It seems that almost every Christmas that there is one gift that comes with a saga. Often it is the most sought after gift of the season and the story revolves around how the intrepid purchasers managed to score one when the supply was far outstripped by demand. This Christmas, the story of the gift revolves around theft, bureaucracy, and ineptitude. It made for a very frustrating four days. The gift was a MacBook Air. The order was originally placed with the Online Apple Store with arrival scheduled the Friday before Christmas in Tequesta so that I could bring it to Maryland as a Christmas morning gift. It seemed smooth until delivery morning when I received a delivery exception notice from UPS indicating that the package was damaged and could not be delivered because the contents had been removed. That, I guess, is a polite way of saying stolen.
I called Apple to attempt a "just in time" Christmas miracle replacement. I was led to believe that it was possible that a replacement could be shipped to Odenton, but I needed to wait 24 hours for confirmation due to an investigation that needed to be accomplished. No problem.
I waited Saturday--nothing.
We traveled Sunday--nil heard.
Sunday afternoon, I called Apple again. Somehow the previous person omitted the part where the office that does the investigations does not work weekends and that the soonest I could expect to hear from them was December 27th. WAIT! That is two days beyond Christmas. So we explored options, one of which was requesting a refund and buying the gift from a brick and mortar store. Thank goodness for Best Buy.
Monday's project, after shopping for the food needed for Christmas Eve Brunch, was getting the present. At 2:43 PM, I placed the order for one-hour pickup from Best Buy. I only wish it was that easy.
I called Apple and canceled the order requesting a refund. That seemed to go well, although my credit card still has not been credited.One-hour passed--nil heard from Best Buy indicating the computer was ready for pickup.
Another hour passed--nil heard.
At about 5:15, after two-and-a-half hours of waiting, I headed off to Best Buy to get the computer without confirmation that it was ready.
Arriving at Best Buy I entered the Store Pickup line. After managing to get to the front of the line, the team member informed me that the purchase required additional verification and that I would have to wait for a phone call. I inquired as to why the verification had not yet been done since I was promised a one-hour pickup, but of course the answer revolved around volume and Christmas, dummy.
I waited about 20 minutes and the verification phone call came. It was ridiculous--but I verified that I was in fact purchasing the MacBook Air and that I was in the store. I went back to the end of the now very long Store Pickup line and getting to the front was again told the computer wasn't ready, but the team member put a priority on it after hearing my story and confirming it in the system. Shortly thereafter I departed the store with Chris' Christmas gift under my arm.
Christmas was saved!
It just should not be that hard.
-- Bob Doan, Odenton, MD
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