Simply Crap

So I'm sure that all of you are wondering why Murray and I went to Salt Lake to get our computer. Isn't there a perfectly good Apple products store in Orem called Simply Mac? Well, yes, there is a store called Simply Mac, but the words "perfectly good" don't apply. At all. This post is a little overdue, but since I remembered my rage and fury when we were purposely avoiding Simply Mac this time, I thought I'd share our story, if only to dissuade anyone else from ever shopping there. Ever.

In January, Murray and I went to Simply Mac to buy our 24-inch iMac. It was a big purchase for us. It's $2000. That's a big purchase. It's big enough to kind of make you sick thinking about it, no matter how excited you are to actually buy the product.

We went to the store. It was a pretty quiet day at Simply Mac. Despite that fact, no one offered to help us. We stood around the 24-inch iMac for a little while and then just decided to go to the cash register and let them know that we wanted to buy it. And then they happily rung us up. I guess they don't have to go out of their way to make $2000 sales.

We paid with our debit card because we're good, responsible people who don't put things on credit that don't have to be there. We like to make cash purchases.

That was the wrong decision. Four days later, $2000 was withdrawn from our account. And five days after that, another $2000 was withdrawn from our account.

In case you didn't get that, they double charged us. For a $2000 purchase. Straight from our bank account. I can understand that double charging for a $10 purchase is pretty annoying. But double charging for a $2000 purchase can be crippling.

Murray contacted the store as soon as he saw the second charge. They apologized and said the money would be back in our account the next day. We waited all the next day for the money to post. It didn't.

The next day, we went into the store to talk to them. They apologized again, and explained that this didn't just happen to us, it happened to everyone who made a purchase in their store that day. And that it wasn't their fault. It was their accounting company's fault. And there was nothing that they could do about it. They had to wait for their accounting company to reverse the charges to all their customers. They said that the money would be back in our account that day, the next day, or the day after that.

I really really wish that I'd told them that I wouldn't leave the store until they gave me another 24-inch iMac. And then I would bring it back when the money posted in my account. If they could take $2000 out of my account (without my permission, which is called stealing), then it stood to reason that I could take the equivalent value of their property (after all, I'd already paid for it) and return it once the money had been returned to me.

You know, I even suggested them processing the return of the iMac so that they could refund us the money. They said that they couldn't because it would mess up their inventory system. I wanted to say, "That is not at all my problem. I'm not walking out of this store without my $2000 that you stole." But the whole time, I was just worried that if I did get an instant refund from them, then the other $2000 would be put back in our account by their accountants, and then I'd still have to deal with the issue.

It took more time than they'd promised for the money to finally post back to our account. We waited for over a week for our money. When it finally did reappear in our account, we received no apology from Simply Crap. No attempt to make things better. No attempt to compensate us for the inconvenience or at least try to rebuild our trust in their ability to properly run a business. Nothing.

We did find out, however, that this was the third time that Simply Crap had double charged all their customers in one day. That's right. This had already happened to them twice by that point.

And so when it was time for us to make another major computer purchase, we decided to make the drive to Salt Lake instead of giving them more business. But, just to try and stick it to them at least a little, Murray and I decided to pop into the store and look at the Macbook Pro. Then, when someone came to talk to us about it, we'd say, "Oh, we just came in here to look at it and decide if this is the computer we want to buy. We were so extremely dissatisfied with our last Simply Mac experience that we have no intentions of ever making a purchase here again." And then they'd ask what happened and we'd explain. And best case scenario, they'd actually show good business sense and try to make up for their past mistakes.

But we're so stupid. We forgot that Simply Crap employees don't actually approach you to help you. Although the store was, once again, almost empty, no one ever approached us.