Which consumer experiences cheered you recently and which ones made you want to scream or weep?
Here are my best and worst consumer experiences this week:
My best: Reduced credit card payment
Recently, I received my income tax refund. Like many baby boomer consumers, I’m watching my expenses. I used my entire refund as a credit card payment.
Now my monthly credit card payment is about $100 a month less. Yeah.
I’m taking Suze Orman’s advice about getting rid of debt and cutting spending.
My worst: Problems with my new iMac
Last week I wrote I was thrilled to receive a new iMac to replace one I’ve had for two years that caused me to have eyestrain.
The new iMac that I received seems better, but the computer crashed more in two days than my other iMac did in two years. It was like using a PC.
When I called the Tukwila, Wash., store, the "Mac Genius" I talked to said to bring it back, and they’d swap it out for a new one. He also suggested that I get the replacement computer at the new Tacoma store because it’s closer to my home.
After I arrived at the Tacoma Apple store, I had to wait a half hour beyond my appointment. The woman checking customers in ignored me for 10 minutes. Then the staff person who was supposed to help me, decided to help a woman who walked in. I had to wait 20 minutes while he worked with her.
When my turn came, the "Mac Genius" who helped me was inept. He couldn’t find any information in the Apple computer system about my problem. He went to the back of the store several times. Rather than coming right out and explaining it looked as though someone at the Tukwila store made an error, he said in order to "dot the i’s and cross the t’s, they’d have to run a diagnostic on my computer. I was told I’d have to leave my computer and come back another day and pick it up. I was furious.
The problem was I’d received a replacement computer, so the staff wouldn’t honor the Apple guarantee that you can exchange your computer within 14 days for any reason.
I asked about just going up the freeway to the Tukwila store and getting the replacement computer there. The Apple guy told me since they couldn’t find who had promised me the new computer, I couldn’t get a replacement iMac at the Tukwila store either. The managers had conferred.
I left my computer and received a phone call later that they couldn’t duplicate my problems. The iPhoto crashes nearly every time I scroll down through selected albums. And my browsers won’t load up my blog correctly after I post.
I’ll see what happens next. I hope when the head Mac Genius at the Tukwila store gets back from helping to open a store in California that I can get an iMac that works.
