A computer company that refuses to do email. That’s what you deal with when you buy from Apple. After a fiasco involving Apple’s AirPods spanning nearly half of a year, I think it’s worth sharing this story as a fair warning to readers.
Not knowing if and when I would return to the United States this year, I purchased a set of AirPods from a reseller in Eastern Europe at the end of July. Of course, no refunds whatsoever was the store policy. I knew it when I bought it, so no big deal—-though one might question why Apple continues to allow resellers to have these policies in foreign countries as opposed to opening their own stores.
Over the next month of using the AirPods, within ten minutes of use, I had a splitting headache. My head would feel full of pressure, like a bubble about to burst. I’d have spells of dizziness and a feeling of being jetlagged, like I’d just gotten off a plane.
At first, I chalked it up to illness. I saw a doctor who told me everything was all and well. I just couldn’t figure out why every day I felt so terrible. It wasn’t until I was working in a coffee shop one day. I put my AirPods in, and within a few minutes later, the pressure in my head started. I realized what was ailing me. I pulled them out. The relief wasn’t instant, and the headache didn’t continue to get worse.
Naturally, I turned to Google and typed in, “Apple Airpods causing pain”. I stumbled upon this thread (and various others). I made it a point to not use my AirPods for the next week.
The pressure and splitting headache that had been ailing me for the last month never returned (and still hasn’t as of December 2017).
What Could I Do With My AirPods Causing Pain?
I was in a better situation than an actual Eastern European citizen would have been, that’s for sure. I didn’t even bother trying to go to the reselling store and explain my issue. Instead, I hit up Apple Support on Twitter and asked what I should do.
It was then that the phone tag hell started. You see, Apple specifically trains each and every one of their agents that they are not supposed to write anything down. This gives them plausible deniability to screw the customers over when it becomes convenient.
So every time I got bumped up the chain (the case ended up with Quality Service Engineering), I was forced to get on the phone. I asked repeatedly to just send me an email with what I needed, and instead was always met with the standard, “This would be best handled over a phone call.”
Sending Them Back
Turns out that sending them back to Apple from Europe was a nightmare. It wasn’t possible for me to just walk them back into the store and have the reseller ship it—-no, Apple wanted me to trek all the way out to DHL in the middle of nowhere (I’ve written about it before here) to mail them myself. Naturally I told them to pound sand.
Then I’d go a week without getting a reply, until finally I was told, in writing (gasp!) that I would be issued a full refund for my problems. Then, that agent had some health issues pop up, and ghosted me for a week. I decided enough was enough, and opened up a credit card dispute for a faulty product.
Said credit card company decided in this case that there was nothing they could do. They sent me back to Apple. By then, I’d booked a flight home to California for the holidays. I figured I’d be able to walk into the nearest Apple store there and just wash my hands of them, and get my money back.
Of Course It’s Not That Easy
Since I was crossing a border, I was informed my case would need to go to a new department—-“Customer Relations”. Except, Customer Relations decided to light a torch to our relationship.
Despite having, in writing, that I’d be issued a full refund, that team told me it would no longer be possible. Instead, I’d be offered:
1. A store credit of the retail US price of the AirPods. They refused to give me a credit for the price I paid in Europe (the difference is about $75), on the spot.
2. An appeasement “gift”—-basically, Apple would ship me a new pair of headphones of my choice, I could then “return” those headphones for a store credit. This would require me to hand them in to the store, wait 3-5 business days, and then go back to the store to return them.
3. If I was willing to wait several weeks, a refund—-again, for the US price.
I was unable to get any of this in actual writing because of Apple’s phone call policy, so you’ll just have to take my word on it.
The Finale
Long story short: I went into the store, and actually met a couple of very helpful Apple employees who sent me home with a store credit for $300—more than the $225 I paid for the AirPods originally. I turned around and sold that gift card for $284.
Now, let me admit something: I was an idiot. I should have just chucked them in the trash many months ago.
The most frustrating thing is that every step along the way, it seemed to me that we were just “one step away” from getting it resolved. In hindsight, I can easily see that this was not worth my time at all. I would have been better off using the AirPods as extra firewood this holiday season.
I don’t think my AirPods were actually defective—-I simply think that the fit of them caused me some serious problems. I also think I’m probably not alone in this, but in any case, what’s done is done. It’ll be the last pair of Apple headphones I ever use, and I’m rueing having bought an iPad earlier in the year.
What’s done is done. Just heed this as a warning if you ever have to deal with Apple on a higher level than basic customer support. It’s probably not worth the headache.
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Genuinely surprised everyone doesn’t just boycott Apple. I’ve never bought anything Apple, never will, it’s not hard to do. Fuck ’em. I have also boycotted Google, Twitter and Facebook. Again, not hard to do. Fuck ’em.
I don’t know if Apple is any better or worse than its’ competitors. I view them in the same way that I view cable TV/Internet service. Is there any marked difference between Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, etc.? They all suck balls… but if you want the service, generally you are going to have to pick one. Some have chosen “cord cutting,” but at the end of the day they’ll still need to buy internet service, and the idea that Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix will hover around $15/mo. in perpetuity seems like wishful thinking.
I still have an iPhone. This is not due to my love or devotion to Apple or the iPhone product itself. I need a phone and this is what I’ve always had. I really don’t give a shit about social media, and therefore having the latest and greatest phone is not necessary. Recently I found someone who will soon change the battery, thereby saving me the cost of “upgrading” to the new iPhone. As I mentioned on a previous thread, the iPhone X “upgrade” consists basically of creepy facial recognition (A feature that sane people generally DON’T want) and “animojis” which permits you to talk to someone else while they view your voiceover as a cartoon unicorn, cat, pile of shit, etc. I have no idea why anyone over the age of 9 would find that appealing, or what would lead any working stiff to believe that those features are worth $1000.
I’m with you on Twitter and Facebook… they are nothing but a haven for narcissists and a colossal waste of time for people seeking to be productive.
If you need a smartphone, fine, get one, but I’d prefer to get a Samsung than an Apple purely on principle (since I object to style + $$$ above substance). Having said that I don’t have a smart phone and don’t plan to get one any time soon. I don’t trust them, they’re just a mobile surveillance tool that gives you cancer. Not looking forward to when 5G gets rolled out either.
How many cancer cases happened from smart phone uses? Ok if so why doesn’t India have this is problem(most smart phone ownership)
Because it’s too soon for the results to show. This is unbelievably obvious and it’s kinda insulting that you would use this line of logic as a discussion point.
#duh
Interesting, I bought some urBeats from apple and between the original pair breaking and the replacement pair breaking, I asked for a refund and received it in full. I guess my experience didn’t surround the airpods but I still received the opposite treatment- it was stellar.
Gotta agree, buy shit from this company and you shouldn’t be posting on this forum. Apple products for SJWs only.
Time to get educated. Class is in session:
Like Microsoft, Intel, Disney, Google, Facebook and a host of others, Apple is in, or seems to be somewhere in, the Stages 7/8/9 of Adizes’ classic 10 Stages of Corporate Life Cycle.* Start reading and acquire some business wisdom :
http://adizes.com/lifecycle/
The fact that the author was given the run around whilst trying to solve a simple problem is telling. From Stage 9:
“Even customers–forsaken and forgotten–find they need to devise elaborate strategies to get anybody’s attention.”
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19961001/1847.html
Sad that so many successful companies follow the same path, but that’s the way it is.
(That said, it also allows you to spot the companies on their way up. Tractor Supply Hardware in on the short list in that regard.)
Hope this helps.
Just a thought.
VicB3
*Sears is effectively Stage 10 – Bankruptcy. And note that if you’d told somebody 30 or 40 years ago when they were flying high that they’d be more or less Chap. 7, they would have thought you were crazy.
(((apple products))) , nuff said. Was at an apple store with some friends and a relative who was getting a new (((iphone))) despite my suggestion to get something else, and the dweeb who was selling it mentioned how he just moved into the city and how he got his car stolen, his mail stolen, his home broken into, no doubt by dindus, with a smirk on his face like “oh well its going to happen but I can’t possibly be mad at these people” that article posted here awhile ago was spot-fucking-on about how liberals love to be robbed my black men. Pathetic, all of them. Dude looked like he never touched a weight in his entire life.
Well of course he won’t. These are the same young dumbasses that think they can trek into the Middle East or North Korea without repercussion. Some people need a hard nine lesson before they learn.
It’s most likely caused by the wireless tech/Bluetooth/EMF emitted by the pods. Same issue if you walk around all day with a cell phone next to your head. Just saying. Peace. Great site FYI.
Johnny,
I’ve read a few articles about the dangers of cell phones–physical and psychological, but I am in no way well read on these issues. You mentioned EMF issues being related to headaches. Can you offer anything else on this? I do find this to be a concern, particularly because we are now seeing the cell phone companies marketing their products directly at children. Thanks!
I am read up on this. Here’s a good talk about the dangers of mobile phones.
I see boomers complaining about radiation when the sun exists LOL
I see shills complaining when scientific evidence goes against their beloved products.
http://science.naturalnews.com/EMF_and_cancer.html
Decent article that’s list a bunch of studies/links for research. The effects of wireless is well known and documented especially by ALL cell phone manufacturers and the plethora of wireless devices. Read the fine print on your phones documents that they are required by law to provide with any new device. The specifically know they cause cancer and other ailments. Hope this helps. Use wired headphones and don’t keep your damn cell on your person all the time. (Also this begs a look at WiFi 4g/5g that they are rolling out nation wide – of which the public has next to no say regarding. )
Passt don’t use the internet it was created by DARPA to send radio waves to give all dissenting voices cancer
Apple: the product for lemons who activity seek out overpriced, fragile, rapidly-obsolete electronics in this day and age.
Give me an old Nokia or a modern android (with removable battery and micro SD card features) and I’m set.
Ditto. Personally for Samsung phones I don’t go beyond the Note 4 and the S5. Why? Those are the last Samsung phones where you can change the battery yourself. After that all phones go and the iCrap route. The Note 4 is still an amazing phone btw.
Wow….
Nice article!
I recently had a problem with Apple customer service in trying to get a replacement for my wife’s iPod with a bad battery.
I won’t bore you with all the details. Let me just cut to the finish. After being told by a young woman in Georgia, I believe, that everything would be taken care of by her personally, accepting FULL RESPONSIBILITY for resolving my problem and giving me her DIRECT LINE so I would only be dealing hereonafter with HER… I NEVER HEARD FROM HER AGAIN!
And the phone number she gave me? It didn’t connect with ANYONE at Apple two days later! And the automated call system NEVER offered me the option to talk to an operator! Literally (correct use), I after starting my quest over with Apple, I could not find any evidence that this woman EVER EXISTED!
When I finally got a hold of someone else about my battery problem and told them the deal this woman they denied having any record of had offered me (the price of a new battery for a brand new iPod, $80), I was told I would have to pay $199 for a replacement iPod and I seem to recall it would be a refurbished model, NOT a new iPod!
Steve must be spinning!
Why on earth would you pay $225 for a pair of earphones in the first place?
IPhone Battery CPU Decrease Debacle — nuff said. You want to govern my devices performance based on “suggested” battery consumption? Then fuck you forever. That was a distinct turning point for Apple people. I have an iPhone ONLY because it was given to me as work phone by my employer, I have to use it religiously and the change in performance, since I use it heavily for Google Maps, has literally almost got me in car accidents, and I’m certain others probably actually HAVE gotten in accidents, or even cost them their lives fucking with their phone just based on sneaky performance decreases at critical times. “Oopsie” we’re sorry, by their executive doesn’t cut it. When hipsterism drives a tech company rather than base logic, it’s time to abandon ship.
To me it was always just common sense not to stick devices emitting high frequency EM radiation into your ears. But it takes a unique type of stupid to follow the Apple cult.
Same deal with cell phones, but at least you can put a phone on speaker and keep it the fuck away from your head.
Anyway, Apple bullshit produces nothing but frustration. Just the other night I had my parents and grandmother arguing and bickering over some setting on a new iPhone. I don’t know the specifics because I do not give a fuck.
I got a Samsung phone. Once the thing flew off my dashboard and out onto the road at high speed and broke up into its three pieces of phone, battery, and screen. I picked the pieces up, put the thing back together and it worked perfectly fine just as before .
Now if that was an iFag product…
Apple is just a scam. It’s a Darwinian mechanism to divest gullible normies of their slavery compensation.
Apple and its consumers really are a cult. Look back at some of those keynotes with Jobs, and the way people are worshipfully hanging on his every word… about electronics, lol.
No, Microsoft Windows is a “cult”.
Decade after decade, Microsoft creates crap…and people still keep buying it.
That is cult.
They forced people to “upgrade” to Windows 10.
That is a cult.
Companies like HP and Dell buy the cheapest components they can and slap Windows on it.
An Apple computer is designed by one company with integrated hardware and software.
Windows 95 did not ship with an Internet browser because Gates did not understand the Internet.
Jobs talked about the convergence of phones and computers in a 1984 interview in Playboy magazine.
Either you don’t understand what the word, “cult,” means, or you just don’t understand the way the Windows customer base thinks.
There is next to zero cult mindset within the Windows user-base. We’re the first ones to bitch our heads off at any shitty new version they throw upon us. Our bitching made them offer downgrades from Vista when they released that POS. We bitched our heads off when they released Metro too, I’m on Win 7 still but I know you can customise Win 10 to completely avoid having to look at or use Metro now. That is not the mindset of a cult, buddy.
There is a minority of the population that is highly sensitive to EMF radiation, and a larger portion that has varying degrees of sensitivity. I have directly worked with over 40 patients this was true for and you can find tons of research online supporting it, but the phenomena is largely rejected by mainstream science.
With people who are less sensitive, stronger EMF signals (ie. the air pods) can still trigger them, especially if they are in the Microwave frequency. I thought the apple air pods were a bad idea because of all the specifics in how they would work/emit to your brain, and I am relatively sure from reading your symptoms this was what happened to you.
Thought it was worth posting since I might be useful for you to have to put your experience into context.
Yes, mainstream science…
I keep hearing this line: “There is no scientific evidence linking cell phone use to cancer.”
But 50 years ago the tobacco interests no doubt repeated that same line. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Just because I ignore the cliff edge does not mean I will walk on air when I cross over.
I bet there is tonnes of evidence linking cell phone EM radiation to ailments. But ignoring it allows them to peddle that disingenuous line “muh no scientific evidence!”
They are liars.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am sensitive too to EMF radiation. I get headaches when I use a mobile phone over a couple of minutes. Thats why I avoid long phone convesations.
I don’t know why but it must mess with the brain to some degree to cause headaches. They certainly are not imagination or hallucinations. And I don’t care what mainstream science says. I gave up following mainstream science long ago.
You can not discover new paths if all you do is following the herd …
Chicks write sh!t like this. Why tf is this on ROK?
Gawker didn’t go down as quickly as this site has.
Bose.
Only headphones you will need. A few years ago I was given a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones. A year and a half into having them, they started clicking. I wrote to Bose, explaining that my gift, now a year and a half old, were clicking. Bose got back to me right away with a return label to send them back. I sent them back and a few weeks later Bose sends me a brand new pair of headphones absolutely free.
I want to get a pair of slimmer ones for the gym now. My computer speakers are Bose as well.
It’s a shame bose sound like crap. They tune and color the sound of their headphones for the wooow factor something you can do with an EQ if you wish, bose is a good under 100 but they sell their crap for 300, if you want better performance for the money you better buy senheiser, audio technica, Grado, AKG, Shure. For 300 you can have a true audiophile product.
Kyle, welcome to the world of what I call “electromagnetic illness”. I bet the so called splitting headaches were happening on one side of the head, specifically behind an eye and the neck region. That is a classic sign of a migraine headache. I have been suffering these headaches for a decade now, and specifically when exposed to intense WiFi, Bluetooth or even cellphone radiation fields. For the last 5 years, I haven’t been able to hold a phone next to my ear and I experience a splitting migraine headache in a few minutes if I do, and so have resorted to using wired earphones. It has been mentioned in various forums that everything wireless employs microwave radiation and despite what the tech industry says, that radiation, no matter how weak it is, will cook your brain. Its just a matter of time.
Kyle didn’t even have a health problem with them. He admitted it was his tiny ears and bad fit and not the headphones. Really though, what is the point of this article other than bitching?
jesus christ dude who gives a fuck if your shitty $10 earphones were hard to return? why the fuck is this article on return of kings? submit to buzzfeed
Wow. An article where Kyle isn’t relentlessly pedaling his products.
Dude, you’re an immature kid full of yourself and with a lot of available time. You spent half a year going after Apple to get a refund for some fuckin’ product that was giving you headaches? Just get the fuck over it and accept the fact that it wasn’t made for you, don’t turn it into a mission. You’re right when you say you’re an idiot, because you fuckin’ bought the pods in Europe WELL AWARE of the shop’s no refund policy. Yet you went on, then started pissing off every Apple employee you’d come accross. Apple is a $900 billion company which won’t do support through email, and you kept insisting with them to do so. I MEAN, WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, MAN? Get over yourself. If you don’t like Apple, just don’t fuckin buy their products. But eventually you walked out with more than you paid for a product that apparently fucked your head and a few other tards’ heads. You’re a useless idiot so full of yourself that you actually think you have something to offer with your ludicrous stories
Kyle Looks 4 Trouble. That is what this article is. Well all I can say is now you know so just stick with the good old reliable wired headphones. That is if your phone has a headphone jack. If not well the Phone 6/6S and the iPhone SE are still available to purchase if you don’t have either of those.
Kyle, make the investment and get a set of custom earbuds from Westone. You will NEVER go back to shitty one-size fits all nonsense, especially not from Apple. https://www.westone.com/store/music/
If I have to one day purchase a pair of truly wireless headphones I am going to purchase the one produced by jaybird. They are $180 the last time I checked and more reliable compared to the EarPods. Right now I have the original Bluebuds X and they are still going strong for the past four years so I don’t have to replace them yet.
This Article could have been a bit more focused… because EM radiation is a very serious issue. Apple Ear Pods receive a close-field EMF signal from the phone into the LEFT Pod only… which then RELAYS the signal to the RIGHT pod…. THRU YOUR fucking BRAIN! Yes, it causes major illness & deterioration of the mind. Any cucks in the Comments above who deny this are ignorant fools. 5G is not a good thing and EMR is so deadly and DNA-damaging it might end the ability of humans to live healthfully and reproduce. …Did you get that? IT MIGHT END THE ABILITY OF HUMANS TO REPRODUCE. This is not a trite article.. but it got side-tracked with whining over Machiavellian customer support. SCARY BONUS- In India, with millions of people living under dense repeater towers, BRAIN CANCER is now a major cause of DEATH.. second only to literal starvation.
I vehemently DISAGREE with the premise of this article.
I’ve been using Apple products since 1982 (though I’ve never had an iPhone).
I bought a first generation MacMini.
It was having problems. I called Apple. They said they would send me a new computer. They gave me a code to give to FedEx to send the old computer back.
Three days later. My new computer arrives.
Try that with Dell or HP. (I have)
Your results WILL vary.
That was over 10 years ago. That computer still work. I also have a 1994 PowerBook 150 that still boots up.
I don’t understand the whole “Apple is a cult” crap.
Some people like high end quality engineered products that get the job done effectively and efficiently.
What are you even on about? Someone narrate to you what happened to them and you Disagreed? On what? Reality? Experience? Are you capable of thought?
“That was over 10 years ago” Yeah, it’s 2018 now, Bob.
WTF is this article. Just WTF. Go away with your fibromyalgia.
stop buying Apple. just stop.
You paid US $225.00 for a pair of wireless earbuds???