FRUSTRATED

[Boob <goaway@please.com>]

Does anyone else get as frustrated as myself with the the Apple
corporation and its continued degradation of "Quality Control"???? I
have heard nothing from Apple since sending this letter to them... so
now I find myself sending this letter to anyone or any corporation that
would like to hear about now the Apple Corp is sucking the BIG one
NOW!!

To Whom it may concern,

I am a designer by trade in the pre-press industry, I live in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada.

I have been an Apple owner for the last Ten years, and have been using
Apple computers in the work place for Nine years. In this time I have
owned two different Macintosh computers, my first being the original LC
with a 13" hi-res color monitor, and the B+W Stylewriter. All of the
forementioned equipment by the way still runs fine, but I have a newer
system... it is a PowerPC 8600/300 with a 17" Color Display.

Why am I writing? I am expressing my new found displeasure with the
Apple corporation and its quality control. In the time that I have had
the PPC 8600, the logic board has been replaced, the monitor literally
started to smoke and had to be repaired, and just today, my cd rom no
longer functions. I bought this computer brand new in March of 1998,
with a full warranty of course. 6 months later I had the service people
at Westworld Computers (place of purchase) check into my continual
system degradation problems and inabitilities to drive any modem or
printer. Westworld discovered that the logic board was defective and
had it replaced under warranty. I thought that since I had continual
problems with the machine, that I would extend the warranty just in
case... so I did extend the warranty for another year. Three months
ago, while working on my machine... the monitor suddenly started to
make rather violent sounding sparking noises then proceeded to billow
smoke and the screen went black. So, once again, I had to have another
component in for service, which again was covered under the now
extended warranty. As you can probably imagine, I am now becoming
rather frustrated and quite gun shy, so I attempted to have the
warranty extended yet again since it was coming due for renewal. When I
went to Westworld to obtain a new extended warranty, where I was
informed that Apple had restructured the manner in how warranties were
now issued and that I was no longer able to extend my warranty on these
particular units. I figured, Oh well, I guess I am just going to have
faith that my machine has been tuned up properly and that there will be
no more problems, and excepted the fact that I was on my own. And now
today, my cd rom drive no longer functions, just three days after the
expiry of my warranty. I am not a happy consumer and feel VERY
reluctant to EVER buy another Apple computer. Not only do I have these
experiences with my machine at home where I freelance as a web
designer, but I have first hand experience with NUMEROUS problems with
the newer Apple computers that my boss owns and I use on a daily basis.
In the Seven years that I have worked for him, I have seen three Apple
multiscan monitors go on the fritz after just 6 months of use,
Witnessed the complete dimise of no less then 2 hardrives and all their
data, have seen three seperate re-installs of built Iomega Zip Drives
that refused to work consistantly on the same machine, watched the
re-installs of 2 seperate hardrives on that same machine, as they
refused to auto-mount and continually lost data. The machine hosting
the Iomega Zip and the finicky hardrives is a beige G3. We now have two
new computers to add to our collection, a new blue G3 and a G4/450
(which was supposed to be a 500). The blue G3 has continual crashes and
the G4 has already lost one of its partitions and about 4.5 gigs of
data.

So, you are probably still wondering, why tell us? I feel it is my duty
to express my dis-pleasure. I just made arrangements about a week agao
to obtain a new computer to act as a web-server. I ordered a G4/500
with the ram maxed out, an 18 gig ultra fast lvd hardrive with card to
drive it, built in zip drive, built in dvd rom, 15" monitor. I will be
cancelling the order and not following through. I am extremely upset
and discouraged with Apple Computers. I have been a dedicated user and
AVID supporter of your products but feel it will be very difficult to
do so in the future. Why should I pay the PREMIUM for the Apple and its
name if I am no longer receiving the PREMIUM product, it once was
premium, but NO LONGER is! I would just as soon get an NT or WIN box at
half the price and spend the savings on the same software I use each
and every day, then have to spend more money repairing my LEMON (not
Apple).

I WANT RESULTS APPLE! IF I WANT TO SPEND MORE MONEY PROTECTING THE
MACHINE THAT I SPENT 4 THOUSAND DOLLARS ON, I SHOULD HAVE THAT
OPTION...A COMPUTER AND ALL ITS COMPONENTS SHOULD LAST ALOT LONGER THEN
TWO YEARS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER HOW MUCH IT COSTS TO PURCHSE!!!

Please note: I an copying this message and will be attempting to locate
any other mailings lists and or email addresses of any Apple support
etc as well as your competitors for submission of this message And I am
also printing it out in order to have it printed in the weekly computer
section in our local newspapers.

I do not expect a response from Apple, you are just another mega
corporation that is worried ONLY about bottom line and not its
customers and loyal fans. I personally know three individuals who were
Apple users/supporters, but no loNger are, you seem to have lost yet
ANOTHER.

regretfully,

Robert Scott.