Apple Disk Drive Repair Policy?

The hard drive died on blogger Heidi Miller’s iBook G4 laptop–along with the external backup. She took it to the North Michigan Avenue store for repair. After it was returned with a new drive, a Genius told Miller that she could receive her old drive only if she put a $300 hold on her credidt card, and then returned it to Apple within 30 days–Apple considered it their drive. Feeling that the drive still belonged to her, Miller ended up allowing her credit card number to be taken, and then attempted to contact Apple’s public relations team to verify the company’s policy. She ran into a brick wall. Read all three blog entries to find out her final resolution, or listen (mp3) to much more detail on her podcast, along with her suggested customer service tips. [The gist: Apple claims to return bad drives to somewhere as part of some rebate program, which allows them to offer new drives to retail store customers at a reduced prices.]