Valerie H.
Yelp
TLDR: High pressure sales and the most chaotic experience I have ever encountered. Never again.
I was having battery issues with my Ipad so I contact Apple through the support link on the website. The CSR from Apple who called me back ran diagnostics and said it needed replaced. They authorized the replacement and made an appointment for me at the "Genius bar" at the "local" Apple store so I wouldn't have to send the device off or wait for the replacement to be ordered and received by the authorized repair shop. Great, thanks!
I drove 52 minutes away to the closest Apple store and arrived 15 minutes before my appointment and saw at least 4 employees just hanging out not helping people. One came over and looked me up, then told me, "I can't check you in until 10 minutes before your appointment, so I will come back." This conversation was repeated 2 more times before I was actually able to check in and was sent "to the back of the room by the bug screen."
After all of that, I later had to actually stop one of the wandering employees and ask when someone would come help me because we had been waiting so long; it was then 12 minutes PAST my scheduled appointment. The appointment that I was not allowed to check in early for so I didn't mess up their schedule. It was another 9 minutes before I was "helped."
The guy who came to help me said the Ipad batteries are not removeable so he would have to swap out the device, but he would do it at the cost of the battery. Great. He then informed me that the device was worth less than the cost of the battery and tried to get me to buy a new one. I declined. He kept kept pushing.
I continued to decline the new device, so he he said he could give me credit for the old one and that the old one was not going to be supported for much longer. I asked how long "not much longer" is but he couldn't say. I asked how much more the new one would cost and he "had to get someone else" to talk to me about that.
I was taken to a different desk and talked to a new guy. The new device ended up being significantly more than the exchange, even with the "trade-in value" of the old one. I again said no thanks, just do the battery exchange, and was told to wait because he had to get the other guy back to do that.
I waited, thinking how inefficient their process is with having to pass customers off to so many times instead of just having one person deal with each customer the whole time.
A few minutes later a NEW guy came over, he looked like a manager. He insisted that "since I changed my mind" he was putting me back in line and it would be an hour before anyone would be able to get to me again. I told him to shove it, I wasn't going to wait another hour, and walked out. I didn't change my mind, I told them all along I just wanted the exchange. It's not my problem that you try to pass people off from one person to the next to pressure and confuse them and then try to keep them in the store until you wear them down. It's not going to work with me. He refused to just put in the exchange for me and tell me it would be another hour before the exchange guy could get back to me so I told him to shove it and left.
I would rather go to the authorized repair shop that has to order the "part" (the part being the new device that is the same one as what I have) and then return a second time in a week once they receive it to do the exchange than to ever have to deal with the absolute ridiculousness that we went through today at the Apple store "genius" bar. You folks can forget about ever getting any kind of commission off of me or anyone else in my family ever again after this experience today. All you succeeded in doing today with your ring around the rosie, pressure, and shenanigans was to ensure that I no longer trust your store and will never be back. You should have just let me do the pre-authorized exchange that I came in for.