The following text is NOT about some ground breaking evidence to prove an Apple scam, its just a bad experience I had due to the behavior of some incompetent Apple employees.
How to buy a Mac?
- Go to the Apple store
- choose the Mac you want to buy
- pay for it
- and you have a Mac.
How to buy a Mac with student discount?
- Go to the Apple Store
- Choose the Mac you want to buy
- Ask for the student discount (You have to show some proof though)
- Pay for it
- and you have a Mac
For me it wasn’t as easy. I went to the Apple store at Stoneridge Mall, decided to buy a MacBook, the basic one, it costs $1099 and then asked for a student discount. The woman who helps people out said I will have to show some ID or they will need a print of some web page on the university website which says I do go to that school. What I did was login to the MyUnivname site and showed them my ID, the names matched and they were convinced so I was eligible for the student discount.
Then they told me about the printer rebate(buy any printer and you get a $100 mail in rebate) I didn’t see a need for the printer but then I was like, hey its free! So lets get it. Got a HP printer for $99 (Effective free when the mail in rebate is used) and the MacBook. I got the laptop and then checked the bill they gave me at the parking lot, just to make sure everything is right. This is when I noticed that the student discount was only $50 but I was almost half-sure that it has to be $100. So I went back to the store and talked to the guy that billed me and he said, the discount depends on the model and its $50 for the basic MacBook and $100 for the other two MacBook models. I was still in doubt but but was not very convinced as I have seen the price of the MacBook on the online Apple Store for Education to be $999. Its quite possible that they might have changed the discount so I didn’t insist them to re-check the correct discount.
By the time I reached home, I was feeling more hesitant about the discount and went online to check the discount and there it was, a sweet $100 discount on all MacBooks including the basic model. I immediately called the Apple store where I bought the MacBook and asked them what the discount for a basic MacBook was, the guy just said $100.
Oh really, I bought a MacBook few hours back and you only game a $50 discount
We are sorry about that come on over, we can rectify that
I forgot to ask him if I had to bring the computer along when I come for the correction, its obvious that the computer won’t be necessary because its just a change in the billing system that needs to be done, I called them back to make sure I didn’t need to bring the computer. This time it was a different guy on the phone and I had to tell him the whole story and what he said was just shocking
Actually the discount on the basic model is only $50
What???? The online Apple Store says $100
Oh, let me check (music)
……….
We are sorry, we confused it with the student discount for the iMac, come with your bill and we will credit the money back to your card.
I went back after a few hours and every employee was different than the ones I saw while buying the laptop, may be there was a shift change in the mean time. I directly went to the billing counter and told the guy about the $50 vs $100 issue and then he was surprised to see such a grave mistake
Who the hell did this? We are very sorry, let me correct this for you.
He typed something on the computer and then gave a new receipt with some $54 being credited back to the card. I guess the extra $4 should be for the tax they charged on the $50. So now I have got a $100 discount as I was supposed to. Its not such a bad world after all.
You may say why do all this when you can easily buy on the Online store and Apple will ship it free to your place in a day. It was actually a Saturday and I just couldn’t wait until Monday to get my MacBook so I decided to go straight to the mall and get one instantly.