Lightroom Tips

Non-Lightroom-Related Consumer Alert

I know this one isn’t Lightroom related but its an interesting story I felt like I should share since there may be others affected by it. About 18 months ago I bought an Apple Time Capsule. Well, two days ago I woke up and it was turned off. No life whatsoever. I did my hi-tech repairs on it (switched the power cable from one outlet to another) and still nothing.

So I did some research that night and found an article released about 2 weeks ago talking about time capsules going belly-up after 18 months. The article actually called out the power supply as being the culprit. After a little poking around I found some one who mentioned that Time Capsules are covered under the Applecare warranty for your computer. See, I have Applecare on my Mac Book Pro, but not on the Time Capsule so I thought this could be good news for me.

So I called Apple. The woman on the phone took my Applecare info (for my laptop) and indeed said that it should be covered, but to bring it into a store. Now, you should know something about me. I am SOOOO not an Apple geek. I avoid the Apple store at all costs. I don’t watch the Apple keynotes and honestly could care less about the latest Apple gossip. I like their products though. So I took my Time Capsule into the store last night totally not knowing I was supposed to make an appointment (who makes an appointment to go to a retail electronics store right?). I got there to find they had no appointments left for the night. But I had driven almost 30 minutes to get there so she said they’d fit me in. After waiting an hour (I got some blog posting and forum surfing done while waiting so it went by pretty quick) I was able to see some one.

He took my info and I informed him that I had Applecare for my laptop so this should be covered. He said that was true only if they were both purchased on the same receipt. Well I started screaming and making a scene and… just kidding. I was very polite through the whole thing and he was extremely patient and helpful. I did ask him to pull out the Applecare agreement. We found the area in question and sure enough it mentions nothing about the “same receipt”. He went back to his manager (who said the “same receipt thing” too by the way) and showed him and he couldn’t believe it either.

In the end, a quick call to Apple got my Time Capsule added to my laptop’s Applecare warranty. They didn’t have any in stock so I’ll probably have to wait a day or two to get a new one. And no, they didn’t just give me a new power supply. In fact, they never found an extra power supply to try out on my Time Capsule so I don’t really even know if that was the culprit or not.

Moral of the story… If you’re an Apple user check your Applecare agreement. You’d be surprised about what you’ll find in there amongst the babbling lawyer talk. Heck, if you get any kind of warranty agreement, give it a read. I know I will from now on.

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