Australian Buyers Say They Were Told "No iPad Without Accessories"

CuteSteveJobs writes "Australian iPad buyers have been forced to buy all manner of unnecessary add-ons, including screen protectors, docking stations, covers, chargers, and extended warranties, due to a reported official Apple policy. Shoppers reported sales assistants said it was 'company policy' or 'Apple policy' to sell the devices only with accessories, or not at all. A store manager for Authorised Apple Reseller JB Hi-Fi said it was 'a bad policy but it was Apple's policy and they couldn't sell one without it.' Other customers were told they must 'buy a Telstra SIM because the iPad is locked to Telstra,' even though it wasn't. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission and Consumer Affairs are investigating the complaints."

Comments

Bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article & forum thread, it's pretty clear that this is JB Hi-Fi being assholes, not Apple "official policy"

Apple is not the problem, JB Hi Fi is

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about Apple per se, this is about JB Hi Fi being completely dishonest.

I got really angry with Watergardens JB Hi Fi (in Vic) recently when they sold me a pre-owned Airport Extreme. I know someone else had it before me because it was locked to their username and password*. The thing that really incensed me was that I'd seen that it wasn't shrink wrapped and I'd made the sales guy swear to me that it wasn't pre-owned.

Yes, you can complain to the store manager, and after arguing with him for 15 minutes you can get a refund, but then he makes you wait for another half an hour, because he can.

*Yes, I know how to reset it, that's not the point, they shouldn't have been representing used goods as new - if they'd been honest (and offered a suitable discount) I'd have been quite happy to take the 'problem' off their hands.

Re:Apple is not the problem, JB Hi Fi is

[Sneeze1066]

I bought a Sony portable DVD player a few years ago from JB HiFi store and when I openen it up at home could hear loose parts inside floating around. Turned out to be parts of the laser mechanism. Took it back less than 24 hours later and flat out said this isn't new and looks like a broken return they've sold me. They were initially skeptical and seemed reluctant to replace it. There's something seriously wrong if they can "accidentally" put faulty returned items back on the shelf and resell them. Also purchased a spindle of blank DVD's and every disk appeared to have greasy speckles all over them obviously from a fault in the manufacturing process. The discs could be written too without first cleaning them with alcohol wipes. Took the spindle back and told them the sitation. They said yes they were aware of it but "couldn't take them off the shelf" for some reason.

Re:You got to wonder sometimes

[jimmetry]

You might want to actually read the forum it references. This was not Apple. This was a regional manager of JB Hi-Fi.

Re:You got to wonder sometimes

[ollie231]

And for what? A few extra dollars? Australian dollars at that.

Sorry to be pedantic, but it's about .85 AUD to the USD at the moment, and its been hovering around .90 for a long time, so its not that much of a difference.

As a former Apple Premium Reseller employee

[JonJ]

I have to say, Apple would never make this an official policy. A reseller just got caught with their pants down and is trying to blame Apple for it. Apple almost never interferes with sales policies at resellers, as long as you don't try to pull a fast one with regards to usage of the logo or other images. We would regularly get yelled at for some of Apples antics in the press, people never seem to be able to distinguish between Apple and resellers. What's more depressing is that nobody on /. seems to be able to either.

Re:As a former Apple Premium Reseller employee

[dncsky1530]

I also used to work for an Apple premium reseller and there was never any such policy, as the article states. Further they have mentioned that JB HiFi might be doing this to increase their accessory attachement rate in hopes of being allocated more iPads.

It is true that Apple collects statistics on accessory attachement rates however that is only for Apple accessories. In some cases resellers may have to purchase a certain percentage of Apple accessories along with their purchase of the iPads. But that percentage (in the past) has never been very high and always seemed to be along the lines of how many accessories were sold anyway.

JB HiFi had better be careful though because Apple has very strict agreements for resellers and certainly wouldn't appreciate the negative press or customer experience over this. Retail sales staff are usually paid on commission and margins on Apple hardware is very slim so a few accessories could easily double gross profit from an iPad sale (and the salesperson's cut).

It was jb - not apple.

[PeleusX]

I'm actually "Ryan" from the article. Yes I don't believe for a second that this was in any way related to apple, simply because they wouldn't have a policy such as this - and secondly, they wouldn't be trying to force me into buying belkin accessories for their product. To be honest, it wasn't even the money which bothered me as much as the fact I was being forced to purchase accessories that I did not want. Usually I would simply walk out and shop somewhere else when met with behavior such as this, but I had a voucher which restricted my options as to where I could purchase it. The CEO has responded saying that it was no a JB Hifi policy, but rather the actions of individual stores. I would expect him to say nothing less, and essentially comes down to making the statement "No, of course we weren't breaking the law", do you expect anything else? Saying that - I've never heard of the policy of point blank refusal of a sale if you don't purchase accessories of anything else in the past. What are the chances multiple stores suddenly begin refusing sales on iPad's without accessories when they have never had this policy in the past? It seems extremely unlikely multiple stores would magically decide on this policy on the same day. I hope the ACCC really does look into it, but most likely it will result in a "Please explain" and not much more than that without any further evidence (I.e. emails instructing stores to refuse sales unless they have a certain amount of accessories attached).

Re:bad apple policies

[icebraining]

Don't worry, I'm sure your penis is not that small...