And this apparently is not an issue just for me in Africa. The fellow I talked to today in Applecare US said that he was just dealing with this issue yesterday for someone in Israel. His comment is that other countries may not have the same acceptable timeframe for service as the US, but at least I have the option for service in Africa. I told him, if I had known this was going to be the case of 10 weeks plus with no laptop, I would’ve found a friend flying to the US to take it back there!

I challenged him as to why the folks in Africa are certified Apple technicians if they cannot give service in a reasonable time frame.

In my opinion, Apple’s Global Warranty is not really global, unless you don’t mind going without your computer for 10 weeks and longer!

The site is new, so the reporting won’t be up until mid Feb

If you, or someone you know has experienced a problem with applecare, please have them complete the survey at: http://www.applecarecenter.com

Note: Not associated with apple.com or apple computer.

Why post here and try to gather user information?

I don’t know another way to change company policies. An individual taking up a problem gets you no where, IMHO..

Will apple change its policies because one user has a problem? I don’t, hence the website.

To clarify, there are two issues, the first one affects every purchase of applecare, and the second one affects anyone running 10.4.x. that bought applecare in 05.

Issue 1:

You buy your apple product and applecare 3 year warranty. In year 2 something breaks and you try to get it fixed. Guess what? If you did not “activate” your warranty during the original warranty period, apple will not honor it – doesn’t matter if you paid for it or not.

The only way they will honor it is if you can provide them with the original sales receipt showing you bought the product and the warranty at the same time. If you don’t have the original sales receipt you are out of luck – and the money you spent on the warranty. However, if you do have it then you still have to wait 7-10 business days for them to “review and approve” your sales receipt, which isn’t too much fun when you use your Mac for biz.

This practice applies to everything from the ipod to a server.

If you bought an extended warranty and have not activated it I strongly suggest you do so now.

Issue 2:

As part of the applecare warranty instructions, it tells you to run techtools before you call apple for support. However, the techtools provided may not be the same as the operating system. In my case, I bought my G5 in July 05 and it came with 10.4, techtools was updated to only 10.3. I ran techtools and repaired the drive – which promptly destroyed the operating system. When I spoke with tech support they acknowledged the problem. The only fix was to erase the disk and do a re-install.

To me, this is simply not an acceptable practice. If apple knows that such a serious problem exists, they could have at least sent out an email or letter. They use the registration information for marketing, don’t you think they could use it to warn users?

My issues are resolved. My posts and web site are not meant to help me, they are for helping everyone else that may encounter these problems in the future.

I can’t see the financial upside for them, I mean, they’d end up reimbursing you the remainder anyway. odd.

enjoy the new PB. I’m trying to push the idea of a Mini with a 23″ display to my wife…wish me luck! :)

Because I’m a geek with no self control, I just ordered the speed-bump PB. Actually, I was already considering upsizing my HD, so this is really a 50% processor upgrade, 2.5 times HD upgrade and iLife for about 500-600 bucks after I sell the old PB on eBay.

But one big problem I’m running into is that Apple has no program to transfer the remainder of my AppleCare account to the new PB. My only options are to recover the value on eBay (unlikely) or to get a refund for the remaining pro-rated value in a check from Apple.

It would seem to be in Apple’s interest to let me simply apply that value to a new contract on the new PB, but after almost an hour on the phone last night I found that it’s a no-go as far as Apple’s concerned. Their reason: It would be too complicated for us to manage that.

I can’t be ther first person in creation to upgrade a PB before the AppleCare timed out. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

but yeah, seems to be the exception with all the good things I’ve read.

Odd that you had a speaker problem too. wonder what that’s all about in the 17 inchers…?

Good luck!

But I’m treating that as a rare anomaly. Hopefully when I send in my baby again to have the HD replaced again (it hasn’t died yet, but it was a-squeekin’ when I installed Tiger on my 2nd partition, and the Genus bar guy said that means it will die), plus the right speaker’s pretty much dead and needs fixing. Erm, right, as I was saying, hopefully I’ll get a similar experience to yours.