PSEiBlog

Having experienced the joys of Apple’s service programs a few times before (Which makes me wonder.. why is it that EVERY TIME I buy an Apple product, I have to call their service desk??), and being frustrated about it every single time around, I have yet another annoyance that treads the examples I experienced before;

Say you have a fancy, white, Apple iPhone 3G 16gb. Fantastic device, really the best phone you ever owned, and a joy to work with every day around. But then, after a mere two months, in which you treated the device as your precious baby, always being carried around in a leather casing, the back of the iPhone starts to crack! This scenario isn’t very unlikely, as many users worldwide are experiencing exactly the same troubles, like here, here, and here for example.

So, keen on keeping your iPhone running for daily use, you try to contact Apple to have it fixed. But when you try to call them on their 10ct/minute service number, and select “iPhone”, you get disconnected right away with the message “please contact your service provider”. And that’s exactly where it all goes to hell: Since I have a long contract with Vodafone, I wasn’t able to buy my iPhone with Apple’s exclusive provider in the Netherlands, T-Mobile. So I stepped into my car and drove to Belgium, where iPhones are freely available in major hardware stores like Saturn.

So.. calling them isn’t any good.. let’s try to fill out some kind of online form to get it repaired. Well, after some searching (you have to be quite the technical Google aficionado to find the correct page on Apple’s site!) I found the iPhone service page here. And whoops.. there’s the next problem already. Apple has a worldwide service plan for their mobile devices such as MacBooks, meaning you can have them fixed all over the world. But needless to say, they excluded the iPhone from this service.. (How come that didn’t really come as a surprise??), as being stated in Dutch here:

Kan ik service krijgen voor mijn iPhone buiten het land van aanschaf?
Nee, u kunt alleen service krijgen voor in aanmerking gekomen reparaties in het land waar uw iPhone oorspronkelijk is gekocht.

Which means: If you didn’t buy your iPhone from T-Mobile, you can roll over and drop dead like the bastard you are. Splendid!

Well, guess I’ll have to call Saturn in Belgium, and try to have it serviced there.. Maybe they’ll be a little more cooperative than Apple, who knows!

Follow on Twitter