My dad bought a second hand MacBook Pro from a brick and mortar store. It comes with 3 months' warranty. He passed it to me to set it up and within the very first hour of setting it up, I found 2 keys that were not responding properly — they either simply did not register or acted as if I pressed the key twice when I only pushed it down once (to keep this already long post brief, I am aware of the laptop issues with this generation of MacBooks. I would have advised my dad strongly not to buy the laptop had he consulted me first).
I told my dad to return to the store to have them repair the keyboard under warranty. While he was in the store, the staff pressed the keys and said that they could not see an issue and all key presses were registering correctly. Dad left the store with the laptop and gave it back to me to set up for him.
Earlier this morning, went through the process of setting up the laptop and I was having issues with the keyboard again. This time, I recorded footage with my iPhone clearly showing my fingers pushing certain keys and either the laptop not registering the keys or the character would appear on the screen twice after only pushing the key once. I went into the store and had the most bizarre experience. I'll summarise it below:
Me: Hi. My dad came into your store a few weeks ago with this laptop and said there was an issue with the keyboard. You could not reproduce it at the time and he left. Well, I'm back and now I have video evidence.
I show the video to the store man
Store man #1: OK, can I have a look myself?
Store man #1 opens the laptop and starts to type. He reproduced the faulty key issue multiple times
Me: There you go. Could we please have this repaired?
Store man #1: OK. Leave it with us. Please leave your dad's mobile number and yours so we can call you when it's fixed.
Immediately after I left the store, they called my dad and told him there is no issue with the laptop and that he needs to return to pick it up. Dad calls me, and I call the store back. In brief, I speak to a different person (Store man #2) and he says to come back to discuss the issue.
Store man #2: There is no issue with the laptop.
Me: I have video evidence and I showed Store man #1 the problem while I was in here. He reproduced the issue himself. Can we please have the laptop repaired?
Store man #2: There is no issue to repair. Laptop is working fine.
Me: Can you open the laptop and I can hopefully reproduce the issue with you present.
I open the laptop and I reproduced the issue where one key press makes the character type out twice.
Store man #2: When you press and hold down a key, multiple keys can appear. See? I can make two characters come out twice by pressing and holding.
Me: OK, how about you do it yourself? Press the key once and let's see what happens.
Store man #2 reproduces the issue
Me: See?! You just did it!
Store man #2: No I did not. There is nothing wrong.
I was quite annoyed at this point and Store man #2 no longer wanted to deal with me. I don't want to make an already long post even longer, so to summarise the end of the conversation, Store man #2 said "I sold the laptop to your dad. I will only deal with your dad now. He needs to come in and tell me there's a problem. You have no right to speak to me about a laptop you do not own."
I believe this is a tactic he's using to brush me off and get my dad to come in, not be able to reproduce the issue and leave without any recourse.
As you can probably understand, I am annoyed beyond reproach. I am reaching out to the community now for advice on sure fire ways to get this business to comply. It's not about the money anymore — it's the principle. I will not stand idly by while scummy business practises like this are being employed.
Aside from going down the path of making a complaint with the ACCC, what other recourse do I have available? I want to go thermo nuclear here and take an avenue that will get the most likelihood of an outcome.
charge back if paid by card?