We have used Charlotte Street Computers because it...

We have used Charlotte Street Computers because it is very close to home and we believe in supporting locally owned business. So those of us in the family who buy and use Apple computers have bought there and used their services to transfer data. Their service is comparatively slow, unless you pay the expediting fee, but otherwise reasonable--until lately. We bought a new Macbook Pro because we would no longer live with the dongle hell that Apple gave us with the new one-port Macbook. The Pro crashed hard four days later. The people at Charlotte Street guessed that it might have happened because the computer was shut down during an update (Apple does silent updates). We said that we would appreciate anything they could do to retrieve data, but we wanted a new computer. They said they would not do that, but would give us a free expedited service. Two days later, they returned the computer, saying they had returned it to its original state as a new computer, which was not true, because it had a "tech" sector that didn't belong. The next morning it crashed again. We called, and they said they would not replace the computer but would help us work with Apple on a replacement. Since we had purchased AppleCare, we expected better, and called Apple, who told us that any licensed Apple Store was required to take back a computer for a refund for any reason within 14 days. Why did Charlotte Computer refuse to honor that? The Apple representative said it was odd, looked into it, and recommended that we not go back to Charlotte Street but deal exclusively with Apple itself, which we're doing but at further cost of time. As for getting the data off the 4-day-old computer, well, it's just four days of work lost. And don't believe what reviewers say about "friendly service"--it's friendly right up to where you don't agree entirely that they are right about everything.
By comparison, my son bought an expensive gaming laptop from BestBuy, decided he wanted even more power and would build a desktop from scratch, and BestBuy returned his money promptly, no questions asked. They sell Apple, too, and if we stick with Apple, we'll be buying from them, and using the Geek Squad for service.