a SADDD Experience - iStore

There is no Apple SA.
iStore is just the retail front for Core. Core is the official Apple distributor for SA, but there is no official Apple SA.

But in their defense... you cannot expect the trade-in value to remain 10 weeks after the initial quote.
But you want Apple so these are the school fees you must pay to have Apple. The MBP M1 is a very impressive laptop, I know someone with one and advised she buy it because she loves Apple.

But for less money I can buy a Windows laptop with more resources, the only thing I prefer about the Apple Mx chips is their power efficiency. Intel and AMD aren't there yet, and likely won't get there on the x86-64 architectures.
 
If the emails to iStore were anything like the mess of a post it's no wonder people got confused in the middle.

But how on earth 25k ever seemed like a reality is beyond me. Even the 15k is way too much and they'll never make it back.
 
georgelza said:
Needless to say, dealing with Apple south africa and their iStore sales arm is a disaster and a total disgrace to apple internation brand.
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First off - let me say - I have only ever had one Apple thingy - an iPad - and I got that many moons ago.

Three things about that device

1. It was expensive at the time - considering Samsung was also selling pads - but I believe it was worth every penny.
2. The after sales service was excellent. When the maps app gave me some strange locations in SA, some guy from Ireland called and sorted the issue out with me.
3. It lasted almost 10 years before I started using it as a frisbee.

I did have ideas about i devices again, but the instore experience in the US is really cr@p, so Samsung it was.
 
georgelza said:
do everyone a favour and go be insulting about my ability to write in another thread.

this is not a about my writing, and you had no visibility of the emails or the calls.

G
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It's about a lack of basic attention to detail.

Nobody was insulting and the fact that you immediately jumped to your writing when I didn't say that tells me you are all too aware but just being lazy.

You aren't wrong that iStore (and Core) are terrible companies though.
 
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georgelza said:
Experience Buying Apple Macbook Pro (M1)

So firstly this is not a b4thcing session, this is just my experience and while at it a friendly warning.

I switched to Apple around 2007, and have never looked back, and will never go back to Microsoft either.

My "now previous" MBP was the 2016 I6 15" with 16GB RAM and 500GB SSD. it was getting long in the tooth, it was starting to feel the pressure of the new iOS and apps.

So I started looking at the new units last year, December 2021. At the time I had a chat with a friend that works at Core group. At the time he referred me to a sales person (from iStore as he is with Core which are the holding company and responsible for warrantee and repairs) to get some high level indicative pricing, and mentioned that although the unit I wanted is a standard Apple unit, it is not brought in by Apple SA by standard and as such it's called a Customer To Order (CTO), all previous upgrades were units straight off the floor, but have found with my job, I do need that little bit more RAM vs what's standard avail in SA on the shelve.

At the time I left it to, ok, got some pricing, have some idea, will get back to you when ready,

Well ready was eventually, mid April, 16th... Reached out to previous referred sales people... well needless to say guess April is not the best time to try and spend a sh$t load of money on a laptop, everyone is on leave and no out of office settings.
Eventually got responses. At the time I included a screenshot of my Apple About this Mac showing model, specs and serial number.

Again April hit, 5 days no responses... :( eventual response... ok, we got high level specs, as cto we looking at 4-6 weeks lead time.

Again sales guys disappear... We escalated, I decided to just go onto istore.co.za and hit their chat interface. well 1/2/3 and got it escalated to their sales manager level person, which started responding. Just as that started eventual previous houdini sales guy re-appears. We now had a 3 way chat...

At this point I asked for trade in amount for my MBP, as per information previously shared. Later day, nice surprise R25k. Note they knew they giving a trade in price for a new buy which is to be a CTO… and their own lead times. All 3 of us are in this email, price is shown and my original screen print with mode/specs and serial number...

Said ok, lets order, question to me, what keyboard, some to and throw emails... eventual late next day (end first week of May) we got it bed down, I say ok, give me official quote with everything of the new unit on it... Ye well, spending North of R55k on laptop does not seem to justify in iStore work on a quote... other than a email of this is the price.

Some copy pasting happen now, by me, listing old unit, new unit, price, specs etc... and go ahead order. with request for bank detail to pay the 50% non refundable deposit.

Well bank account shared is RMB... There is no RMB on beneficiary bank for Standard Bank, believe it or not... 2 days to eventually figure out (phoned my bank) that we will use FNB. Deposit paid.

Takes a hand ful of days... ye, to get order confirmed... and oh... eta is 8-12 weeks...

Well eventually MBP arrive. on the 10 week to the day mark, after I enquired.
Arrange to get my unit shipped up / Friday, arrive there the Monday, Tuesday informed via SMS it's gone in for test, after some asking of wtf is going on, Friday morning get email, offer is now R13k for unit.
When I asked whyyyyyyy. it's oh this is a very old unit, we can't pay R25k for it. and oh the quote where we gave you price expired long ago.
Eventually after many escalations (ye getting told pay attention to the T/C’s) and (oh the person that gave quote is not with iStore anymore) they upped the trade in price to R15k... I was willing to eat some for the period have gone, I even offered to eat some more… but asked them to take ownership of all the mistakes their side… well that did not happen, their mistakes was for me to fund.

So ye, instead of me being R5k off... to be still paid in after deposit and trade in, that change to north of R20k...

Needless to say, dealing with Apple south africa and their iStore sales arm is a disaster and a total disgrace to apple internation brand.

Guess I'm in this all on my own, as I absolutely love my new MBP and Apple device and the Apple Brand is worth every cent, but deal with iStore, if I can advise anyone, stay as f'ing far away from them as you can, don't trust them with one cent, their word is worth nothing, if they open their mouth get it in writing.

Rather buy off the shelve, don't bother with trade in, rather sell it privately.

G
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Keep chugging that Apple kool aid.
 
prod said:
WTF does this even mean?
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It means nothing. If he's not shilling on the forum or trying to make money, he usually just posts useless or stupid ****. He is also most likely just posting kak to get his post count up so he can start "advertising" his business on the site.
 
Spending that amount of money and the op doesn’t get everything and especially the trade in confirmed and in writing, only himself to blame.

How can he possibly assume the offer for his old laptop is set in stone if they haven’t even inspected it yet, think next time mate.

I won’t hand over a dime till the trade in is a confirmed and done deal because once you’ve paid there is no more leverage.
 
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georgelza said:
Not everyone stay down the road from an iStore, I’m in a small town. I send them a screen grab of the specs and serial.
They enter this information into a computer and then give trade in value, which they on more than one time repeated back to me.
The unit itself was in perfect order so other than a slight depreciate due to wait period, for which I was ready, the unit was also rebuild under warrantee in 2021 (new screen and keyboard, as this was a apple replacement ad there as factory faults).
This was not reduce trade value to due time. This was a case of they decided to Jill and void their previous amount due to their own faults, after they had the correct details and was not willing to accept responsibility.
original trade in was to be R25k, I expected a R2500 reduction due to wait, offered to swollow another R2500 due to their mistake… they simply decided stuff it, they can make mistakes and it was to be my problem, as I already paid a non refundable 50%. It’s their attitude of Fck you S customer our mistakes is not our problem, we got you by the balls so you will fix our problems.
But enough of this. We get the serine we deserve in SA. When someone comments on his experience we’d rather blame each other than think maybe a shop needs to step up.
No where else in the world (and ye I talk out of experience) would this be allowed.
G
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It’s a sad situation to be in but you only have yourself to blame.
Get the trade in confirmed before you pay, not after, simple.

Poor service from retailers is a global phenomenon, go browse Reddit and see how many US or EU based people have a good moan about their retail stores including the iStore.

If you don’t stay near an iStore then you have to drive to one, however far that is, don’t complain about it after the fact and say that’s your sorry reason.

Expensive lesson, if I was you I’d use the experience to learn something not have a good whine.

Also no one has sympathy for people that are too lazy to use good grammar and a spell checker :vomit:
 
The lesson to learn here is to read and understand the terms and conditions of the company you are dealing with.
All the terms and conditions.

And it goes for any company you deal with, not only iStore.

No, not defending them, my Mac I bought directly from Apple in the US also because I wanted a non-standard memory config.
 
Kola-CT said:
The lesson to learn here is to read and understand the terms and conditions of the company you are dealing with.
All the terms and conditions.

And it goes for any company you deal with, not only iStore.

No, not defending them, my Mac I bought directly from Apple in the US also because I wanted a non-standard memory config.
Click to expand...
I am likely going to be this going forward - I would like to have a bit more choice before i have to but a Macbook 16 purely for a memory/storage config
 
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