Customer service; what’s it for, what does it mean, does it, in fact, exist? Certainly not at H Samuel and/or Ronson, nor at Comet and/or Apple. Took a cigarette lighter back to Samuel’s around the end of February or beginning of March and after explaining the basics of consumer law to the aloof and uncommunicative 20 year old assistant, i.e. that I was not the one who needed to return it to Ronson, they were, I was told it would take over 6 weeks to get it back. Now I know that as a smoker in this day and age, I can expect to be treated like a pariah, but 6 weeks?! I finally got it back yesterday, not repaired but a new one, no complaints about that but surely the timeframe ought to be somewhat less when it’s not a repair but a simple replacement?
And now to Comet/Apple. I don’t really have much idea where the blame lies here, my iPod went back to Comet about the same time as the lighter and they indicated about 14 days turnaround, after three weeks I went and queried progress and was told that they didn’t know anything about how it was getting on but would ring Apple the following Monday and get back to me. Did this happen? Just one guess allowed here. Congratulations, you win; no, of course it didn’t. Went back a bit over a week later, promised another call. This one did eventually happen and I was informed that Apple had told Comet that it was out of warranty?! I think they mean that the little chip that goes in iPods and blows them up after 13 months had gone off prematurely. We are now getting into the realms of conjecture, Comet claim to have told Apple that it was in warranty and JFDI and I heard nothing more until I went up there again this week to see what’s what. And lo, my iPod was back and in exactly the same condition as that when I handed it in. Comet insists it was sent off, Apple say they’ve never seen it but one way or another it was back with Comet but it’s condition unchanged. Who are you to believe? Given my disposition I choose to believe that they are all a bunch of useless tossers, but whilst they are in possession of my iPod I haven’t told them this in quite these terms. Though I came very close when, after the Comet woman had been on the phone to Apple for about 30 minutes (no exaggeration there) some twat on the other end of the phone decided to talk to me to suggest I take it away again and go through the troubleshooting process. I explained, in a calm and rational manner, that snowmen would be frolicking in Hades first and after another 15 minutes or so pick up was arranged for it to go off to Apple, again or for the first time depending who you choose to believe. So I have been given yet another dubious 14 day timescale for it’s return. Somehow I think this may be on the optimistic side for one very good reason; when it first stopped working it was well within warranty, however, the warranty expired at 10.08 a.m. on the day I took it back in. Do you think this may cause a little rumpus?