Will thought he was buying the newest MacBook Pro model—that’s what it said on the box and on the receipt. After he’d set it up, he discovered it was a previous model, so he took it back to the glass box Apple Store on Fifth Ave in NYC to get the version he paid for. Now Apple wants him to pay $100 to transfer his data over to the new laptop. But hey, he shouldn’t complain, because they’re “waiving” the restocking fee!

On Monday, July 27th, I purchased what I thought was a new 15in MacBook Pro with 2.66 ghz, 4gb of RAM, 320gb HD, SD card slot, the whole package. Everything worked great. It was much faster than my 3 year old black 13in MacBook. I was happy.

Well, fast forward two days to today, July 29th, and I noticed that there was no SD card slot in sight. So I double checked the box and the receipt and they both said SD in the product description.

Furious, I packed up my brand new, previous model MacBook Pro, and walked 15 minutes in the rain to the Apple Store on 5th Ave. in NYC, hoping to get the proper MacBook Pro with an SD card slot and my data transferred (which I no longer had on my old computer).

Once there, I approached the sales desk and told them about my situation. The sales person then went to speak with his manager. Upon returning, I was informed of the good news that they were going to replace my computer with the computer that should have been what I brought home two nights ago – a 15in MacBook Pro with an SD card slot (the newest model). AND, as an added bonus they weren’t going to charge me the restocking fee.

“A restocking fee?” I ask. Yes, they were going to charge me, the customer, for their mistake. But, don’t worry, they were going to waive it.

“So what about all that data that took me 1-2 days to transfer from my old MacBook to this “new” one?” I asked. You would think they would throw in the data transfer to accommodate me for my troubles, after all, it is Apple – known for their great customer service. Well, I suppose that they’re only accommodating on the day you’re going to spend $2,000+ for a new computer.

Turns out I would have to spend $100 dollars for some service just to transfer my data. Again, they were going to charge me for a service you would hope, as an Apple customer, would never come. Now, having just spent $2,000+ on what I thought was the newest model I did not want to spend $100 to transfer my files that I know should only take 20 minutes to do. So, I figured that if they had a spare USB to USB cable, that I would just do it myself. That would cost $100 too since it was a type of service.

At this point, I was quite impatient. Neither the sales person, nor the manager expressed any sympathy whatsoever. Everything came at a cost. Either way you’d look at it, the only party benefiting from this godforsaken situation was Apple.

Option 1: Return the “new” previous model MacBook Pro for the real new one with an SD card slot and lose all my data – data that took 1-2 days to transfer. Don’t worry though, Apple was going to waive the restocking fee that they were going to charge me for a mistake that was not my fault.

Option 2: Pay $100 for this data transfer service.

Option 3: Go back home, waste 1-2 days transferring the data from this computer back to my old MacBook and return the computer to get the one that should have been in my possession in the first place.

Obviously, I chose option 3….

Someone needs to take responsibility for what happened here. For a company that prides itself on customer service, this is less than acceptable.

And another question… How are they getting away with selling the previous model at the new model price?

Note: I mistook the “SD” in the product description (see photo) for “SD Card” instead of “SuperDrive.” That was my error, not the OP’s. I’ve removed the circle around the “SD” to avoid more confusion. To be clear, model A1286 refers to both the older model and the new one that Will thought he was buying in the first place.

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