mentat@auscso.UUCP (Robert Dorsett) (08/20/87)
In article <1926@mhuxt.UUCP> evans@mhuxt.UUCP (Sukie Crandall) writes: > >Are there standards for the quality and price of Apple service? > [horror story deleted] I believe Apple sets standards for its authorized dealerships. I know that a couple of years ago, it was yanking authorized status on dealers that loc- ated too close to one another (the ComputerLand vs. Apple war, for example). There does not seem to be much fear of Apple on the part of *international* dealers, though. My sister, living in Jordan, was having problems with her new Mac. For some reason the Modem port was configured for printing. She, of course, couldn't figure that out, and went to the local Apple dealer. They wanted 50 JD's ($150) just to plug in the computer and see if it'd work at ALL. She finally decided to spend $40 to call me up and have me talk her through the problem. Some of the other prices over there are hilarious. $15 for ONE disk. $21 for a printer ribbon. $3500 for a 512K Macintosh. $10000 for a LaserWriter Plus. The only items that APPROACHE American prices is the ImageWriter II ($700), and, to be fare, they sell LaserWriter output for less than $0.20 a page. Used to be that the high computer prices were due to import taxes in the country, but they recently lifted them. The dealers CONTINUE to sell items at 100-300% markups, and Apple doesn't seem to care. > I have only seen this kind of work from used car salesmen I have a theory that computer salesmen are, in general, ex-car salesmen. But that's implying some degree of technical sophistication. Shoe salesmen, per- haps? Their real purpose is to let the user make his own decisions. They are *not* computer consultants. Try browsing around in a store sometime and listen to the BS salesmen tell customers about "home" computers... On the AppleCare issue, I feel it's a total waste of money. I've owned Apple products since 1980. My first Apple product was an Apple II Plus, with all sorts of stuff plugged into it. It *never* broke down; my brother's still using it. The only time I had to take it into the dealer was when I im- properly changed the paper on the thermal printer and smashed the print matrix. My father had a bad experience, UNDER WARRANTY, though. There was a problem with the PAL's that froze the computer. My total cost on repairs for the past seven years is less than $100, including labor and parts. If anything is going to go wrong with a computer, it'll probably go wrong while under warranty. AppleCare (and its predec- essors) for all my equipment (II Plus, Lisa, Mac, Plus) would have cost me in excess of $2000 for that period of time. It's a waste of money, feeding off the paranoia of users. I think that plain old insurance (anti-theft, etc) is a much better investment. -- Robert Dorsett {allegra,seismo}!sally!ngp!walt!mentat University of Texas at Austin {allegra,seismo}!sally!ngp!mentat mentat@ausco.UUCP