Filed under: Hardware, Humor, iPod Family, Retail
Man orders 40GB iPod - receives shrinkwrapped box of soap and some batteries
Things like this really tickle me. Allow me to share... Consumerist has a story about a guy who ordered a shiny new (not refurbished) iPod from Smalldog, a well-respected Apple reseller in Vermont. Imagine his surprise when the package arrived containing a shrink-wrapped iPod box filled with a couple of bars of Irish Spring and some batteries. And no, he didn't order it on April 1.Now the cynic in me immediately suspects that someone is trying to scam another iPod out of a good-natured and honest Apple reseller, but he seems sincere so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, just as the fine folks at Smalldog did. Sean writes: "I picked up the phone and gave Smalldog a call. I was ready to really tear into someone when... a supremely polite and nice customer service rep answered the phone. When I told her about my situation (and not too nicely, I might add), she started laughing. For a second I was shocked! I mean, first you screw up, and then you laugh at me!? But the next thing I knew, I started laughing too. She used just the right amount of humor and seriousness in helping me figure out what had happened. In the end, she put in an order to have it inspected by UPS, and put another unit on hold for me, and gave me her direct line, informing me that the second UPS is done inspecting the package that I was to call her, and she would ship it right away. She also wanted to know if I took any pictures, saying that she'd love to have a few to show the other people in the office."
Of course he did take pictures and Consumerist has them up on their site for your amusement. What do you think? Are the UPS guys taking home iPods on a regular basis and resealing the boxes with a bunch of approximately-weighted crap? What a racket.
For what it's worth, a similar thing actually happened to a client of mine not long ago. She ordered a PowerBook - from Apple - and when she took it out of the box and turned it on, with no indication in the packaging that anything was amiss, she was presented with a login screen showing someone else's name instead of the standard groovy new-Mac theme song and "Welcome" in 50 languages animation. For reasons I still can't comprehend, she opted to keep it anyway instead of calling Apple,
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nicolas said 10:29PM on 10-26-2006
Not sure about UPS and iPods but I ordered a wireless Mighty Mouse and The FedEx delivery person pretended that noone had answered the door when I was there and no notice could be found on the door, then pretended to leave it on my back porch when I do not have a back porch. So someone whether or not the delivery person was a complete idiot, someone got a free Mighty Mouse.
End of story: I never got the Mighty Mouse and Apple (nicely) sent a new one.
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Mr Krinkle said 10:34PM on 10-26-2006
He's lucky he even got an iPod box. Last time I ordered an iPod from an Apple reseller the box arrived open and empty. It wasn't opened by someone walking by either as I watched the delivery guy (FedEx Ground) from the window leave it there open and empty.
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Daniel Brauer said 10:34PM on 10-26-2006
Good thing you didn't post those pictures. It's perfectly possible that your client got a refurbished machine, and Apple just screwed up somewhere and didn't reformat it.
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Syldaras said 10:56PM on 10-26-2006
I have to chime in on this. I have been told this from a firsthand witness (which, I guess, makes me a secondhand witness, but I have more pride than that). An iMac arrived at the Apple Store at which he worked, and was subsequently sold. A day later the customer brings the box back and places it on the floor and demands that the staff gather round. The staff are shocked to discover upon opening that the box, rather than a beautiful new iMac G4 (at the time), contained the EXACT SAME WEIGHT worth of Halloween candy. Loose. Wrapped in bubble wrap. I suppose to muffle any noise of shifting wrappers inside. I couldn't believe it then, but I do now.
As long as the weight of the shipping pallet is the same, no alarms are raised, and no one knows until it's opened. Obviously, the customer received a new one. And the average weight of employees at the store, I imagine, slightly increased over the following weeks. That's 40 lbs. of candy, folks!
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Mark D. said 11:39PM on 10-26-2006
I once bought a Pb 17" that booted to a 30gb partition with a OS 9-style system hardware testing app and an old copy of BBEdit that launched at boot (drive was named TEST, too), also the battery had already had a full two cycles before hand. It was supposedly totally new and I bought it at the local Apple Store. the guy at the genius bar looked at me weird at first, but when it booted he actually got another employee to come over to see it. They gave me a full refund, luckily, and I instead waited until the MBPs came out. Technically the slip was in my favor, though I now only order from the online store.
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Jim said 11:42PM on 10-26-2006
I've ordered stuff from Small Dog before and they are great people.. great customer service. However when I ordered refurbed Apple Hardware from them they shipped it out in Apple's refurb box which has an Apple Graphic and is clearly labeled as to what the contents are.. Luckily nobody at UPS wanted to take an Airport Express Station that day.
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Andy S. said 11:44PM on 10-26-2006
Sounds like an effective scam. I'll have to go buy some Irish Spring. What kind of batteries were they? I want to get it right for when I call Smalldog.
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OM said 11:49PM on 10-26-2006
OK this is a funny story. I used to work as a technician for one of the largest computer configuration centers in the entire country. We would configure roughly 2000 - 3000 systems a day.
Anyway, while working the lead one night one of my techs came to me to witness a defective IBM Thinkpad. His paperwork read that the system was a 'piece of sh*t'. I told him that I couldn't sign off on this for that reason but he assured me that I had to see the system. So I walked over to the box and inside the box, where the laptop was supposed to be, someone filled it with either horse or cow sh*t.
We obviously didn't send it to the customer and since we were a configuration center we would get the product right from the manufacturer and ship it to the customer so somewhere between IBM and us, the machine was replaced with a piece of sh*t...
Nice, eh?
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A. Schmitt said 11:52PM on 10-26-2006
Last month I sold a MacBook Pro on Ebay. I packed it up and took the package to the FedEx Kinkos Store in Birmingham, MI. It left weighing 8lbs and I sent the receiver the tracking number. When he went to track it it showed it only weighed 3lbs. He emailed me about it and I told him it must have been a mistake because my receipt showed 8lbs. When it was delivered it the package had the remote, power adaptor, cds, ect....everything but the MacBook Pro. Luckily it was insured for the full amount.
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Noel said 12:42AM on 10-27-2006
Laurie, that's a great story about your friend. You're a great storyteller.
-N
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wackybit said 12:43AM on 10-27-2006
There was one kid who got raw meat in a 5G iPod box for Christmas. His mom was furious. I remember this was a few weeks after the 5G came out.....
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niclet said 12:53AM on 10-27-2006
Well, this is not the worst but quite embarrassing : last winter, I persuade a friend of mine to buy a PowerBook on the Apple Refurb Store. She did it and a few week later, when she was out for the day, FedEx arrived and left the box outside on the balcony without any note. It was a freezing -13F° day. When she went back home, it was still there (lucky!) but a part of the package was under the snow! She let it still indoor for about 24 hours after then the PB was top shape (lucky again). Nevertheless, she report the thing to the Apple customer services and they told make a complaint at FedEx, what she done but without any comeback... the PB still working #1.
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digitalintrigue said 1:01AM on 10-27-2006
This is why whenever I ship anything of value, the shipping box is sealed with fiber tape that is not carried on any UPS or Fedex truck. Since most packages are sealed with clear tape, it's quite easy to cut open the package, take out the contents, and seal it back up.
This eliminated all manner of pilfering (it commonly happens with memory modules, which can be pilfered without even affected the box weight.)
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James said 1:04AM on 10-27-2006
Man, there is a really big problem going on with shipping! If all the shipping employees are stealing things right from the box, who are we to trust to ship anything, anywhere?!?!?! This has really made me think twice about shipping things, although it is a necessity.
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Ton y said 1:08AM on 10-27-2006
I just went to pick up a brand new 24' iMac BTO 2 gigs ram, 256 video ram, BT mouse and keyboard, ordered online at Apple store for an ammount of nearly 2600 euros.
At the TNT deposit here in Milan (Italy) where I arranged the delivery I immediately noticed there was something wrong: the package was too light. I opened the package in presence of the TNT guy who was delivering it to me and what a surprise: in the shiny and beautiful box of the 24' iMac i found a small second hand 14' monitor branded acer, and some toner for printers. I refused the package and left it there.
Immediately after I called apple, spoke to the guy at the sales support and explained what happened, he told me not to worry, that an investigation was to be done that I would have received a call from apple in 72 hours time and that they would have shipped me another box via super express shipment. Now over a week has gone, I call apple everyday, but no news, the are still waiting for TNT to admit their responsabilities before they can place a new order.
Sometimes you just have to sit down, relax, take a big breathe, and think that this is just life!!!
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Scott F said 1:30AM on 10-27-2006
40GB? Apple hasn't made an iPod in that size in a couple of years.
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alf said 2:05AM on 10-27-2006
p-p-p-powerbook
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CGW3 said 2:09AM on 10-27-2006
You bet me to it Scott F, I was going to say, ordering a 40gig iPod would explain why the box turned up devoid of an iPod, there is no 40 Gig iPod ;o)
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Spike said 4:48AM on 10-27-2006
The problem is the boxes, even when wrapped in the brown plain sleeve that apple puts them in, are a recognisable size and weight, the UPS guys know whats in them. I beleive here in the UK its DHL they use, I ordered a powerbook some time ago, had it shipped to my work address - so somebody would be there all the time to sign for it - it never arrived, DHL said it did but i reviewed our security tapes for the WHOLE day they said they delivered it. The DHL van sat outside my office for ten minutes but nobody got out.
They plain and simple stole my powerbook. Fortunately, Apple were totally cool about it, when i showed them the video footage, they were astonished.
Powerbook number two arrived a few days later.
we never use DHL for shipping, and apple should seriously reconsider it. For example, a crate once arrived at work containing a million dollar painting and somebody had driven a forklift truck through it. Two neat rectangular holes the size of the pallet lift straight throught the middle of the painting.
No note, no insurance claim, no taking of responsibility.
Pirates.
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Mark Pieters said 5:51AM on 10-27-2006
Seems like a totally messed up story to me. First of all, as some of you are already mentioning above, there is no 5G ipod 40GB. There was a 40 GB photo ipod, but they can't be ordered new anymore (as the story says), only refurbished (Smalldog sells them refurbished). The second story about the powerbook also seems strange. A new powerbook with some photobooth pictures already on it? There were no powerbooks with built-in isights, so that seems not right as well. (Somebody's going to 'test drive' a powerbook and the first thing that person does is to hook up an external isight to take some pictures? No way.)
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