I had my first visit to an Apple Store yesterday, and it will probably be my last.
This should have been an easy sale for Apple, I had decided in advance to purchase a dual-2GHz G5, so all they had to do was have one in stock and it was sold.
Found a salesperson, told him what I wanted. Thought for a minute to make sure I didn’t need anything else, he even offered some suggestions on things I might need, and asked him to check stock as I want to purchase one. Off he went to check stock, but on his way back he got stopped by another customer. Rather than politely informing them he was already helping somebody out (somebody who had stated intent to buy a $2,500 computer) he stopped to answer their endless questions about software (in the end, none of which they even purchased) and ignored me. I gave up waiting for this guy after about ten minutes (far longer than I should have waited) and went to the register to ask for help from someone else.
Now I finally have my computer and am ready to pay and leave. I don’t use credit cards, I swore off them years ago and will probably never have one again, so I paid with my checking Visa, which goes right against my checking account. This card has a daily charge limit of $2,500, and this purchase came out to a bit more than that so the charge was declined. No big deal really, just call the bank and they’ll do an over-ride and approve the charge. Nope, not at Apple. They can’t run a card through again after it’s been declined, and they don’t call for approvals. I’ve never heard of such a preposterous policy at any retailer, ever. Why would they not want to call and get approval, if said refusal means losing the sale?
I went in there with every intent of handing them $2600+ of my money, and they seemed to do everything they could to not take my money. In the end, I walked out with my checking account balance intact, and they lost the sale (as well as any future business from me.) I’ll end up buying the new Mac eventually anyway, but I’ll buy it from MicroCenter, who (at least in the Mac section) actually try to take care of their customers. Apple ranks only slightly ahead of CompUSA for poor service, and that’s really only because they lack the general Mac bigotry that CompUSA has.
Thumbs down for the Apple Store.