The partner has an iPad5 that developed an intermittent charging fault after 2 1/2 years. The Apple Store checked it out and confirmed a hardware fault. The Apple warranty was 12 months and they apparently have a default position re the ACL that case dependent seems to give some discretion but ‘we’ were beyond that leeway. The ‘repair’ solution was $380. The staff at the Apple Store (Doncaster) were very good and when broaching the ACL they advised I should contact ‘legal’ to see if they would override and authorise the repair, and told me how.
Ringing the switchboard instead of ‘legal’ they routed us to a ‘case manager’ in New Zealand who knew nothing about the ACL, and did what amounted to a 2 hours song and dance of time wasting, bordering on being insulting although he was professional throughout.
Since the iPad was purchased at Myer that no longer sells Apple or electronics we decided to see if Apple would help via the ACL. I drafted a well documented letter explaining why we were approaching Apple not Myer and sent it off to the MD by email.
Not having any auto-receipt or acknowledge for the day I expected the email got blocked, but. A staff from the MD’s office rang from Singapore and went over the case, asked some questions about the basis of my ‘claims’, and over the next days rang multiple times; short story is he a did brilliant job arranging the repair. When I walked in to the agent with the unit they knew I was coming, all the ‘paperwork’ was in order, and no hassles. 3 days later a reman (‘repair’) was in my hands.
There are apparently some issues with the ACL getting a reman rather than a repair of the original unit re ongoing warranty but at the end of the day we are very happy how Apple stepped up and the outcome was 100% satisfactory.
I’ll give a +1 to Choice’s recent survey report on satisfaction with Apple service, although for that case manager in New Zealand, not so much.
