Apple: Puerto Ricans Can't Have Free iPhone 4 Cases | Hacker News Reader

Apple: Puerto Ricans Can't Have Free iPhone 4 Cases

consumerist.com

24 pointsjawngee11 comments

As much as I'd love to bash Apple on this one, we don't have a critical piece of info: the guy's type of address. The generic rejection from Apple mentions multiple reasons, including PO boxes. If he's got a PO box then the title and fury against Apple are wrong. If he's got a physical address, we should sharpen the pitchforks. Again.

As evidence, see how many times the phrase "therefore your order has been cancelled" is found in the email from Apple. And the bit explaining PO boxes asks him to edit his address within a week or risk cancellation. It's a rubbish email fro Apple no doubt, but we need more before we call this one.

Sigh. I’m as happy as everyone about blogs and all that stuff but, you know, sometimes some real journalism would be appropriate. It’s not that hard, dial (408) 974-2042 (Apple’s PR hotline, not at all hard to find on their PR page which has a short and memorable URL [+]) and ask if they have a comment.

[+] http://www.apple.com/pr/

I suspect a blog post from the Consumerist will attract the attention of Apple's PR team much faster than even two dozen phone calls to their PR call center to complain.

You don’t call them to complain, you call them to get information. If they are unable to provide you with that information they suck and you can write in your article that Apple declined to comment. It’s as easy as that.

As is this article is pretty much worthless. No information, only an anecdote.

It looks like at least one paper has tried, but received no response (the post was filed originally on the 27th, and I don't see an update with a response):

>> El Nuevo Día se comunicó con AT&T a nivel local y con Apple para recibir una reacción sobre esta noticia, pero al momento de publicarla todavía no habíamos recibido información al respecto.

(Translation: El Neuvo Día contacted AT&T locally and Apple to get a reaction to this article, but at the time of publication, we have still not received any information.)

Link: http://www.elnuevodia.com/applecancelaordenesapuertorico-748...

In this case, abbreviating both 'Puerto Rico' and 'Public Relations' to 'PR' is kind of confusing...

I'm more upset that the Consumerist doesn't know that Puerto Rico has no Representatives in the House. (Or Senators, or anything really. Of course, they probably could if they wanted to but they keep voting to retain their commonwealth status.)

It's a little weirder than literally no representation. Puerto Rico, like the District of Columbia, has a non-voting representative to Congress. (This is the source of the popular "Taxation without representation" bumper stickers in DC.)

Citations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Ricos_At-large_congressi...

Funniest headline I've read all week. I doubt there's meat to it, though. Has the customer in question tried to, you know, call Apple (1-800-MY-APPLE)? It's entirely possible that there's something wrong with Apple's online ordering system, but surely a live person will be able to process the order.

Apple's Shipping & Delivery page clearly states that they will ship to Puerto Rico and other US territories: http://store.apple.com/us/help/shipping_delivery

There are also some service centers and AVRs in Puerto Rico that one may want to try: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/us/ http://latam.apple.com/buy/lae/find.php?r_pais=Puerto+Rico

And lastly, the 'free iPhone 4 case' deal is valid wherever the iPhone 4 is sold, not just in the US, but also Canada and Europe etc. Even if Apple has some bizarro atlas that has Puerto Rico pegged as a separate country, surely they will still send cases there, because AT&T in PR offers the iPhone 4.

Nothing like link bait. I share rubymaverick's sentiments that this might be making a mountain out of a mole hill and WAY overstating the case.

My guess: some poorly implemented back-end system automatically canceled the orders or, even more likely, some dip in shipping said "Umm, port o reeko? Wazz that?" and canceled the order.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, unless it can capture a few more eyeballs.

This title is completely accurate. I happen to have some inside info on this, actually. Steve Jobs went on one of his epic rants after a person from Puerto Rico tried to order a free case. Everyone at Apple agrees with his basic sentiment: Puerto Ricans can suck it. It's like a new company mantra. Good thing the kind folks at consumerist are on the job!

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