Gift Card Purchasing Disaster

At this point, I’d stop focusing on local inventory. If Apple has confirmed that the order has been stuck in “general verification” since August 7, that’s the part that needs to be resolved.

Since the order apparently hasn’t shipped, check your Order Status page to see whether you can cancel it there. If you can’t, I’d contact Apple Store Customer Service again and specifically ask them to cancel the stuck online order rather than provide another delivery estimate.

One important point: if the order was paid with Apple Gift Cards, Apple’s refund goes back as Apple Gift Card value. Apple can’t reverse the separate Amex Membership Rewards conversion and put those points back on your Amex account.

Since you’ve already bought another iPad for work, cancellation seems like the cleanest way to get the $1,300 out of the pending order.

→ Viewing & Changing Orders - Shopping Help - Apple

Stealth43 wrote:

Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave at the way their customer service has fallen under Cook.

Remember:

• When emailed by user about cellular failures with the iPhone 4 when holding the base, Steve's response was "Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way."

or famously:

• “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

Sometimes perspectives don't always match reality. The market cap of Apple when Tim took over was $350 billion and Tim took it to over a $4 trillion evaluation growing more than 10 fold. Not too shabby, and I think Steve would be jumping for joy.