APS Technologies - are they good?
Ahron Shtull-Trauing
about mail-order more. So how is APS as a company - are their products
reliable, and is their service good? Their prices seem very attractive
(they're offering a Micropolis 1.7 GB drive several hundred dollars less
than the rest - which makes me a little nervous).
Thanks.
Aron Shtull-Trauring
aro...@zeus.datasrv.co.il
Paul Wolf
aro...@zeus.datasrv.co.il writes:
> So how is APS as a company - are their products...
From all I've heard, APS is gaining a VERY good reputation which is
pretty impressive considering their prices.
_Paul
Brian V. Hughes
>Ahron Shtull-Trauing, aro...@zeus.datasrv.co.il writes:
>> So how is APS as a company - are their products...
>From all I've heard, APS is gaining a VERY good reputation which is
>pretty impressive considering their prices.
I'm not sure I understand this. While APS does charge slightly
higher prices than some of the other mail order hardware places, they
also have some of the best prices around on certain types of drives,
like less than $800 for DAT backup drive that includes Retrospect. Their
reputation, however, comes from the fact that they offer some of the
best technical support of any company that sells Mac hardware and/or
software, period.
-Hades
Jim Gaynor
> I am thinking of buying some stuff from APS. As I live overseas I worry
> about mail-order more. So how is APS as a company - are their products
> reliable, and is their service good? Their prices seem very attractive
> (they're offering a Micropolis 1.7 GB drive several hundred dollars less
> than the rest - which makes me a little nervous).
I've purchased several drives from them on academic purchase orders,
as well as various parts (special cables, enclosures), and have found
APS to be courteous, professional, and yes, inexpensive. :)
--
Jim Gaynor - <gayn...@osu.edu>
"I've seen the future. I can't afford it." - ABC
Everything said here and above is my opinion. Mine mine mine!
Donald J. Walli
:
: >From all I've heard, APS is gaining a VERY good reputation which is
: >pretty impressive considering their prices.
:
: I'm not sure I understand this. While APS does charge slightly
: higher prices than some of the other mail order hardware places, they
: also have some of the best prices around on certain types of drives,
: like less than $800 for DAT backup drive that includes Retrospect. Their
: reputation, however, comes from the fact that they offer some of the
: best technical support of any company that sells Mac hardware and/or
: software, period.
:
: -Hades
I have purchased hardware from APS, and while I was quite happy with
their tech support and service in general, I did have a really hard
time getting one of their new SR2000 enclosures to work with my C610.
The active termination on that drive had a real fit with any machine
I tried it on. Has anyone else tried this external drive and had trouble?
--
|| Donald J. Walli Michigan Technological University ||
|| dwa...@mtu.edu Rhetoric & Technical Communication ||
|| Mac administrator pro tem, CCLI ||
Paul Wolf
> From all I've heard, APS is gaining a VERY good reputation which is
> pretty impressive considering their prices.
And in article <2g9c85$l...@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>, ha...@coos.dartmouth.edu
(Brian V. Hughes) wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand this. While APS does charge slightly
> higher prices than some of the other mail order hardware places, they
> also have some of the best prices around on certain types of drives...
What I meant to say was that it's surprising that they have such good tech
support, customer service etc., considering that their prices are so low.
I can think of more than one company that had margins so low that they
couldn't afford ANY tech support. Sorry about the confusion.
_Paul
Carl Howe
>I have purchased hardware from APS, and while I was quite happy with
>their tech support and service in general, I did have a really hard
>time getting one of their new SR2000 enclosures to work with my C610.
>The active termination on that drive had a real fit with any machine
>I tried it on. Has anyone else tried this external drive and had trouble?
>--
> || Donald J. Walli Michigan Technological University ||
> || dwa...@mtu.edu Rhetoric & Technical Communication ||
> || Mac administrator pro tem, CCLI ||
I recently purchased both the Quantum 1050 MB disk and the WangDAT
tape in SR2000 enclosures for use with my (admittedly ancient) Mac II.
Both have worked flawlessly with the active termination. My SCSI
chain is three units long with my Mac II with Q105 disk as unit 7/0,
my Apple CD300 as unit 1, my APS Q1050 as unit 2, and the APS DAT as
unit 3, active terminated. I've also just run with each piece of
hardware individually to test their termination, and they all work
separately. I'm generally pleased with the SR2000 enclosure and would
recommend it. However, based on your experience, I will certainly try
to test my units with any new machine I buy before purchase. My Mac
II is not pushing the envelope on SCSI speed (only about 1.5
Mbytes/sec measured speed using APS PowerTools), and I can imagine
things might be different with a faster SCSI controller. However,
that is exactly the sort of speed the active termination was designed
for, so I wouldn't anticipate a lot of trouble.
What kinds of problems did you see with the Q610?
Carl Howe, WG1V
David Anderson
>Paul Wolf <WOLF...@applelink.apple.com> writes:
>>Ahron Shtull-Trauing, aro...@zeus.datasrv.co.il writes:
>>> So how is APS as a company - are their products...
>>From all I've heard, APS is gaining a VERY good reputation which is
>>pretty impressive considering their prices.
To respond to the original post, there is no need to worry about APS. I
have bought several items from them including a Microplis 1.2 gig that
would not mount last week. They spent an hour and a half on the phone with
me trying to diagnose the problem and finally had to send me a new drive.
I lost some data, but there was NEVER a question about replacing the
drive. No hassle. Nothing.
--
David Anderson_________________Nashville TN_________________Music City USA
Glenn Fleishman
about $15,000 worth of stuff from them for personal and various jobs
over the last 3 1/2 years, most recently a week ago.
Unfortunately, they no longer carry 44Mb SyQuest cartridge drives!
--
Glenn Fleishman [Open House, 1619-8th Ave N Seattle WA 98109
[makers of The QuarkXPress Book, Real World Scanning
[and Halftones and other Peachpit Press books
Helen T. Rose Davis
DA> To respond to the original post, there is no need to worry about
DA> APS. I have bought several items from them including a Microplis
DA> 1.2 gig that would not mount last week. They spent an hour and a
DA> half on the phone with me trying to diagnose the problem and
DA> finally had to send me a new drive. I lost some data, but there
DA> was NEVER a question about replacing the drive. No
DA> hassle. Nothing.
My experience with APS has been just as terrific. I've had two drives
that I've bought from them go bad. I bought a Toshiba 340m internal
drive for a Powerbook (I installed it myself into a Duo). The
termination wasn't working properly -- they called *me* before I could
call them, and they said "it was a bad batch, we'll ship you a new
one". And so they did!
Just three days ago, my Toshiba 830m drive (internal) in my IIci
kicked the bucket. Low-level format didn't fix it, so I called APS,
they asked me some very basic questions, and said "ship it in, you'll
have a new one Wednesday". Well Wednesday I didn't have a new drive so
I called them back, they said "yes, we ran out of Toshibas, but we'll
just ship you a different new drive" (the Toshiba I sent them was
apparently not repairable :-). Right away, the Tech Support guy said
that since nobody made a drive that size apart from Toshiba, they'd
just ship me a nice 1.2g drive! I mean, I'd been thinking about
getting a bigger drive for this machine anyways, but this was the best
way to get it :-)
I have had a few problems with the tech support line being busy, so
what I've done recently is call between 12-2pm EST ("lunchtime") in
hopes that not many other people will be calling then :) It seems to
work quite well as I've not had busy signals lately at all.
As I write this my new Maxtor 1.2g drive is humming happily in my
IIci, everything is being restored to it (it's the backup server
running automated Retrospect backups so until the drive bit it, we had
perfect backups :).
APS also included the cutest little card in the box with the new drive:
"I am sorry you had a problem with your APS drive and for the
inconvenience this may have caused you. We hope this sweetens your day
and that you give APS a chance to serve you again soon. Warmest
Regards, APS Warranty Service"
and included were two peppermints.
I can't say enough good things about APS. I know some people have had
trouble with them, but I think their service and prices are terrific.
--Helen
--
Helen Trillian Rose Davis <hr...@kei.com, hr...@eff.org>
Kapor Enterprises, Inc. Flames to:
Systems and Networks Administration women-not-to-...@kei.com
I like: DL, WN, Boeing I don't like: NW, HP, Airbus
Steven L. Mullen
recommended in both the third and fourth editions of the book.
--
Steven L. Mullen
Assistant Director, Mass Spectrometry Laboratory
University of Illinois School of Chemical Sciences
E-mail to mul...@aries.scs.uiuc.edu
David Anderson
>I have purchased hardware from APS, and while I was quite happy with
>their tech support and service in general, I did have a really hard
>time getting one of their new SR2000 enclosures to work with my C610.
>The active termination on that drive had a real fit with any machine
>I tried it on. Has anyone else tried this external drive and had trouble?
Been using an SR2000 ever since they came out with a IIvx a lots of stuff
on my SCSI chain; no problems at all. Zippo. Zilch.
John Gillett
H> I can't say enough good things about APS.
Thanks for the good info. Im considering some larger drives and will certainly
consider them a strong candidate now.
David J. Wang
Just another note ... I bought an external drive from them, when I
received it, I discovered they hadn't included a terminator. When I
called support, then sounded genuinely apologetic, and said they would
send one out. When I got home the next day, it was sitting there on
my doorstep, shipped overnight FedEx ...
David
--
*************************************************************************
David J. Wang #include <std_disclaimer>
wan...@gdb.org (410)614-0393
wan...@server.cs.jhu.edu Biology@The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland 21210
************************************************************************/
John West
(David J. Wang) wrote:
> Just another note ... I bought an external drive from them, when I
> received it, I discovered they hadn't included a terminator. When I
> called support, then sounded genuinely apologetic, and said they would
> send one out. When I got home the next day, it was sitting there on
> my doorstep, shipped overnight FedEx ...
Another tech support story- I bought a 105MB drive from them (this was a
while ago- back when these drives cost around $500). Anyway, I had trouble
with it from day one. I sent it back in and they replaced it overnight.
When I got the new drive, the ribbon connector on the back of the drive had
been severely damaged (and the broken pieces were in the static bag), but
the box wasn't damaged at all. They could've just said that I was the one
who did it, and not replaced it, but they didn't. I got another new drive
overnight. I've always had very good experiences with APS.
--
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
John West :: "We've broken through the space-time continuum
(jo...@visix.com) :: and pass the savings on to you."
Visix Software Inc. :: -TV's Frank
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Whatever I say is whatever I say, and not what Visix says.
David Salvador Flores
John West <jo...@visix.com> wrote:
>In article <1994Jan10.0...@news.gdb.org>, wan...@dev.gdb.org
>(David J. Wang) wrote:
>
>> Just another note ... I bought an external drive from them, when I
>> received it, I discovered they hadn't included a terminator. When I
>> called support, then sounded genuinely apologetic, and said they would
>> send one out. When I got home the next day, it was sitting there on
>> my doorstep, shipped overnight FedEx ...
I bought 1 170M HD from them for my IIsi.
I've been very happy ever since.
I also bought an internal modem for my PB 100. It was... get this.
$69.95.
Then I sold the PB 100 and got a Duo 210. And then I found out that
no-one but Apple makes an internal modem for the 210. $250.00 Arrgh,
and all I wanted was to read e-mail in bed!
Big_Dave
Bill Williams
rmo...@stealth.weeg.uiowa.edu Ric Mommer at University of Iowa, Iowa
City, IA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
From: rmo...@stealth.weeg.uiowa.edu (Ric Mommer)
Subject: Bad service from APS
Message-ID: <1993Feb12.0...@news.uiowa.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 02:51:08 GMT
I have a Toshiba 830 meg drive which I ordered from APS. I recently had
problems with their customer service that included being treated rudely
and lied to. While I understand that drives go bad, (I have recently
heard that this mechanism has a history of problems) I do not understand
why a company who purports to have "great technical support" can afford to
treat their customers in the manner in which I have been treated. I would
advise everyone to avoid doing business with this company.
For those who want to hear all the sordid details, an in-depth description
of my problems with APS follows:
After about 2 and a half months of use, my drive developed bad blocks. I
had heard about other problems with Toshiba 830, and wasn't comfortable
with that mechanism anymore, so I called APS to see if I could exchange
for another mechanism when returning my bad drive.
I was informed by the manager of technical support that this was not their
policy, and that I would have to take a reconditioned mechanism as my
warranty exchange. My only option was to pay a 20% restocking fee -- even
though I planned to purchase a replacement drive from them.
Furthermore, when I asked what the turnaround for my warranty replacement
was, I was informed that after they received my drive, it would be two
days before they would ship another drive back. When I explained to him
that this was the drive that contained all my data, and that I did not
have another drive to use in the meanwhile, he became snotty with me and
said that it wasn't his fault I didn't have a hardware backup.
What I wanted to do was to have them ship me a drive. I could then copy
my data from the bad drive to the good one, and then ship the drive back.
I figured that by giving them my credit card number, they would trust me
to return the defective drive. This is allowed by many mail-order
companies that I have worked with, and I did not consider my request to be
unreasonable.
After several calls, I was finally able to talk them into cross-shipping a
drive to me. This involved first Federal Expressing the drive to them,
and then calling them with the tracking number. Then they would ship the
replacement drive to me. That way I would only have to be without a drive
for one evening.
I did everything as promised, but the next day, the drive didn't arrive.
Upset, I called their technical support to see why the drive wasn't
shipped. They replied that they couldn't get a verification from Federal
Express about the drive until the following morning. This was an outright
lie. Federal Express reported to me that the tracking number was in the
computer system and verifiable at 4pm that day.
When I told the person at APS technical support that I had a hard time
believing her story, she became very defensive and rude to me. After
arguing with me for a few short minutes, she said "thank you for your
call" and promptly hung up on me.
At this point, I would never buy anything from APS, even if it is priced
hundreds of dollars lower than their nearest competitor. I will also make
sure that my company never orders anything from APS. I have never had
problems like this before, and do not plan to have them in the future.
There are literally hundreds of good mail order companies out there that
will give you friendly, helpful service. Companies like APS give all mail
order companies a bad name. Everyone would be best advised to avoid this
company at all costs.
Timothy A. Dawson
Software Engineer
Blake Sobiloff
Williams) wrote:
> APS ARE EVIL SHLOCKERS!! Here's just one horror story I know of:
[blah blah]
Frankly, I doubt Mr. Dawson's story.
--
Blake Sobiloff <sobi...@lap.umd.edu> | University of Maryland
Laboratory for Automation Psychology | College Park, MD 20742-4411
Department of Psychology | 301/405-5936 (Voice)
Thomas Hays
I purchased a 1.2 gig drive from them which went horribly
bad. Naturally, they didn't offer to recover data from the
drive which I couldn't pull out even using Norton - this
service generally runs about $150 per hour. They did
promptly replace the mecahnism, which I had had for at least
six months; for all they knew I had taken it bungee jumping.
Also, they were polite (in a folksy kind if way), and did
their best to talk me through every technique I could do to
try to get my data off of the drive. The only thing they
didn't do, and they should have, was to offer me a special
victim's discount on a DAT backup.
Bye
Andrew Geweke
>
> Frankly, I doubt Mr. Dawson's story.
I don't. It just seems to me that it's a biased point of view. I believe
that Mr. Dawson just seems to be taking an unreasonable and slightly
arrogant point of view. I apologize if this is not the case, but it seems
that all of APS's policies were reasonable, and I can imagine that from
APS's point of view, Mr. Dawson was probably the one being rude on the
phone.
=========================================================================
Andrew Geweke / gewe...@studentg.msu.edu / Computer Engineering
"The story so far:
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of
people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Alex Currier
I've done business with APS and I've been very satisfied both with the product
and with the sales staff, several of whom were happy to spend time with me
discussing my needs (even to the point of colorfully describing the qualities
of the sound different hard drive mechanisms make when they operate. Nice
people, timely delivery, quality product. So far I haven't needed to talk to
the support staff.
--
==============================================================================
Alex Currier * myc...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu * NeXTmail capable.
Time is just one damn thing after another.
==============================================================================
Peter A Cohen
: Frankly, I doubt Mr. Dawson's story.
Given my personal experience with APS, I suspect Mr. Dawson's story is
one-sided. Tho APS tech support can be brusque, they generally have
treated me as well as I would have expected, given the level of service
and support they advertise. Indeed, they have helped me resolve problems
with other SCSI equipment beside their own. I, for one, use APS
exclusively for my own SCSI purchases, as well as for my company's.
--
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Peter A. Cohen | pco...@world.std.com | fax: (617) 662-1825 |
+-----------------+------------------------------------------------+
Frank Araullo
(Alex Currier) wrote:
>
> I've done business with APS and I've been very satisfied both with the product
> and with the sales staff, several of whom were happy to spend time with me
> discussing my needs (even to the point of colorfully describing the qualities
> of the sound different hard drive mechanisms make when they operate. Nice
> people, timely delivery, quality product. So far I haven't needed to talk to
> the support staff.
>
My $0.02:
I got an external Maxtor from APS a three years ago for my IIsi. It died a
year after I got, and APS promptly replaced it, no questions asked. Tech
support is pretty good, and I've never had a problem getting updated driver
software from them.
--
Frank Araullo
fara...@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
"Up like a flash, out like a match."
David Anderson
>> APS ARE EVIL SHLOCKERS!! Here's just one horror story I know of:
>[blah blah]
>Frankly, I doubt Mr. Dawson's story.
For the record, I had almost the same experience with a fairly new
Micropolis drive and the problem has been resolved to my complete
satisfaction. APS bent over backwards to give me timely help. I won't post
the whole story here, but you are welcome to email me if you'd like to
know more details.
Ed Segall
Bill Williams <bwil...@iat.holonet.net> wrote:
>APS ARE EVIL SHLOCKERS!! Here's just one horror story I know of:
>
>rmo...@stealth.weeg.uiowa.edu Ric Mommer at University of Iowa, Iowa
>City, IA
>Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
>From: rmo...@stealth.weeg.uiowa.edu (Ric Mommer)
>Subject: Bad service from APS
>Message-ID: <1993Feb12.0...@news.uiowa.edu>
>Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1993 02:51:08 GMT
>
>I have a Toshiba 830 meg drive which I ordered from APS. I recently had
>problems with their customer service that included being treated rudely
>and lied to. While I understand that drives go bad, (I have recently
>heard that this mechanism has a history of problems) I do not understand
>why a company who purports to have "great technical support" can afford to
>treat their customers in the manner in which I have been treated. I would
>advise everyone to avoid doing business with this company.
>
Every time I read about how wonderful people think APS are, I feel
nauseated. I had almost exactly the same experience as the previous
poster. From the refusal to cross-ship, to the refusal to change
models (in my case, due to an obvious incompatibility), to the
rudeness when I didn't knuckle under to their way of doing things, to
the outright lie about FedEx confirmation on a cross-ship, the details
are the same. The only things missing are the part where they
insisted that my drive was just fine, even though it wouldn't boot my
Plus or SE, and gave me corrupted files when I finally got it to boot.
I still have the drive (it's a Quantum LPS-50). I just use it for
auxiliary storage now (I bought another Quantum Drive, the Pro 170,
from LaCie, and I now use that as my main drive. It works great!).
LaCie's silverlining seems to handle APS's drive much better than the
vaunted APS Power Tools, to the point that I was able to finish my
dissertation with only 2 or 3 instances of file corruption (!).
Please don't get me wrong, when they know what they are talking about,
APS are pretty good. And their prices and products are just fine, in
general. The only problem they have is arrogance: they are completely
unwilling or unable to recognize when they are mistaken, or when their
policies should be modified to handle special circumstances. But even
a Fascist government seems ok when you're "their" sort of person.
When you try to push back because your needs aren't what they say is
ok, you get beat up.
So if you are confident that you are average, go ahead and buy APS.
Just don't expect satisfaction if you have the bad luck to go outside
their expectations.
--Ed
Peter A. Cohen
> So if you are confident that you are average, go ahead and buy APS.
> Just don't expect satisfaction if you have the bad luck to go outside
> their expectations.
See, it's inflammatory remarks like this that have keep threads like this
alive as long as they are.
APS is not a facist government...APS is a bloody hard drive vendor. Anyone
with self-respect is not going to tolerate being beaten up by anyone
else...if that happened with you and APS, my condolences. If APS gets
grief from the guy that started this thread a week ago, I wouldn't expect
them to take it, either.
Listen, maybe I have more sympathy than most for the vendor because I just
concluded a four-year career in tech support last November, and I know how
assholian people, especially people on the internet, can be when things
break or don't work to their expectations. I also know first-hand that
computer users have grown accustomed, for whatever reason, to expect the
vendors that they're dealing with to lose money hand-over-fist to make them
happy, regardless of the reasons why they need help to begin with. In a
perfect, L.L. Bean-run world, this would be the case, and, as you pointed
out, Ed, if APS, Disney, or L.L. Bean is your kind of facism, that facism
doesn't seem too bad...unfortunately for everyone, the peripherals market
is so cut-throat nowadays that vendors can't afford to do a lot of things
without going out of business.
Please agree with me, Ed, that between two people's stories generally lies
the truth...I'm certain that there were extenuating circumstances that
prevented APS from doing everything you, and the man that started this
thread, from being happy.
Regardless, you can't disregard the empirical evidence that supports that
there are far more people who are happy, and in my case, happy enough to
defend APS, than there are people who are upset enough to bash them. And
many of these people are far from "average," as you put it.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| fla...@peanut.tiac.net | in real life: Peter A. Cohen | fla...@aol.com |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Free your mind and your ass will follow." - George Clinton |
| Online via InterSLIP, MacTCP, and NewsWatcher (thank you, jnorstad!) |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
I hereby prove Godwin's Law of Usenet postings, since the word "facist" has
been used.
Alex Currier
> So if you are confident that you are average, go ahead and buy APS.
> Just don't expect satisfaction if you have the bad luck to go outside
> their expectations.
Just one thing that I noticed, the drive in question failed to work with a Mac
Plus? That isn't surprising as there are many newer drives that won't work
with the Plus (there isn't a single MicroNet drive that does, for instance).
It's possible that APS took back your drive and tested it (but not on a Mac
Plus) and it worked fine.
The point is there is usually some small misunderstanding or unspoken
assumption that leads to these problems. Tempers flare and reason goes out the
window and customers become disgruntled ex-customers (have you ever seen a
gruntled customer?) More than likely APS was not out to rob you or treat you
badly (like some other companies I won't mention). In any case, your bad
experience should not be viewed as evidence that APS are "evil shlockers". I'm
sure everyone has had situations in which another involved party has left us
thinking "what a rotten creep". It doesn't necessarily make us so... it's just
that you can't make everyone happy.
I've been exceedingly pleased with my dealings with APS. I recommend them. Of
course (and this it always comes down to) your mileage may vary.
Nelson Morris
I would like to address how one can get a credit card company to help
them in cases where the product does not meet expectations and attempts
to resolve the problem fail. I think it's a policy that when this bad
scenario happens, the credit card company can bully the company on your
behalf, i.e. refuse payment, etc.
Has any used this method to their advantage?
Ed Segall (seg...@cs.cmu.edu) wrote:
: In article <CJnzt...@iat.holonet.net>,
David Allan Steffens
Nelson Morris <nmo...@husc9.harvard.edu> wrote:
> ... I would like to address how one can get a credit card company to help
> ... Has any used this method to their advantage?
Yes, you _should_ always use a credit card to buy stuff mailorder!
A couple of years ago, I ordered a disk from Jasmine (remember them?).
They said they'd ship "right away" (they didn't!). And they said they
wouldn't charge my credit card until they shipped (but they did!).
After one month of waiting, I called only to discover there had been
an "unavoidable shipping delay", but "it's going right out to you soon".
After another month of waiting, I read in MacWeek that Jasmine had
gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A quick phone call confirmed this.
By then, I had already paid the credit card bill that had the charge
on it. The odds of my ever seeing a disk _or_ my money were beginning
to look very slim indeed!
So I called my bank. They told me to "write a letter documenting my
problems and attempts at a resolution". I did, and was _immediately_
issued a credit by my bank for the _full_ amount of the charge.
To this day, I do not know if my bank ever got _their_ money back,
but _I_ did! Bought a nice disk from APS (which is what I _should_
have done in the first place) and I have been a happy camper ever since.
--
David Allan Steffens | I believe in learning from past mistakes...
Eaton-Peabody Laboratory | but why does a good education require so many?
Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary, 243 Charles Street, Boston, MA 02114
eplunix!d...@harvard.harvard.edu Tel (617) 573-3748 Fax (617) 720-4408
Nelson Morris
A comment and a long quote from a previous article.
My screen editor played a trick on me, showing just my comment. It must
have scrolled the long quote out of view, and I didn't see it was there.
Sorry, if it cost you some bandwith. We're all human, had I seen the
long quote I would have snipped it.
Nelson Morris
The two previous gripe posts about APS have something in common, the
request to cross-ship. I think if this very a regular practice, then it
cost a great deal to a company.
When I bought my drive, I knew the following and since read the following
with what I got from APS.
Make frequent back-ups of my drive. APS assures me any failed
mechanism will be replaced or refurbished. With this in mind, I would
expect some downtime for my computer if that every happens. So I expect
one should have a game plan in that case. A two day turn around is quite
speedy. The first gripe post was from a 'software engineer' who wanted
to cross ship, because he couldn't wait.
APS has a 30 day money back guarantee, you only lose the shipping costs.
This means any incompatibilites can be found out within that period.
Anyway, beyong that the have a disk for disk replacement warranty, not a
disk with data for a disk with transferred data warranty, not a disk for
some other model replacement warranty.
Louis Vu
>I won't comment on the APS, La Cie -Gods or Devils type of thread.
>I would like to address how one can get a credit card company to help
>them in cases where the product does not meet expectations and attempts
>to resolve the problem fail. I think it's a policy that when this bad
>scenario happens, the credit card company can bully the company on your
>behalf, i.e. refuse payment, etc.
>
> Has any used this method to their advantage?
(Stuff comparing APS and LaCie deleted)
I had my credit card company go after LaCie for a double billing they
put on my card. It took a couple of months as LaCie kept putting the
charge back. It finally was solved, but the CCC charged me $8.xx for
the fight. Grrrr.
L.H....@lut.ac.uk
Steve...@bmug.org
insisted that my drive was just fine, even though it wouldn't boot my
Two things....Most current Quantum drives have problems with the Mac Plus and
Mac SE. Those drives will work fine on other Macs. And APS does will give
people their money back if they want if you ask before 30 days are up. Once it
you found out it wouldn't work why didn't you get your money back?
( The only problem they have is arrogance: they are completely
unwilling or unable to recognize when they are mistaken, or when their
policies should be modified to handle special circumstances. )
I don't consider APS arrogant. And I have dealt with them many times. They
have been a BMUG Choice Product for years. And we test them dozens of times
per year to make sure they stay a Choice Product . And yes, at times APS can
be reluctant to deal with some people in a way that will make the customer
happy. But then again, if it was after the 30 days money back limit I can see
why they would be reluctant to take back your drive. I should also say that
when BMUG members have had this particular problem with Quantum drives and Mac
Plus's they have always been willing to work out a solution that both parties
have been happy with. I wonder what they did right....
And if you want to see a hard disk drive company just refuse to deal with any
special circumstances...try La Cie.......
Steve Costa
BMUG
Ipokratis Papaioanu
: >> APS ARE EVIL SHLOCKERS!! Here's just one horror story I know of:
I would like to second the majority of positive responses about APS. I have
done extensive purchasing in both a personal and bussiness fashion and have
nothing but positive results. It is a company that offers excellent quality
products at very good prices and supports them equally well. Nothing but
high kudos for them. As for the posts detailing negative experiences:
1) There are always two sides of the story
2) One has to look at the big picture; a 90% satisfaction rate is excellent
3) Companies are comprised of individuals. Individuals have personalities.
Personalities tend to differ from good to bad. That is why it is vital
to get people's names when you talk to them. Find a person that helps you
and stick with her/him (like a hairdresser ;^)
4) Any established & known company is a good company until PROVEN otherwise.
PS I am not, in any form or manner, associated with APS.
--
Paki Papaioanu
Boston University My words are my own and they speak for no one
School of Management but me
Computer Support Services
Curt Fiedler
from APS. Though it is disheartening to hear about problems with APS, the
problems with La Cie have been worse in our experience.
Sometimes ya get what ya want, sometimes ya don't.
-=Curt
Piner
Would a booting problem on an SE or Plus ever be because the interleave is
1:1 instead of 1:2 or 1:3? Of course, some Plus's had a bug in the ROM that
cause booting problems that are not the drive's fault.
-Brian