iPad Air refund and appalling customer service at Bullring Store, Birmingham, UK.

Finally went to Apple Store (Bullring Shopping Centre, Birmingham, United Kingdom) to have my 5th iPad swapped - And refused by the manager because I had made too many swaps.

To recap:

Issues with the last iPad:

(Issues that affected me):

Bottom half had pink tint / Left half had yellow tint blending in with pink tint that was coming from the bottom->up

(Issues that I easily lived with):

Spots of dusts under the screen / Blue band on the left side / Pieces of ?silicon rubbers? that were sticking out along the edges where the metal frame meets the glass - which I managed to trimmed down neatly.

Issues with first four iPad air:

Combinations of dusts under screen / dust under screen that was refracting light (rainbow effect) / stuck pixels (bright pixels that apparent on black background) / yellow tint

Poor customer service today.

What I did accept:

Was the refusal to have another swap - I completely understood that this was not good for business

What I am objecting (short version):

Rude manager. She was called out by one of the minions and she immediately said “there is nothing wrong with it”. Questioned her how can she be sure about this when has not even looked at it, to which she replied “because my colleague said so”. And what was baffling, none of the first three minions had a look at it either. She finally gave in and had a look at it - and immediately said “I cannot see anything wrong with it” in spite of the obvious. Which she then offered a refund and asked to go back into the queue. Once arrived at the front of the queue, was denied refund - in spite of the manager offering it in the first place - so had to call her again. Finally got my refund. Humiliating experience to say the least but I did not expect an Apple Store manager to behave like this.

Thoughts

Apple is a great company that produces great products. And previously had great customer experience. Yes, I will be waiting slightly longer until these issues are ironed out. But it is a shame that the image can easily be tarnished by this one bad apple (yes, pun intended). But again, watching some of the salesboys and girls at this store behaved, did make me wonder if they are slacking not just in product QC but also recruitment process.