. The response was a flat NO, "thats not how we do it."
Has anyone else had problems with the iPhone screen? Or any problems with warranties outside the original country of purchase? Personally we cannot believe that a global company cannot respond to its customers in a global manner rather than insist we send it to a 3rd party in the original local market who then has to arrange for it to be picked up by courier. Why can't Apple arrange an International courier or allow us to send it back directly at our own cost?
Also from an Apple perspective is this the normal way to treat international customers who may move around the globe. It doesn't bode well for all of our numerous other Mac products which have been purchased in various locales around the world.
Time to rethink our loyalty to the brand?
M&D
As it is still under warranty (it was bought in the UK in April last year) we rang customer support in Australia where we are now living having recently moved over from the UK where we originally purchased the device. The team walked us through the reset process, but with no luck and they advised that we should ring the UK support to discuss how to get it fixed under warranty as they were unable to help as the 2G model was never stocked in the Australian market.
Fair enough.
So, anyway we've just got off the phone with UK support and to be honest more than a little disappointed with the service. Apparently they require us to send it to someone (one of our "friends or family" in the UK, who then in turn, has to call Apple to arrange a local courier to pick up the device for repair or replacement. All fine and dandy until you realise that we are in Australia and we would find it difficult to find someone able to do this for us in the UK. We asked if we couldn't just send the item directly to Apple via international courier. The response was a flat NO, "thats not how we do it."
Has anyone else had problems with the iPhone screen? Or any problems with warranties outside the original country of purchase? Personally we cannot believe that a global company cannot respond to its customers in a global manner rather than insist we send it to a 3rd party in the original local market who then has to arrange for it to be picked up by courier. Why can't Apple arrange an International courier or allow us to send it back directly at our own cost?
Also from an Apple perspective is this the normal way to treat international customers who may move around the globe. It doesn't bode well for all of our numerous other Mac products which have been purchased in various locales around the world.
Time to rethink our loyalty to the brand?
M&D
iMac. MacBook Pro. Powerbook G4. iPod 5G. iPod Nano x2. iPhone 3G. iPhone. iPod Shuffle x2., Mac OS X (10.5.6)
