Rotten Apple Policy

Recently, I had an issue with my Apple MacBookPro laptop computer.  The problem involved me trying to get rid of an Office 2011 icon which had come alive after I had inadvertently clicked on it at the bottom of the screen (amongst the vertical row of default icons).  There was no minimizing, or closing down of, the icon.  So I trashed it.  Bad move. 

As a result, I lost Word capability, and thus many valuable (to me) Word documents.

Goal: I had to get back my old Word documents, which I figured involved getting back Word and Office 2011. To do the latter, I was pretty much forced to take certain steps on my computer and sign up with Microsoft to get my Word documents back.  These steps included registering with Microsoft, getting a password, and taking a 30-day free trial subscription to Microsoft Office 365 which includes Word, Outlook, and more.  

After becoming a Microsoft subscriber, I was able to resurrect my Office 2011 Word documents from my laptop Trash file.  Success!

I then began to test Office 365, which didn't work for me.  Thus, I now wanted to unsubscribe from Office 365 before they started billing me $75 annually.  However, there was no way on the computer to cancel the subscription!  No [expletive deleted] way!

I then telephoned Microsoft Support.  The agent's name was "Charms" who was in the Philippines.  She finally determined that to cancel my Microsoft subscription, I had to go thru Apple!  I was like, "What?  Aren't you two competitors?"  

After ending the conversation with Charms, I dialed the Apple number she gave me and connected with Rhonda.  There was a lonnnng wait On Hold.  Through Rhonda, I canceled the subscription.  Or so I was told.  

A couple of weeks later, Apple charged me the $75 annual fee!  I called Apple.  After again spending an eternity "On Hold," I became fed up with Apple, hung up, went on line, and simply protested the charge with my credit card company.  It was interesting that they had a format for just the type of situation I was in, which indicated to me that this 30-day trial period thing is some sort of known (to some) scam.  A few days later, my credit card company gave me credit for the bogus $75 Apple charge.  

Then, a couple of weeks later, I get an email from Apple cancelling my “payment method” for Apple iTunes, iCloud, etc.  The payment method being cancelled, of course, was the credit card company that had nullified the bogus Apple charge. 

On line, I could not resolve the situation.  The system wouldn’t let me. I couldn't even substitute another credit card as a payment method. 

So again I had to call Apple Support, and after another eternity On Hold, I spoke with Michelle who informed me that Apple would not let me use the aforementioned credit card due to the fact that the credit card company had disallowed the bogus Apple charge.  Now, may I ask you, “What kind of a rotten Apple policy is that?  You disallow participation from a major credit card company because they righted a wrong you did?”  Way to go, Apple!

Finally, I was able to set up a new Apple payment method with the help of Michelle who said there is an Apple Support app that I might want to use in the future.  Someday, I probably will download it, but in the meantime, I’m pretty much sick of Apple and their method of: luring you into a trial subscription, and then not letting you out, unless you go thru phone hoops.  And even if an Apple rep says things are ok, Apple will still bill you for the subscription you canceled. And if you get that bogus bill erased by your credit card company, Apple will punish you by banning your credit card company from being an Apple “payment method.”  How rotten can Apple get?

No more trial subscriptions for me.