Apple badly botches battery recall Dell obviously a better companyhttp://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33934By Charlie Demerjian: Friday 25 August 2006, 08:47
DELL LOOKS TO be a much better company than Apple, at the very least far more professional. According to several readers, Dell took care of their battery exchanges quickly and correctly, while Apple is making a joke out of its recall.
Dell service is the butt of industry jokes, but several people, at least in the first wave of returns, got their batteries the next day, a nice return mailer, and a frankly un-Dell level of customer care. A few days into it, lead times had grown, but no major hassles were reported to us, and trust me, we would have heard if it happened on even a small scale.
What about Apple? Well, there are two problems.
Note the third line under 12-inch iBook G4, the CPSC lists battery serial numbers 6C510-6C626 while the Apple site has it listed a 6C519-6C552. Doh!
If you have one model listed in the CPSC list that is not on the Apple list, the Apple site will reject them. One of our readers could not get a battery in this grey area to be acknowledged no matter how many times he tried. Given the complexity of the numbers involved, and it is more than a single off letter, I don't think this is a typo.
But wait, it gets better for the glassy-eyed followers of the turtlenecked sue-happy one, the Apple web site rejects valid ranges too! Yup, another reader with a 15-inch PowerBook G4 had his outright rejected with no real explanation other than the web equivalent of 'nya-nya'.So, in a shocking twist, we get Dell providing exceptional service, prompt responses, and happy customers, or at least as happy as someone sold a bomb can be. Apple on the other hand is massively screwing this up less than 12 hours in. Take home message? Buy HP, I am happy with mine, and have an un-scalded crotch to prove it. µ
Note: For the record, Apple was not contacted about this article. They deemed us not worthy of returned phone calls the last three times, so we saved our cell minutes this time. They know how to reach us if they want to talk.