Returned home from a week of vacation to find out that the logic board of my iMac died on me while i was away. Nothing beats a warm welcome, eh?
Usually that’s no big deal if your warranty is still alive and kicking, but I had two deaths to mourn for; not only the logic board passed away, but also the warranty looked terribly cold and stiff — and I could not find any replacement programs covering my ass either.
So I called the local Apple Solution Expert store (ASE) hoping they could help me somehow, but they had no Apple policy handy to help me out but charge me €700 for a fix.
Invest €700 into a five year old iMac? I beg your pardon, but that sounds riscy, even to a hobo-style real life approacher like me.
After calling ASE again to find out that I am eligible for education discount I was spending the rest of my shift browsing the magnificent new unibody options I had if I would risc another visa card deal-with-the-devil.
But something felt wrong. Something was missing. I had the weirdest feeling that placing an order right now would be not right. One of those moments, you know.
When I returned home I thought “give it at least another shot, you little winer” — so I called Apple directly, not the folks at my ASE store. After about 20 minutes on hold I was catapulted back onto my floor, heads first: “Thank you for your patience, but I’m sorry to say that my supervisor won’t give his okay for a replacement…”
Oh fuck! Well, at least I’ve tried everything I could. God-fucking-damnit!
“…but I can offer you a repair ticket free of charge, Mr. Martensen.”
Wait. A. Minute. What? — “What does that mean? You will repair it free of charge but I have to pay for the logic board? That would still charge me €600 though, that’s too much.”
“I’m sorry, no: The logic board would be free as well, I just can’t give you a new replacement iMac.”
You probably won’t believe this, but I had tears of joy rolling down my cheeks. A free repair! For an old iMac who had his logic board replaced two times already and is totally way off the warranty coast! A free repair was all I hoping for and that support girl even tried to get me a new replacement iMac — sometimes you just gotta be lucky.
Thank you Apple.