Uh oh, there seems to be a serious problem. I haven't complained about anything in a while! Well, we are going to rectify that situation NOW.
Anyway, Apple doesn't really hate me (at least not any more than they hate everyone). I was recently browsing music on the iTunes music store. Sure, people who are true audiophiles will laugh and snicker at me for thinking about purchasing music that is encoded in a lossy format for the too-high price of $0.99 a track.
And I would agree with them, except that for me to purchase songs actually costs nothing! At least it used to. Back in March of last year, I test drove an Audi A3 (because I love Audi's!) but also because they were having a deal where if you test drove it, you would get 33 free iTunes songs.
So I headed into the dealer, did my test drive (it was nice, way better than my '99 Mustang), and got my free songs.
I didn't want to squander then on buying entire albums (because albums are only $9.99 anyway, so to buy an entire album would be to waste 2-4 songs vs. the actual cost) but I didn't want to just download random songs. So I judiciously waited until I thought of a song I really wanted, or there was a new single that I really wanted but the CD wouldn't be coming out for another month or something.
And things were going well, I kept adding more songs to my collection at an unremarkable but enjoyable pace.
So when I was listening to the internet radio last week and heard an enjoyable new Strokes song, Heart in a Cage, I thought, I have to get this off iTunes. So I went on iTunes, added the song to my cart and went to check out. Hmm, I thought, the little box that says how many free songs I have is gone ... oh well, that's probably because I just upgraded my iTunes recently. So I click purchase.
After the download starts though, I begin to get suspicious. I investigate and I can see that on my credit card, which I had just paid, I have a single pending charge of $1. Now, when I first signed up for iTunes, they didn't require a credit card and I was happy because there was no way I could accidentally buy something that I didn't want.
However, a couple weeks ago my girlfriend missed an episode of NBC's The Office (and my TiVo was on its holiday). So, I thought, I'll be nice, spend $2 on iTunes and gift it to her. She got the episode and was happy but now those nefarious Apple people had my credit card information!
Fast forward back to earlier this week, and now my worst fear had come to life. I'd just paid actual cash money for a crappy lossy encoded song on a CD I'd probably eventually buy anyway.
So getting all pissed, I went to the support website and sent them the wonderful message shown below:
Hey, I just noticed that my free songs disappeared and I accidentally purchased a song not knowing that. I lost 13 free songs because of this.Then, 3 days later I get this awesome reply:
It really would have been nice if you had sent an email telling me that my free song codes were going to expire.
As it is I'm annoyed enough now that I probably won't buy another track online anytime in the near future.
Thanks,
Mr. EATnachos
Dear Mr. EATnachos,This email has only pissed me off more. Do you think I'm retarded and don't know how to log into a service? You guys are jackasses! I'm pissed because even though you clearly have an expiration date for these free songs (something that I would only be aware of on the rules of some contest form in tiny print) you couldn't send me an e-mail to tell me they were going to expire. Instead they just poof and disappear.
Promotional codes issued for Audi's Test Drive promotion expired on
01/01/06. Please contact Audi for further details.
Your credit is updated in iTunes every time you sign in to the
iTunes Music Store. If you haven't signed in to the iTunes Music
Store recently, your credit may display an outdated number. To
sign in and display your current credit amount:
1. Sign in to the iTunes Music Store. If you're not sure how to sign
in to the iTunes Music Store, click this link: itms://
phobos.apple.com/accountSummary
The iTunes application will launch and ask you to sign in.
2. Your updated credit amount will appear in the upper-right hand
corner next to your account name. Be sure to sign in to the Music
Store on a regular basis to update your credit amount, since your
credits may have expired.
Sincerely,
Annoying Apple Robotron 5000 Email Responding Monkey XXX Pro
And instead of responding to my complaint about lack of notification, you think I don't know how to log in. I clearly told you that I was mad because I accidentally paid money for a song. To buy a song I would have had to log in so it's not that I don't know how to do that.
Anyway, this is almost enough to convince me to just put a credit card I don't like into the credit card info field and then cancel it just so that they have crap info for me and I won't ever accidentally by their BS compressed music. Put it up in Lossless format and I'd buy the crap out of it!!! But that's another rant ...
posted by dontEATnachos @ 7:12 AM
