Friendly Midwestern success story iResQ, the Apple-authorized repair center in south Olathe, fixes iPhones and iPods but may have a tough time fixing its reputation in the almighty blogosphere. In the wee hours this morning, the influential Web site BoingBoing -- a kind of think tank devoted to epic geek time wasting -- linked to a Sacramento, California, blogger accusing iResQ of opinion blackmail.
According to BoingBoing's post today, the disgruntled customer, who blogs as brownielinzi, sent her broken iPhone to iResQ, which advertises same-day repair and overnight shipping, and then waited two weeks for a response. She e-mailed the company to complain and posted the query on her blog. That's when iResQ agreed to waive some of its charges. But, she says, there was a catch.
Brownielinzi complained in her February 5 entry, "I hate iResQ":
After some excessive "fact-checking" on their part, iResQ removed the diagnostic fee and overnight shipping charges from the bill, but not the cost to actually repair my phone. I agreed, finally, because it was obvious that this was the closest thing to customer service they were willing to provide. However, even though I already expect piss-poor customer service from iResQ, today they've exceeded my expectations. Today iResQ threatened to "rescind the refunds" UNLESS I REMOVED MY BLOG POST.Short of libel, independent consumers have every right to express anger and dissatisfaction with businesses that fail their expectations. iResQ's blatant attempt to stifle negative feedback is completely unacceptable.
Brian Buffington, iResQ's general manager, says he plans to track down brownielinzi's iPhone, respond to BoingBoing and let us know what happened to start all of this. We'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: Buffington has refunded brownielezli her repair charges (she got her repaired iPhone last week by overnight delivery) and sent a lengthy mea culpa to BoingBoing (along with an offer of 10 percent off repair costs to bloggers with bad iShit), excerpted below:
iResQ regrets to inform the public that a member of our staff actedwrongly when recently dealing with an individual customer's iPhone
repair order. Specifically, we apologize for asking that the
blogger's post be taken down in order to receive a refund. The person
who acted this way acted wrongly, and we have addressed the matter
internally. Additionally, we have reached out to the affected
customer to apologize and offer a full refund.
We think any customer should always be free to express their opinions, positive or negative. As a company that also blogs, we understand the
passion that bloggers bring to their self-expression, and as American
citizens, we certainly appreciate the value of free speech. ...
Finally, as a sign of our sincerity, and a token of our appreciation
for bloggers everywhere, we would like to announce "Blogger
Appreciation Discount" through the end of February....
(Full disclosure: I have twice driven to iResQ's nondescript, industrial-park office to drop off different iPods that the technicians there were unable to repair because the parts weren't available. This probably says more about the quaint old hand-me-down equipment I was using than it does about iResQ.)
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iResQ replaced the display on my PowerBook, which was well out of production by that time. iResQ repaired my PowerBook in a fast & professional manner & am very satisfied with their work. I would not hesitate to use them again
Cheers !
These Iresq people are horrible! I sent off my iphone and ipod mini to be repaired if possible, I got an email from them saying the issue had been diagnosed and to give them a call back. I called back and after holding for 30 minutes was told there was something wrong with the LCD bladee blah, and it would cost upwards of $270 to fix, I said forget fixing the iphone now what's wrong with the ipod mini?
To make a long story short they basically called me a liar and claimed the box I sent in only contained the iphone (like I would lie about sending in an ipod mini, do they even make those anymore?). The agent then told me he would go look for it and give me a call back. He never did! I called back the next day and was still being told they had no record of my ipod mini. I provided them with the serial # of the mini and everything. 10 minutes later I get a call from a Brian who is supposedly a manager there telling me that they had MISINFORMED me all along! They hadn't even received my package yet? Seriously? So who's phone have you all been telling me about this whole time? He was all apologetic, we'll give you a discount etc etc. When they finally received my package and called me back with the prices I opted not to get the iphone fixed bcos guess what? Yup it was an LCD problem and would cost $269, maybe that's their standard pricing for all iphone issues huh? I decided to get the ipod mini fixed b'cos it was only a battery issue. When I called back the next day to ask about the discount I was supposedly going to get I got the rudest agent named Brad who REFUSED to pass me on to the manager for me to inquire about my discount b'cos as he put it your package has already been fixed and is out of here what more do you want? Really? That's customer service? And he HUNG up the phone on me! When I called back he still REFUSED to put me through to a manager! I had such an unpleasant experience with them. I will NEVER EVER use them or recommend them again! I hope this helps someone AVOID the grief of having to deal with such RUDE and UNPROFESSIONAL people!
I have usually always had good service from IResQ. Any company can mess up every now and then. The fact that this person is so unforgiving says a lot about their maturity level. Perhaps they haven't really been out there in the marketplace lately trying to find good service. No one should accept bad service but when a company steps up to rectify the situation then the bad review should at least be updated. This customer just wants to wallow in self pity!
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