Hannah bought a refurbished Mac. 9 months later the hard drive died, so Hannah brought her Mac to the Apple Store to have the disk repaired under Apple’s 1 year warranty. That’s where things went wrong:

I take it to the Apple store in Soho where they tell me that the warranty is voided by a cosmetic dent that I can’t even see until the “Genius” points it out. A cosmetic dent that is nowhere near where the hard drive is housed. A cosmetic dent that I am sure was probably there when I got it cause I don’t take my laptop anywhere and I haven’t dropped it. Still, according to Apple, I’m shit out of luck and ineligible to purchase Apple Care. I ask if I had purchased AppleCare would this have voided that warranty as well, the genius says yes. My new hard drive is going to cost me $600 dollars through Apple.

Hannah continues:

I go to Tekserve. It’s 399. I get it fixed there.

Last week, the ac adapter sparks and dies. I buy a MacAlly replacement for $34.99 after reading the pages and pages of complaints about the original adapter on the apple site. Apparently, this happens frequently.

So far, my Mac has cost me: $433.99 AND it’s not even a year old. I could understand if I was chucking the thing around like the Sampsonite gorilla, but damn. I guess I should be grateful, because if I had purchased AppleCare at the time of purchase I would be out $683.00 which is almost half of what the computer cost me refurbished.

We asked Hannah for a picture of the dent, which she provided, adding:

I don’t have any problems using that port or any adjacent ports and I fail to see how this dent is connected to the failing of the 9 month old hard drive. I’d like to add this is a dent I didn’t know was there because:

a). the computer worked perfectly until the hard drive died
b) it’s not a dent that’s readily visible unless you close the computer or turn it on its side.

When I suggested to the Genius that it might have come that way since it was refurbished, I was told that was unlikely because Apple refurbishes to factory standard. This laptop lives in my house. It’s only been out of the house twice- to the Mac Store and then to Tekserve.

We have to admit it took us a few minutes of staring at Hannah’s photo to even notice there was a “dent” in the computer. Had she not already paid to have the computer fixed by another vendor, we would have suggested she escalate this issue with Apple. We bet someone would have overridden this particular “genius,” and he might not have cost Hannah over $400 bucks. —MEGHANN MARCO

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