dennisg@pwcs.UUCP (Dennis Grittner) (04/10/90)
Well, I hate to being this up but..... The M.B.A.'s are at it again. We get this strange document that basically says that we are responsible for our Apple products from the moment they leave the shipping dock! We are supposed to pay for insurance for the shiping and we are supposed to do our own tracking if the stuff doesn't show up here! In addition our latest shipment of stuff shows up and we are told that shipping is "dock-to-dock", and we have to pay additional $$ to get it shipped into our building. All of this is changed from past policy. Is this how we are all paying for the "extended warranty" to one year? Is this the handiwork of the new C.O.O.? Actually the letter in question came from BIll Bright, the Customer Support Operations Manager and it states bascially is you aren't insured and your shipment gets lost Apple will no longer replace lost product at no charge. Also, the normal limited claim from UPS is $100 per carton and $5 per pound on a common carrier. The cost fro insurance is $.25 per $100 on the invoice. Thus the cost of a $5,000 Mac has gone up $12.50. This isn't a lot of money, but the way they are handling it is terrible. I get the mail today (April 9th) and the policy goes into effect on April 16th. LOts of time for me to react, right! I hope that you all will agree with me that Apple should change this policy so that their products belong to them untill we get them. Since we don't control shipping from Apple, this seems pretty reasonable to me. If Apple needs to raise it's prices - then so be it - why hide the $$$ this way?? Personally, I can't understand how their profit margins aren't high enough, or maybe we are all paying for a few parachutes?? Apple, when you change something like this, you need to be more thoughtful than to send sort of an ultimatum letter, comeon I can't just sign this and send it off to you and committ my employer - the City of Saint Paul to more risk and more cost. This certainly seems like the old 'take-it-or-leave-it' approach of Apple of the past. Remember that those of us who are buying your products pay very high prices (even at highest discount levels) for a product that will soon be out-performed by many small Unix boxes including Sparc clones.... I hope some of the rest of you who get shipped from Apple will also criticise this direction. -- Dennis Grittner City of Saint Paul, Minnesota (612) 298-4402 Room 700, 25 W. 4th St. 55102 "Where Unix gets down to the Public's business!"