Hugo’s blog

20 days after I first called AppleCare about my hard drive problem (roughly half of the time that I spent actually using the computer since I got it), my laptop is on its way to the repair center! Let’s open up some Champagne to celebrate.

UPS tried to deliver the box to put my PowerBook in again today. And delivered it to the wrong address. Again. And the same one, too.

This is pretty amazing. On Wednesday, they deliver the box to the wrong address. On Thursday, I tell them that they delivered the box to the wrong address. On Friday, they try to deliver the box again, to the wrong address, I assume. I let them know that I haven’t seen anybody, which should have made them wonder how they didn’t find somebody at the delivery address, when there was somebody. But no, not at all. On Monday, they deliver the box to the same friggin’ wrong address one more time. At least they are persistent.

When I called them, they said that there must have been labels on the box that were misleading. And they are unable to help me quickly.

I then get a call from the person at the wrong address, who found my cell phone on the label. Funny the things you find when you actually read the label on the box: my address (the right one), my name (the right one), my door code, my cellphone number (I really didn’t trust them, so I thought I would put all they needed to get a hold of me; not enough it seems; I need to have my picture on it, next time).

So I walked 30 minutes to get the box from them, quickly before UPS could get their hands on it and deliver it there again. I mean, they did it three times already, why would they deliver it at my place next time.

The label was on the box, printed with a computer, with no typos, all the necessary information. And I live in Paris, in an apartment building easy to find too. I am still looking around for the candid camera in my apartment.

The place that had it was an AppleCare repair centre. I am wondering haw much of this mess was caused solely by UPS.

Amazingly, it only took them 45 minutes to come and collect my laptop once I called them. And they even came to my place rather than to the other place! Incredible.

So my laptop is on its way to the UK. The question that we’re all asking is: when it’s sent back to me, how long will it take to get to my door?

The story continues. 2.5 weeks after having asked AppleCare to pick up my PowerBook for repair, it’s still on my desk.

UPS delivered the (third) box I was supposed to put my PowerBook in to the wrong address and had somebody with a completely different name sign for it two days ago. I called them yesterday, they did not apologize, and said that the box would be in my hands today.

So, as I really want to have my PowerBook repaired ASAP, I made sure that I didn’t miss the UPS delivery guy today. At 6pm, as I still have not seen anybody, I check their Web site, and surprise:

18 Nov 2005 at 17:50: THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE

Of course, I have no slip in my mailbox saying that a delivery attempt was made.

I called them promptly to ask What the #$&%?!, but as it’s now after 6pm, UPS is closed for the day, well, closed for the week.

So I guess that there is now no chance that I will have my laptop for my Montreal trip. I can’t wait for UPS to call me back on Monday so that I can let them know what I think about the quality of the service they provide.

Soon I’ll be looking at replacing my hard drive myself. I’ll be voiding the warranty for sure, but at this point, I am starting to wonder if it will make any difference.

15 days after asking for my PowerBook to be collected for repair, I still have not managed to have anybody pick it up. This time (3^rd attempt), the box was delivered to the wrong person at the wrong address. Thank you, UPS (just when I thought that TNT were terrible). What will happen next? You’ll see in our next episode.

• Tuesday 1 November: after 45 days of owning a PowerBook, I get I/O errors. I call AppleCare and after making me reinstall, they agree that my disk needs to be changed.
• Wednesday 2 November: I call some Apple repair stores in Paris, hoping for a quick repair; it will take at least 10 days to deal with my Mac; I decide to call AppleCare again to have my laptop picked up by UPS
• Friday 3 November: UPS comes to my home, with a box for… an iPod; I refuse it, call AppleCare again; they send another box by UPS
• Friday 10 November: I receive an email from AppleCare; they are saying that TNT tried to deliver the box and failed and that I need to reschedule with TNT; I contact TNT through the Web: they don’t know about the number AppleCare gave me
• Monday 14 November: I finally manage to talk to TNT on the phone; TNT Sweden, that is, as I’m in Sweden for a few days and they want me to talk to TNT Sweden; the box is on its way to Holland, without my laptop in it; I call AppleCare again, and it seems that they have had a problem with their system and never sent the box(?!); they are sending me a new box

To be continued. I will soon reach the point where my Mac will have been more time in my possession broken than in working state.

I had been warned about the reliability of PowerBooks before buying mine. I thought: well, I had issues with all my PC laptops, I don’t think it can be any worse. Well, it turns out that I’m up for an “I told you so” card from my sysadmin. It took less than 45 days for my hard drive to have issues. It’s got to be a record.

After upgrading to OS X 10.4.3, my Mac rebooted and never came back. After rebooting and pressing ⌘-V, I had the displeasure of seeing “disk0s3: I/O error“, a message that I have unfortunately seen too many times on too many different computers. An fsck told me that my volume appeared to be OK. I beg to differ!

So I inserted my AppleCare CD and I’m going to let it do its thing and bring me the bad news tomorrow morning when I wake up.

It took me a good while to figure this out. One can run AppleScript scripts under OSX using Spark. And it’s really cool.

The downside is that it’s yet one more scripting language to learn…