Experience: One Star.
Product: Two Stars. (only because the…read morescreen works)
I don't think I've ever written a yelp review before, but I would have appreciated a heads-up about this company, so I'm hoping to supply one for the next person.
THE PRODUCT - Macbook Pro 13" 2015 Retina D.A.
Most importantly, **this screen is cased in plastic.** Even though their website specifically guarantees a "Metal Display Housing Cover". I really hope they didn't skimp on all the other key materials, but who can say. If you'd like to be able to pass your mac off as a mac again, this isn't the screen for you.
That said, the screen is **working well** - I'm not noticing any issues with wifi, or anything else so far (one week in). The camera is pretty low quality, but since I haven't used the original Apple camera in months - because of this experience, see below - I can't really compare the two. I am no screen engineer or designer, so I can't speak to the color balance or anything like that.
THE EXPERIENCE
If I sound upset or downright fried, it's because I am. My original Apple screen started glitching on December 23rd. I asked my brother for help - he's a mechanical and electrical engineer, so it's his forte. He found this replacement part and felt pretty good about it, so we decided to replace it ourselves instead of paying probably north of $1k at the genius bar.
The screen was out of stock at the time, so we waited until it was available again. On February 3rd, we were finally able to place the order for the replacement screen. **My credit card was charged immediately, and I received an email that the order was processed.** Their website said that they'd have "nothing [shipped] until the 14th due to the lunar new year", even though it also said they were in stock. Fine, we waited, and the lunar new year came and went. It was shipping flat rate, so I figured I'd give it the 10 business days to arrive. Nothing.
On March 2nd, I wrote to the customer support email to ask what happened. On March 6th, I called and left a voicemail requesting a call back urgently. When I finally got a call back from Ron, I was pretty upset about the whole thing. To add fuel to the fire, **Ron immediately accused me of fraud.** Excellent.
Ron said he must have emailed me back the week prior - but he definitely did not. He tells me that my order looked fraudulent, so they didn't ship the screen. I asked him why I didn't receive an email letting ME know about this? How on earth is it okay to take my $350 and send me nothing? Who's really the fraud here?
I said that I completely understood if his company is dealing with a fraud attack, as he claimed, and I that would figure out a way to change my payment information and/or delivery address to look less fraudulent - my new mailing address is a PO Box and I had to leave my laptop with my brother in a different state at Christmas because of the shipping delays. I understand where he was coming from, but where was the communication????? He was sitting on my money and communicating nothing!
So Ron is finally convinced that I'm not fraudulent, and **promises** to ship me my screen immediately. He says he'll hand-ship it himself that evening - sounds impressive, right? No. That was Wednesday, March 6th, and I heard nothing at all. One week later, I called Ron back to asked for a tracking number on that shipment.
Ron got upset with me, said package thefts are a huge problem, and it must have been stolen, that he was out $350 bucks, yada yada, fraud, etc. (My brother works from home - in a residential neighborhood with houses far apart - and knows the delivery guys personally. He answers the doorbell for the packages. There's no way.)
He said there was no tracking number because he went over to Fedex himself and shipped it with cash out-of-pocket. He sounded pissed, like it was my fault he's in this mess. I couldn't believe my ears. By the way, paying out of pocket to ship my package is absurd, the company should pay, and I would have preferred the proper channels, where I could get a shipping confirmation email and track my package. Ron says that he searched his whole car and couldn't find the paper receipt anywhere. At this point, I highly doubt he shipped a screen, and I also doubt that there even is a "proper channel" for this business.
PS Ron introduces himself as Customer Service on the phone, but according to Yelp, he's really the owner. Who knows. I'm just detailing my experience for y'all at this point. It's been a really long time since I've dealt with anyone or any company this unprofessional, either personally or professionally.
Long story short: the screen never arrives, Ron finally refunds my original purchase, uses manipulative language on our phone calls to suggest that he's the victim, only takes responsibility of these errors when he can spin it to come out the savior in the end. I bought another screen, it arrived with a **PLASTIC CASING** - pretty sure that's fraud, Ron.
