It would appear to be official now, I got the call that Apple are sending me a free iPod -I am the man! This is not totally unwarranted as I had originally wanted to buy one but then had all the probs with the car and had to cancel the order because I couldn’t afford it. Anyway the order cancelled but the money didn’t refund and I got the run-around at the Apple cust. service, now let me explain a little something here. Firstly I do not do fobbed off I can get quite irate especially when I feel I am in the right, and heaven help them if I know that legally I’m in the right! Secondly I worked for Apple some while ago doing various things including CR for a bit so I know how the structure works and who can and who can’t get things done. Thirdly I may not be particularly important in the world-wide scheme of things but in the UK Mac community I am not without a degree of influence and if I get shirty then I can spread my dissatisfaction amongst a pretty wide and influential net. Hence when I started getting fobbed off I implemented my 3 strikes and out policy which goes as follows

  • Strike 1 -you talk very sweetly to the person at CR, explain the situation and ask if they’ll sort it out,
  • Strike 2- you explain a little more forcefully to the person that you’d like things resolved quite quickly please and you will be forced to talk to a manager if it doesn’t get dealt with,
  • Strike 3 -you talk to a manager at which point you have more license to lose your temper, (there is no point losing your temper with the initial person because they are like as not 24 fresh out of college in a call-centre somewhere in the world on shite pay with no training, it isn’t their fault the company has shit policy so don’t take it out on them besides if you do they will understandably be a lot less helpful. the manager on the other hand has taken the corporate equivalent of the King’s Shilling and is therefore fair game. At this point it is also fair enough to do a bit of name dropping, just so they know you’re serious)

If after this process I am not happy then I will use my contacts with the names I have dropped and start demanding that arses are kicked. However you have to be careful, once you have annoyed the call centre management enough to get thru’ to a real person with genuine authority then it’s time to turn on the charm, this way you can have a reasonable conversation whilst also making them think that the call centre manager is being unreasonable saying that you’re a “stroppy tosser”. It is if you get to this stage that whilst it has taken a long time to resolve the rewards tend to be better for the time invested. Hence in this instance the Baron gets his iPod, Apple are very sorry Mr Baron Sir they hope you haven’t been too inconvenienced Mr Baron Sir and will you now please stop telling the news editor of MacUser, the head of Apple Exec. Relations and the head of Apple Education Sales how disgruntled you are. [No my name is not really Mr Baron I was making a point!] So honour is satisfied, the Baron feels that his ego has been pampered to a little not to mention having son a new toy to play with and Apple get rid of one very persistent and annoying bastard for the paltry sum of £200 odd, not much really is it?

The moral of the story is you don’t fuck with the Baron -I’m a serious bastard me!

And my new G5 w/ ASD17 arrived today -lots of toys hoo-waa. OK so it’s not my G5 it’s works but I am the Mac geezer so I get to play with it!

I am still smarting from ebay being bastards and this is going to sod up my financial situation a fecking treat, altho’ my house-mate says he will lend me his ebay details -you didn’t hear nothing right! But I am consoled with the fact that I will have an iPod to play my Tunez -which is pretty kushtie.

Oh and did you really think I’d stay off the top 5 after all that. No Sir, the Baron is back to his almost rightful place and has just Pimme and the almost invincible Protagonist to go! Feel the blog diving force that is the Baron trying to avoid doing any work on a Monday!

Song Of The Day – Athlete ~ You Got The Style

Original Comments:


A visitor made this comment,
You go–you serious bastard, you!
bluepoppy [bluepoppy@omworks.com]

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:23 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
almost invincible?
no baron, we ARE invincible.
one of the benefits of having multiple personalities, i suppose.

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:32 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
well….would you look at that…? number four… never would have looked at that without a tip off. you might be ahead of me now….but…i got some serious bitchings to write about. and you never know!!! speaking of how naive i am, i don’t deal with ebay, it would be WAY too easy for someone to trick me, since i just can’t deal with these monstrosities! (computers)
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:36 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
so…as long as i stay below you, i’m safe. 🙂 ok. my computer fuck up of the year.
-took burning software off, temporarily
-got new computer and new moniter
-put software back on
-fucked up the computer
-had to buy ANOTHER computer
-managed to download a virus
-had to buy ANOTHER moniter
-damn burning software still wouldn’t work
-bought new burning software
god, i SUCK at these things!!!
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 02:52 GMT+01
Lizard Breath made this comment,
good job ‘damning the man’ – the apple man that is.
have fun w/ the new toy.
lizard.

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 04:00 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
that’s right, baron. drop the ALMOST.
and thanks for the advice on the CR stuff. I need to get my laptop fixed. I threw a fit at the place in AA that charged us a bundle and did nothing that wasn’t in the dummy guide to macs book.

enjoy having the choice of any of 10,000 songs in any of the locations you might choose. I have converted my laptop into something of a very expensive i pod, but I thank the japanese people who were really the ones who paid for it on someone’s grant that was running out (i got a call one night from my boss and he told me to go to the computer store and buy $8000 dollars worth of computers, but that I had to do it before midnight or we all would turn into pumpkins)

comment added :: 29th June 2004, 17:20 GMT+01
protagonist made this comment,
i used to work in computer tech support and i can assure you that most tech support guys don’t know much more than: reboot, scandisk, defrag.
comment added :: 29th June 2004, 21:04 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
Fascinating.
Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

comment added :: 30th June 2004, 11:41 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
oh has the battery run out yet, you must have had it for at least 2 hours
comment added :: 30th June 2004, 11:47 GMT+01
Cancergiggles made this comment,
I have a similar strategy however my strike 3 is to email and fax the C.E.O. and Chairman of the offending Company an if relevant to threaten a winding up order. Most people don’t realize that this is possible but it concentrates their minds wonderfully because they are prohibited from issuing invoices after the order is issued. It never, ever fails. I did it to Shell once for an insignificant amount of money and they couriered a cheque to me.
I have to admit that I don’t always bother with Strike 2.
Cass
Visit me @ http://cancergiggles.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 1st July 2004, 10:51 GMT+01
Cancergiggles made this comment,
Can’t remember exactly how it is done (never actually needed it) but basically you apply to a court for a winding up order because a company owes money. Doesn’t matter how little and once the order is issued they have to cease trading. It’s as stupid as that.
Visit me @ http://cancergiggles.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 1st July 2004, 19:29 GMT+01
Pimme made this comment,
Once, when I had to call in for customer support, the idiot who took my call INSISTED that I remove some screw on my CPU that wasn’t there! He was looking at an image of a computer on his screen, not an actual computer like I was, and he obviously had the wrong image.
Visit me @ http://pimme.blog-city.com

comment added :: 3rd July 2004, 00:08 GMT+01