Just What is a Custom Configured Server?

djhanson wonders: "I just got back from a small claims court proceeding against Apple Computer. They successfully won their argument in front of the court that selecting additional memory and disk drives for a computer/server at the time of purchase, off of their website, constitutes a 'custom configured computer built to the customer's specifications'. Said computer is therefore not eligible under the company policy to be returned. Has anyone else heard of such a thing? As near as I can tell, Apple is the only company that has such a restrictive policy. I called both IBM and HP, and neither of those companies has such a policy. Am I the only one that thinks there is something terribly wrong with a policy like this? Any opinions? Suggestions? Comments? Whatever?"

Comments

complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

on the (limited) information you've given it does seem a little unfair to you though, technically, the judgement was correct. You configured the machine, you are a customer, therefore it is a customer configured machine.

There should be a warning on their site when you do configure the machine yourself that you won't be able to do certain things.

an interesting point would be, what if you used the same customer configuration system to add in say some extra software or another battery for a laptop?

Re:complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Most people charge huge markups on their higher-end products and break even on the lower-end. Apple charges decent markup across the board. Notice how they're still in business and profitable, even these days? Smart business.

2. The software being easy to use has nothing to do with the sales policies of the on-line store.

3. If Dell wants to take back a custom config, remove the customized items, re-certify the unit, and sell it as a refurb at a loss then that's their stupidity. Once a product is out of the box it cannot legally be sold again as anything but used or refurbished, so companies that do this always take a loss.

4. They make it perfectly clear on the store you are getting a custom config. When you add additional items or change existing ones the model of the product changes and the time to ship usually doubles (or more). If you look at the shopping cart before checkout it's painfully obvious. For instance, I just went through the store and selected a stock 2GHz G5. The model number was M9032LL/A and the time to ship was 1-2 bus. days I then went back and added RAM and got model Z07K and a time to ship of 5-7 bus. days.

That, and if you change anything on the "Customize your computer" screen I would have to say it was customized...

I call BS

[Hungus]

I have certainly returned custom apple systems in the past and have not had any issue whatsoever with it. How long had you had it before trying to return it? Where is your court docket? You are way to lite on details for me to consider this anything but false at this point. Feel free to prove me wrong however.

Details

[Compulawyer]

You leave out a number of basic facts that make it impossible to comment intelligently on your posting. I'd like to know:

• What country/state are you in?
• WHY were you trying to return the computer? Was it defective or did you just not want it after you got it?
• How long did you have the computer before you asked Apple to accept a return? For that matter, DID you ask Apple to accept a return or did you just file suit?
• If you did ask Apple to accept a return, how far did you escalate the matter? Did you stop at the first person who told you "no" or did you ask for that person's supervisor?

If I was representing you in this matter, these are just the first of the questions I would be asking you, for two reasons: First, it is information that establishes whether you have a case. Second, they are the first questions the OTHER SIDE will ask you.

Funny, since Consumer Reports ranks Apple #1

[daveschroeder]

Consumer Reports consistently ranks Apple #1 in lowest incidence of repair and best support among all computer manufacturers.

Most recent Consumer Reports report available on their web site (June 2003)
Most recent report, available to CR subscribers, referenced in News.com article (March 2004)

So if Apple's support is "horrible", then I guess everyone else is a lot worse (especially since Dell, the next closest to Apple, got the middle rating on 3 out of 4 support categories, while Apple got the top rating in all categories).