What to do when all avenue's for resolution fail?
My son had been saving for almost a year to get a MacBook Pro. He was a few hundred dollars short so we purchased a refurbished MacBook Pro on the 17 December 2017 from Apple Online Store as a Christmas present for $2549. Our son who had a MacBook Air but needed something. a little gruntier to tackle the editing he was doing. I wanted to leave documented feedback about our terrible purchase experience so far. This is ongoing and still hasn't been resolved fully at this time.
My son excitedly received the MacBook on Christmas day and noticed after using it for a bit of time that there were a few issues. 1. The battery life was not great, 2. The USB-C ports did not work consistently and we had to keep plugging devices in and out until they worked and 3. the Bluetooth constantly disconnected.
We went to the Apple Store Chermside shortly after Christmas to have it repaired. They told us because it was not working out of the box we should ring apple and report it as DOA so we left the store, rung Apple Support and the support guy ran through a few things with us including re-installing the operating system. This did not fix the issues so we went back to the Apple Store Chermside. Apple Store Chermside support person could not replicate any of the issues so we were sent away for the second time with our issues unresolved.
By this point, I was quite sick of this ongoing problem so I rang Apple Support who put me on too the Apple Store and said I was within our rights to request a replacement as it was a DOA item. The Apple Store organised a replacement and a courier to pick up the DOA MacBook Pro. They organised for the courier to come after we got the replacement so we were not without a MacBook. The courier turned up a few days later before we had received the replacement MacBook Pro so I rang the Apple Store to see what was happening with the replacement and they told me the reason one hadn't arrived was that they couldn't find a replacement so I could either have one that didn't have as high specs as this one OR I could pay $600 for a faster one than we had OR we could have a refund. Neither option suited us: we needed the specs we had, I didn't think I should have to pay another $600 to get a working MacBook and getting a refund didn't fix the issue either - what, do we get the money and then purchase another????
I felt my only option was to force a repair via the Apple Store Chermside so back the third time we went. This time the guy was able to confirm that there were issues so finally we got it in for repair. We received it back a couple of days later and while we were at the Store we tested to see if it was fixed. To our dismay, the issues still persisted and during the repair, the case was also chipped! We talked to the Store tech manager and he was very apologetic and said they would order more parts and try to fix the issues again and replace the casing. By this time I had had enough so I rang Apple Support and again demanded a replacement as I was sick of all these issues and just wanted a new device and be done with it. Again they said they could not come up with a comparable replacement so my only option was to repair the device so back to the Apple Store for the fourth time I went. This time the repair was seemed to be successful, at least the Bluetooth issue was gone and the casing was back to looking new again (they had replaced it).
A few days later my son, who was away, rang and reported that the ports were not as bad but still not working very occasionally. He wasn't so upset about that but rather he was concerned that he noticed that the MacBook didn't appear to be flat after the repair and rocked when he typed - I said maybe it was just the desk he was using. A few days later he rung again and said that it is definitely not flat as he has tried it on many surfaces now and the right front corner taps the desk as you use it as it is not sitting flat on the surface. I said I would have a look at it when he returns. He returned home a few days ago and indeed the repaired case seems to be uneven and as you type it rocks on the table. The ports still seem to be touchy and the battery lasts only half the 10 hours it is supposed too.
So here we are 2 months in, issues still unresolved fully and now we have a rocking MacBook Pro. In my opinion, the Apple Online Store hasn't done enough to ensure that we had got what we paid for from the beginning - a 100% working MacBook Pro.
Having exhausted so many avenues and at the point of losing my hair over this... I don't know what to do at this point. Has anyone got any ideas how to get this resolved... this is probably the most dissatisfied I have ever been with Apple.
Thanks,