[mrharm]

I've been a Mac enthusiast for MANY years - because of this, I've become the "go to" guy for my friends and collegues who are interested in "switching' from the WINTEL Hell.... recently I convinced a friend and her husband to purchase an iMac. They were thrilled with the purchase as they have children and were able to purchase educational games, etc. along with the iMac itself..... HOWEVER..... 18 days after their purchase, Apple introduced it's new line of iMacs - a better system than what my friends bought was available for $200.00 less. So, my friends called the Apple Store to ask how they go about getting the better system (since their purchase was made within the "30-day" grace period). The Apple Store simply told them that their purchase was final. In anger, my friends said they wanted to return their new Mac, only to be told that they'd be charged a $200.00 restocking fee......
Is this how Apple treats the customers they so desperatly "switched"????? Is there something that can be done??? Is this typical of Apple Stores across the country, or is the one in my geographical location just a bad seed???????? Any thoughts?

[mystery_stain]

It's a tough situation. But Apple Store is not out of line. If they bought a Mac or PC at CompUSA or Best Buy, the computer policy is 15% return fee (actually worse than Apple's 10%) and 14-day price match (vs Apple's 10 days). At any of these typical stores, your friends 18 days would have been past the deadline, sadly. And they can't let it be negotiable, or everyone would try to push it out a little further. That would be a mess.

[digedit]

Apple could avoid this whole situation by just announcing products earlier instead of always trying to surprise everbody and pump up the hype machine. This way people could decide whether they want to wait or go ahead and purchase now. I know, I know... Apple would have a tougher time selling the old hardware at full price as it came closer to new hardware releases. I think they would more than make up for this with increased customer confidence and satisfaction. Nobody likes loosing hundreds, sometimes close to a thousand dollars just because they purchased a few days off of the mark. Since Apple doesn't give their customers the knowledge to make informed choices they (Apple customers) are at the mercy of luck and good timing. In the wintel world, everyone always knows whats coming down the pipe and it doesn't seem to cause any problems for those companies and customers are more able to make intelligent purchasing decisions. I like Apple's products and I think they've got a great brand and know how to market it, they sometimes just don't seem to give a rat's ass about keeping their current customers happy.

[Grant_G]

Everytime Apple comes out with an upgraded system, someone, somewhere, gets burned. It's just a fact-of-life in the computer business. It used to be that you could figure on Apple's announcements coming along four times a year (SF, NY, Paris, and Tokyo), but recently they've gone to a lot more between-show announcements. So I guess the only prudent strategy now is to wait, if you can, until the type of product you're interested in is announced. Then buy either the new one, or the one you were looking at before ... at a reduced rate. But the wait could be a long time ...
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[mrharm]

Thanks for all the feedback!!!!!! I agree that when buying a new computer you're at the mercy of quickly advancing technology.... I felt bad for my friends because this was their first Mac ever and I, of course, wanted them to experience what I have for the past (almost) 2 decades..... you're right about the timing being off on my friends part, but they told me how the sales person at the Apple Store ASSURED them that they were getting the "latest and the greatest" - and, from that salesperson's perspective, they probably were..... I'm now putting my hopes into the fact that once my friends start USING their iMac, they'll forget the "problems" they had and just enjoy home computing the way it was meant to be!!!!!!!
THANKS again for the feedback!!!!!!

[mystery_stain]

In reply to:

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Apple could avoid this whole situation by just announcing products earlier instead of always trying to surprise everbody and pump up the hype machine.

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How much earlier? How would Apple get around the fact that no matter what date they announce, there will always be somebody who ordered the day before the cutoff who wants the discount? They simply can't keep moving the cutoff earlier and earlier. It has to stop somewhere.
I would love to talk to Apple and say "This G3/500 PowerBook you sold me as 'top-of-the-line" for almost $3000 not long ago, won't even make the bottom end now. Stop innovating, stop lowering prices, or give me $2000 back." Hmm...
Sometimes it's very bad to announce earlier. Just ask everybody still waiting for the 17" PowerBooks announced at Macworld. An earlier announcement would have made them evern more impatient than they are already. Apple would look better if it didn't tell anyone about a product until it was ready to ship, but then they might miss a trade show, and holding the announcement until ship would then conflict with the customer desire to know earlier and...
We haven't even talked about the shareholder, SEC, and competitive effects of announcing too early. Apple is not a special-case company when it comes to announcements. You can fill in the blank with any favorite hardware or software company. It is just not very easy to make this decision and make everybody happy.

[NightEyes]

Be sure to check those rumor sites next time before you buy. There's a lot of snow to wade through, but www.macrumors.com can usually sniff out when to expect some kind of an update.

[NYCFarmboy]

thats how it goes.
I just purchased a duel 1.42 for myself 9 days ago..liked it so much got another for my Mom yesterday (her 6 year old beige g3 tower is just a bit dated now).
So I'm expecting new Apple G5's out any hour.
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
but..I'm thrilled by my G4 1.42 and will have it many years. The previous computer I had was also a G4, 400 megahertz.
And honestly didn't really need to upgrade except I needed a DVD burner.
I was hoping to wait until Apple comes out with the new whatever, BUT, I'm thrilled with what I have although I'm sure it will be quite dated within a year.
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[TomMacs]

The online Apple Store is foe to me. They charged me 10.50 dollors for shipping and I live in NY, they charged tax two. I only ordered UT2003, imagine the price of shipping on a computer. They lost a custumer. www.maczone.com is for me, here they are friend. yes