Bad Apple Battery

I plugged in my MacBook Pro overnight to charge and was surprised to find the battery still empty when I woke up. The battery meter had an X over it and a message that said no battery was connected. I really need at least two batteries while traveling and now I’m going to hunt a spare one down in Las Vegas.

I was going to stop by the Apple Store in San Francisco on my way out of town, but I needed to be at the airport before the store opened. I called Apple and got some MAJOR attitude from the first rep I talked to. She asked for my name and phone number so she could verify my MacBook Pro and battery were still under warranty. She said she couldn’t find any record of me purchasing a MacBook Pro. I suggested she search by my email address, but she said it would just show her the same thing. She insisted the only Apple product I own is an iPhone. I started to ask to speak to another rep or her manager, but she rudely hung up the phone before I could finish.

I called back and spoke to another Apple customer service rep who was very friendly and helpful. Somehow she magically found my receipt by searching by my email address and promptly offered to send a replacement battery, along with a return shipping label for the defective battery. The new one should arrive by the end of this week.

Thankfully I have an extra MacBook Pro battery that I bought for $129 several months ago that charges just fine. This is still a pain in the a**, but it also serves as a good reminder to stop using any notebook battery that shows even the slightest form of defect. The chances of my defective MacBook Pro battery catching fire or exploding is extremely slim, but I’m not willing to risk my safety or my home to tinker with the battery and try to get it to work.

Older MacBook Pro batteries have been known to bulge and rupture and it’s tough to forget the Sony battery fiasco, which resulted in millions of recalled batteries worldwide.

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