Remember That Mac Pro Euphoria?

A few weeks back, I posted some rather adrenalised comments about the release of the new Apple Mac Pro and my subsequent purchase of one. Well, that was then and there is still no Mac Pro in my home. I should have picked up my shiny new machine a couple of days ago. Instead, as I fight this wretched cold that has been bugging me since last week, I’m struggling to get a refund processed and doing a re-order.

The largest part of the delay is down to Apple themselves – something I’m content with. I decided to order the machine with a non-standard higher spec video card (NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT). So the advertised three to five week delay was something I knew about upfront.

But, I decided to order through one of the local, high profile, Apple dealers, instead of my usual route of buying direct from Apple. This was, in part, to try and secure a good deal on the extras I needed (2nd and 3rd HardDrives and added RAM). But, it was also to support a local business, build relationships, etc.

In, fact, it was just stupidity.

I was advised last week the machine would be in on Monday. So, when Monday came around, the store told me the machine had arrived, they just had to add the extras and test it. I said that was great, I would be in on Wednesday to pick it up. Wednesday morning, they tell me it is all ready and they will call to confirm delivery. Wednesday afternoon, they are still making promises. Wednesday evening I go in and my machine is sitting in the middle of the store, on a seat, open, with parts all over the place. The Hard Drives were not what I had ordered, the RAM was nowhere to be seen and to top it all off, the machine had the wrong video card!

After listening to a litany of lame excuses I asked for a refund. They were happy to oblige, but expected me to stomach a two week wait for the funds to hit my credit card. They offered a cheque (which, would also take time to clear), but wanted to take a percentage off for their bank fees. Today was a struggle for me and when I went in they were trying to palm off other solutions (another Mac Pro had magically turned up, though they got nervous when I wanted to run the test disk to confirm the video card). I’ll be there tomorrow morning to finalise the issue.

Any readers familiar with Hong Kong retail can probably fill in the blanks here and guess what I suspect has happened. The whole sorry affair adds to my growing disappointment with aspects of customer service in this city (don’t get me started on buying music gear). Anything that involves a custom order, or a slight variation from what commonly fills the shelves goes wrong or is just too hard.

[tags] Shopping [/tags]