Apple Steals – A Letter to Tim Cook

Hello Tim Cook at the Office of the CEO,

I am compelled to bring my utter dissatisfaction with Apple Customer Support, The Apple App Store, and with Apple, Inc. directly to your attention. I feel that Apple is stealing $130 directly from me and I am seeking restitution. If you were inclined you can read through the entire support case below but here is the “executive summary”.

• Customer Jeff Windstrup purchased approximately $130 worth of apps from your Mac App Store.
• The customer change his Apple ID county association and credit card from France to USA.
• The customer is now no longer permitted to update or redownload his original purchases.
• Because of this the customer cannot install and use the software he purchased on his new MacBook Air.

The apps I am referring to are available in both the US and French stores. I understand there are different sales rules, legalities, and currencies in different countries. Furthermore, maybe your back-end systems cannot cross-reference these purchases. That said, if I had bought the software on physical media or even downloaded the apps directly from the editor I would be able to install and use the software as expected.

I feel that your customer support unnecessarily ran me round in circles and didn’t take the time to understand my issue. They were obviously copy an pasting phrases in their responses that were at times not relevant or would have made my issue worse. Their false platitudes were in the end infuriating and they left me feeling like you and your company had stolen directly from me.

I can imagine that your company Apple, Inc. is well within its legal rights based either on your terms of service or international sales procedures to deny my request. However, I ask you, is that the way you wish to run your business?

• To leave your customers without what they purchased.
• To provide only superficial or non-helpful customer service.
• To have your customers feeling like they have been robbed by you.

I hope your answer is no and that you will follow-up and do what is right to rectify this.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Windstrup

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I wrote this in desperation after a lengthy and unproductive support case that left me feeling that Apple had stolen $130 directly from me. I did receive a followup by phone where an Apple PR person told me that Apple was within its terms of service and that I would not receive a refund because that was policy. That may be; but it is no way to run a business.

I’m posting this to alleviate some of my frustration and for posterity sake to anyone else having a similar difficulties with Apple.  That said, still for me it was a lesson in futility. I’ll include the entire support dialogue leading up to this in the comments for completeness.

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2012 Christmas Newsletter

We would like to wish you Happy Holidays with our tenth Christmas season newsletter. We hope this finds you well.

We started out the year in the Netherlands. A brief Amsterdam tour and then off to visit friends to bring in the New Year together with a bang. When spring rolled around we all got to share in one of Jeff’s longtime wishes when we got to navigate the waterways of the “Canal du Midi” for a week with friends. Jeff proudly wore the captain’s hat. This summer I had social work conference in Sweden. At the close of the conference Jeff came and joined me in the capital city where we spent a few days alone in an impromptu vacation. It was the perfect mix of work and pleasure. Our summer family vacation was spent with my aunt, cousin, and godson in Germany. We met and had an action packed day at Legoland Deutchland. The following days we spent in Munich and the surrounding area where we did typical tourist things. As usual now we have some nice videos of all this. They can be found on our website windstrup.com.

This year both David and Gabrielle had lengthy summer camps. As expected the sports minded David signed up for the sports oriented offering. He along with 2 buddies joined the athletic group for days of soccer, handball, basketball and any other “ballgame” out there. Gabrielle’s first “colonies de vacances” was photography oriented. Her and one of her girlfriends learned the art of photographic vision on their more than week long séjour. When September came around the kids were eager to get back to school. David joined his sister in the junior high school in the 6th grade and Gabrielle is finishing her last year there in the 9th grade. Since the kids are in the same school and both are or are becoming teenagers they seem to have more in common. As young teens they have both mastered getting on their parents nerves in addition to being into music and their after-school activities. This year Gabrielle chose guitar lessons in addition to her long standing drawing lessons and Girl Scouts. With the scouts this year she planned and went on a 3 day trip to London which has been her favorite city for some time now. She imagines herself living there as an adult. The scouts also have her making presentations to educators about dyslexia and planning next year’s trip to Switzerland. She is growing fast. As tall as me now and wears glasses like her daddy. David’s mainstay activity is handball. He loves it and is good at it. He goes to all the practices and has even been moved up rung to the next category. Jeff continues his putzing with computers, videos, video surveillance cameras, house alarm, and phone system. He really is a geek. I mean that in a good way. His new thing is running. He’s made a goal to go running once a week and that’s what he’s been doing. I join him fairly often to keep him motivated. As usual dance is my thing. I just realized that I have been dancing for 33 years or more. I’ve tried many forms over the years though there are many more I want to try. This year I’ve signed up for oriental dance. Bellydancing or “danse du ventre” requires more control and energy than I thought. I enjoy it a lot. I have also added another year of tennis instruction. I’m not a pro yet but like my dance I do enjoy it.

We Windstrups wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year filled with happiness and good health.