I had always thought why do we people end up purchasing Apple products from Amazon when Apple has their own dedicated website for the same [apart from their designated Imagine and Invent stores across India]. Moreover when you are about to purchase a product that costs nearly $2014 [INR 1,60,000], then there shouldn’t be a second thought involved regarding the place of purchase. But then came the Amazon Prime Day which was letting me have my preferred model, oh, I forget to mention, it is the top-end iMac 24-inch 512GB ROM[2021], for $1750 [INR 1,39,000]. And my entire aforementioned justification just went for a toss.
Before purchasing, I did some research on the seller Appario Retail Private Ltd and it had a mixed bag of reviews [though mostly positive, but some of the negative ones were really scary]. So I decided to put a temporary pause on my purchasing decision and head over to the Apple Store. There I had a talk with some of the staff and they all were in sync in their thought- please don’t- there’s no point in taking risks and purchasing a product from these sites. And yes, I got convinced by them and straightaway asked them to bring out the aforementioned model for purchase. However, they told me the top-end model is always limited in stock and is currently sold out. I got the same reply from a couple of other Apple Stores as well.
But the thing with my finances was that it was at a roadblock- I could either make this purchase within the next couple of days or would have to wait an entire year. Being am an impatient person that I am, I was quite sure that I wouldn’t be able to put my decision on hold for the next 365 days. So I finally decided to dive deep into this unknown territory and took a risk, in other words, I did order the iMac from Amazon. So was it a safe and sound decision that I took upon opting to purchase an iMac 24 inch 512GB [2021] from Amazon India? Let’s find out!
Is it Safe to Purchase an iMac from Amazon?
The delivery took two days to reach New Delhi and as soon as it reached my doorstep, the first thing I did was start my phone camera. Then I unboxed it and thankfully it was all in one place, there was no dent or scratches anywhere. Moroever, setting it up hardly took a couple of minutes and the boot-up was even quicker. Then I created my Apple ID [yes, this was my first Apple product ever] and completed the rest of the setup. After that, came the moment of truth, I had to claim the 1-year warranty. And this is where things decided to take a turn for the worse.
I head over to Apple’s Check Coverage site and there it required me to input two details- my Mac’s serial key and the purchase date. The former could be found in the About this Mac section whereas the latter would be written in your purchase receipt. The first step went smoothly, upon entering the serial key, Apple correctly identified my setup. However, the issue arose in the next section, it just refused to accept the purchase date [I tried entering both the dates- when I had first ordered I and then I received, but none was accepted]. I then placed a call with an Apple customer care executive for the next day [it was already 1 AM that day].
In the meantime, I did some research online and found out that I wasn’t the only one sailing in the same boat. All the other affected users had laid down some dreadful stories- they were stuck in this fiasco for months with no way out. Plus, they pointed out another concern- the serial number shown on the Mac doesn’t match with the one that is written in the purchase receipt provided by Amazon. And as fate would have, the same issue was with my PC as well. One interesting thing to note is that we all had the same mistake in our receipt- the letter S was added before the serial key in every iMac user’s receipt. So what’s the catch?
Well, it was due to the scanning software that tagged the letter S before every serial number for the sake of easy identification. I don’t know to what extent this made sense but one thing that was sure- I was screwed up! It was then I began regretting my hasteful decision of making such a hefty purchase in just a splash. Anyways, I still had left an iota of optimism and decided to put the blame on my impatient decision to hold- until I had a chat with the Apple Support staff the next day. So when the day arrived, they called me at the exact same time that I had chosen, not even a single minute early or late.
I then explained to them that I was unable to verify the purchase data, but didn’t tell them about the serial mismatch. They created a personal link for this session and asked me to upload the recipient, purchase, warranty, and all the related documents. After that, they asked for my Mac’s serial number. I told them the actual one that is present in the About my Mac section [and not the one printed in the receipt]. And guess what [drumrolls please], it took them just 10 seconds to verify the purchase and activate the warranty.
However, they told me that it could take up to 5 days to reflect the warranty activation status on the Apple Coverage site and up to 24 hours to reflect in the About this Mac’s Support tab. However, the data was reflected across both these sections in under 5 minutes! Truth be told, credits need to be given to the Apple Support Staff in the manner in which they carried out the entire process. I have had a chat with many tech company executives in the past, but none came close to the professionalism shown by these guys.
Anyways, coming back to the subject, since everything went smooth in my case so you would assume that purchasing an iMac from Amazon is definitely safe? Well, I would still not entirely vouch for that because I still consider myself to be among the lucky ones. This is because a plethora of other users are sailing in the same boat as mine and are still suffering. Plus if you are spending such a large amount on a product, you would at least want a piece of mind, something that was missing during the initial few days in my case, and months in the case of other users. So if you aren’t tight on time and/or budget constraints, then I would recommend you directly make the purchase from the Apple website or store.
As the popular saying goes, “it is better to be safe than sorry” Well, I didn’t pay heed to it but thankfully came out unscratched out of this but maybe that might not be the case for everyone else. So on that note, I round off my experience of stepping into the Apple ecosystem on a road that was full of bumps and spots. Have you purchased any Apple products or planning to make one from Amazon and have doubts regarding the same? The comments section is all yours. Drop your queries below and I will get back to you at the earliest.
