Early black MacBook keyboard
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Well, this doesn’t have much to do with my business, completing my doctorate, or anything else I normally right about around these parts but since this is my blog and since blog posting seems to be the best means of consumer empowerment in today’s day and age of immediate communication and google searching I figured I’d write about my nightmare experience with MacMall. MacMall is one of the biggest online vendors of Apple merchandise. In fact, I’d imagine they’re probably the most popular Apple reseller on the web. Last Friday (Black Friday!!) I purchased a new macbook to replace my year old MacBook. I didn’t really need an upgrade but with the Black Friday distounts and other discounts I receive and the fact that I’ve had a lot of luck selling my previous MacBooks for a profit (since I buy them with large discounts) I figured I’d upgrade again. In the past I’ve always bought direct from Apple. I almost did this time but MacMall had some slightly better deals and I figured they’d be able to get me the order sooner than a potentially overloaded Apple. Boy did I make a mistake. I ordered the MacBook with some extra goodies and requested they be shipped to my house in Ohio. After 3 days of checking the status of the order on the website, I saw that the order had not shipped. I called them on three occasions to see what the holdup was and each time I was put on hold for at least an hour and ended up hanging up. I even emailed customer service but didn’t receive a response. When I finally did get through I was told that I had to call their credit card services to confirm my order. The rep said that I should have received an email telling me to do so. I hadn’t. And I even checked my bulk and junk mail too just to make sure. In any case, I called the credit card service rep and confirmed my order. The problem was, it had taken so long for them to process the order that I now wasn’t going to be in the location of the shipment since I was going to be on the road for 2 weeks. I wanted to have the new lappy for some graphics intensive work (since the new MacBook has a dedicated graphics card) I had to do while I was going to be on the road so I asked that they ship it to my hotel in Reno. They agreed but actually placed a second order which for a span of a couple days actually stretched my credit card to its limit since it had double the charge on hold. That was December 2nd. According to their website, the product shipped the next day. “Great” I thought to myself, “with the 2 day shipping I should easily get it before I leave Reno on the 10th”. That was wishful thinking. Yesterday was Saturday the 8th and I didn’t receive the order. Today is Sunday which means no mail is coming in, and I leave early in the morning tomorrow to go to Vegas which means I won’t be around when and if the order arrives. I say “IF” because the shipment tracking number that MacMall gave me doesn’t work. In fact, it doesn’t even work for them. You see yesterday I called MacMall again to tell them about the scenario. After another ridiculously long hold I was connected to a customer service rep who just put me on hold again and made me wait for another rep. When I finally did get to speak to someone, they actually blamed me because I had shipped the order via 2 day USPS shipping option. They said that I shouldn’t have been able to do that. Isn’t that a problem with their website then? In any case, I won’t be receiving my order because I’ll be in Vegas and I’ve requested a full refund. So now, I’ve wasted about 6 hours of my life emailing and on hold with MacMall customer service, I won’t be receiving the order I placed, and I’ve missed out on the Black Friday deals. That’ll be the last time I order from MacMall.

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