Ronny writes:
I unfortunately left my iPhone unattended for a brief period over the weekend and when I came back it was gone. On Monday, I went to visit my local ATT store and they were unable to sell me a new iPhone, even at the $499 price. Apparently I have had too many iPhones on my line. I then called customer care and was then bounced to an Apple store to see if they could sell me the phone. The same error occured on their system and the Apple employee advised that two weeks ago a new policy went into effect preventing them from selling too many phones on a line because people are jailbreaking them.I origninally bought an 8gb and returned it for a 16gb within the first 30 days of service. Now I lost my 16gb and they won't sell me another for 18 months! After using my lunch break I went back to work and decided I would try again at another ATT store. The next store said they had to deal with the same problem and asked me if I was attached to my phone number. They offered to cancel my line and start another, or add a line so that I could purchase an iPhone. I told them this was not an option because I had to pay an ETF through Verizon to keep this number and I would not part with it. I also did not need another line and would not pay more for monthly service, especially if I was about to pay $500 for a replacement iPhone. I then asked to speak to the manager who said that he would emails his ops team, whatever that means.
So here I am waiting to hear from the manager and feeling like I am being punished for upgrading my phone early on. Also, why do they care how many phones I buy at full price? Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. Has anyone else had this trouble?
(Photo: Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten)
]]>When I called, I was on the phone over and 1 1/2 hours with numerous folks. They promised to overnight me a phone. Not the iphone that I never had and wanted so bad. I explained the bad experience with this has landed me in my current position and the man said "your with a special rep now and I will make sure that doesn't happen". Yeahhh, right!!!!
I offered to drive anywhere in a 50-mile radius to pick-up, to no avail. I needed it today or tomm and that was it. No over the phone stuff. Not a free phone. The $300 iphone. My son didn't care about his phone, he has a zune.... Just the iphone and a cheapie.
I canceled everything (with fair warning and chance for bargaining) and finally switched to sprint.
Now I have two awesome Broadband cards for my laptop with unlimited data and can cancel my COMCAST CABLE!!!!! I can bring my laptop on the road!!! My bill is still lower than Cinguler all together!
There was no sign up fees this week due to the holiday, so my cancellation fees are in my mind my "fees". They lost a customer over the iphone and over principle I will never go back.
I do not like change and never rearrange my living room. I have been with them over 8-9 years and was treated so poorly over two months of waiting. They will be lucky to still be in business if they keep running it this way by 2010.
Now, I may have to pay the $400 ETF and pray they don't charge me monthy until the end of the two years. But it is worth it. I believe in treating people right and when you lose their business.
]]>Reading comprehension would help you here on the internet.
Notice the quotations and the context of his statement. It was a knock at the concept of the free market which is sold as beneficial to the consumer, when it is anything but! (Hint: You likely agree with each other concerning market regulation)
The problem is we are in more of a "free market" economy than we have seen since before Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. Regulation has been washing away since the Reagan admin and there is little to no enforcement of Antitrust laws in this country, which would be more relevant to the discussion than the type of government regulation you refer to which ensures you're eating food that is safe, or that toys/automobiles/etc.. are safe to use.
]]>Uhhh...grand central hasn't allowed people to sign up for a long time. From What I understand even the invites from existing members have dried up.
]]>Iphones are harder to come by since the original 2g model came out and we didnt activate them in store. Customers could come in and buy up to three with just a simple credit check and nothing was actually started in store. Since 25% of the original iphones were never activated, at&t got smart to the game and decided to go ahead and activate them in store. On top of that, a few months after the release the problem started again with them being sent overseas and unlocked. At&t having the rights to the phone again found a problem and put an error on anybody who had already activated a phone and wanted another one. If the problem is legit like an exchange or a simple lost phone, the rep at the store can call customer service and have the phone activated and the consumer pays regular price. What customers forget is they only receive the subsidized pricing once in a two year period. The regular price for the phones is what you would pay otherwise. There is also a limit to how many phones the customer can buy because there isnt a lot in inventory and they are trying to prevent fraud. As far as the antitrust violation I saw earlier, there are specific phones to every carrier. Tmobile has the sidekick, verizon has the storm, what makes the iphone any different?
]]>@ me!!: seriously though, we want to keep our customers and since he has a 3g, he was paying near or over $100 a month! someone will take ownership of your issue, but remember "THE SQUEEKY GEAR GETS THE GREASE!!"
]]>ESCALATE ESCALATE ESCALATE!!
]]>Please understand that ATT exclusivity is mutually beneficial to ATT and Apple, its a symbiosis, not a parasitic relationship.
]]>Thats why iPhones have a special service plan, its basically a special surcharge just for iPhone users. The price of cool is high. So if you use your iPhone for 25 months (not unreasonable), you generate $250+ of profit on $0 invested.
So Apple is trying to make sure that the minimum # of iPhones gets cracked and used out of network. Because all that cash flow disappears. (And ATT is on for the ride, because they are basically selling you an expensive plan that in reality costs them no more than any other phone)
]]>Only they would try and go against all sane business practices for such a ridiculous reason at such ridiculous extremities.
BTW, this is why i bought a G1 T-Mob is cheaper, better customer 'care' and a better DEVICE
]]>This is old news. If you bought the iPhone 3G, you are not allowed to buy another one at an Apple store. AT&T and Apple are controlling the black market by limiting customers with iPhones. I don't know a work around on this yet.
]]>@fantomesq: perhaps because he has friends that already have his phone number, or maybe he uses that number in his line of work. Have you ever changed a number and tried to get all of your contacts informed?
]]>I think it's all hype and BS. Of course, this also illustrates how our wonderful "free market" economy doesn't impart much "freedom" to the consumer.
]]>And a week later, the same asshole will buy an iPod to reward them for shitting on him. And the cycle continues...
]]>Just wait until the HTC Touch Pro 2 comes out in 2nd Quarter 2009. You will have a decent keyboard and a phone in which you are free to install anything you like (XDA developers FTW!).
]]>They are completely hostile to any of their customers that want those features. They will tell you what features you want and if you don't like it, then you don't get to have an iPhone.
Also, if you ever try to go to the iPhone support forum to vent your frustration, the apple super-fans eviscerate you. They just tell you, that you are a retard and that you should have known that iPhone would be the only phone in the world to not support MMS et cetera...
There is no good reason for Apple to omit many of these features, and it is just because they seem to hate caving in to their customers and losing control. I would love to see their smug attitude hurt their sales, but I have a feeling that their are enough people that like being told what they like, that Apple won't be going anywhere.
In any case, my phone is jailbrokn and has MMS, Copy/Paste, video recording and many other missing features due to the wonderful iPhone modding community.
]]>I would suggest opening a new line, then putting the iPhone on your existing line and cancel the new line. It's a lot to go through, and you'll have to wait 30 days to cancel it, but at least you'll get your phone.
]]>@EGBTMagus:
Again to clarify since so many are eager to attack the carrier rather then listen to reason...
AT&T does not sell the iPhone without a contract. The $399/499 is still sold at a loss.
[apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com]
He now estimates that Apple is charging carriers, on average, $466 per iPhone. Toni Sacconaghi at Bernstein Research comes in with a range that goes even higher; he believes Apple will sell the new iPhones to carriers for anywhere from $350 to $700 each.]
]]>If the customer has not purchased 3 or more iPhone 3G's then he can get the device at the upgrade price by contacting a manager at the store and explaining to him/her that he has not owned 3 or more iPhones. AT&T has a limit on 3 iPhones per line, sometimes this can cause an error if he swapped out an iphone due to warranty or exchanges (like he claims). An investigation has to be done to prove that he has not purchased 3 iphones but if he is telling the truth then they will sell him one at the early upgrade price (AT&T does not sell the device without a contract).
The customer could also add a line to his plan and get another iphone at the $199 price and just swap the sim cards. Then remove the features from the added line...
Im guessing this customer did not come into an AT&T location and was all friendly. He probably was a jerk and pissed people off because I have come across this issue before and was able to get it fixed with patient customers.
Moral of the story, don't be a bully and work with people. Don't be an ass.
]]>A 16gb ipod Touch is $299 from apple. No subscription to anything. The only difference that I can tell between the touch and the iphone, is that the iphone can make phone calls. And you want us to believe that it's ability to make phone calls is really worth an extra $400? Lucky for the phone companies (and apple for this specific phone) that so many schmucks like you actually buy into that crap.
]]>You would think that the more iphones they sell, they better it is. Sure some are jailbroken and some are switched to tmobile but who cares. i'd still bet that a majority stay on at&t and on that note, why would apple care what service it is on. they get more iphones in more hands and get more of the market.
]]>I ran into this issue around new years..
I bought an iPhone 3G when it came out in July. I used my Fiancee's line to do the upgrade and just called AT&T later on to put the iPhone data plan on my line as my line wasn't eligible for an upgrade yet.
So we fast forward to right after Christmas. I wanted to get my Fiancee an iPhone as a wedding gift. I was willing to pay the $499 "early upgrade" price, however they told me that they couldn't do it on her line as that line had an iPhone upgrade on it already. I said "Ok, let's use my line" and I'd call AT&T and straighten out data plans and such later on. No dice. My line alrady had an iPhone on it. They told me I could select from any other handset and I'd be able to move forward. I ended up playing musical upgrades with yet ANOTHER line on my account to get her the phone for New Years Eve.
Seriously, the way Apple and AT&T try to lojack the iPhone is obnoxious. It's a freaking phone people.
I understand the reasoning behind it though. Apple sells the iPhone to AT&T at a high price. AT&T sells the iPhone almost as a loss leader, counting on the two years of the data plan to make up the revenue. (The whole "Twice as fast, half the price" was BS. You pay an extra $240 over the life of the contract for the data plan.)
I do also understand the Apple forced AT&T policy of no unsubsudized sales. It works this way so Apple can somewhat try and proctect the "exclusivity" of the iPhone. Yeah, it's real exclusive now that you can buy it at Wal-Mart.
Oh, you can have my iPhone when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands though!!!!
]]>+ Sale Price
- Costs
+ Subscription sharing over life of unit
= Total Profit
*If* you were buying iPhones and selling them on the 2ndary market, as THOUSANDS of people are doing (every apple store has people who are doing this), they lose the subscription sharing over life of unit, and Apple loses money over their projected figures.
That is why Apple cares how many phones you buy at full price. It's not the end of the story for Apple, and they're still waiting to get more money from you.
This subscription sharing amounts to billions of dollars. If you listen to an Apple quarterly phone conference (which, unless you're an investor, probably isn't worth your time), Apple gives figures for quarterly profits, projected subscription-based profits, and how much it would be worth if they could actualize all the profit right now (mark to market, I believe its called, but that's forbidden due to Sarbanes Oxley). Last quarter, it would have added something like 2.3 billion to their $11b reported revenue. That figure includes AppleTV subscription profits, but lets face it, nobody buys that thing compared to iPhone sales.
]]>What? You're doing it wrong. Idiots.
What's more, there are perfectly viable alternatives to the iPhone out now, so your lauded position on the aerie peak is now more like a leaf pile among several other leaf piles. Wake up. Sell the phones. Don't restrict them via network.
Or not, actually, what do I care? I'll never buy one. Too late. I'll get one of your competitors phones that works just as well, and I'll use it on whatever network I please.
]]>A simple solution I've seen people do is setup a family plan, make a new line and buy the iPhone on that line and then transfer his phone number over to it. Sure hes paying about like 10 more for family plan.
]]>The product you're buying isn't the iPhone - it's the iPhone service, which includes both a monthly charge and a hardware charge.
]]>So maybe you would have better luck at an Apple store than at an AT&T store.
Maybe my case was different, because I had the old phone, but this is pretty incomprehensible.
If you're really desperate, couldn't you pay $699 for the phone from Apple and then transfer your old number to it? I thought they sold them for that if you didn't sign up for an AT&T plan.
]]>um nevermind.
]]>http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp#0faqSection1
]]>He didn't (or at least, there is nothing in the post to suggest that he did), and yet he DOES have this problem.
]]>Yeah. If this happened to me, my response would be "fine, I'll buy a jailbroken one elsewhere, and use it on T-Mobile. Happy now?"
]]>If the company pays more than $500 for the phone, and wont sell it to you for $500, they arent exactly turning down $500, they are turning down losing money. You people do realize that at&t pays more than $299 for a 16gb iPhone right? They sell it at a lower price because you are committing to two years of $70 a month. It becomes unprofitable if they have to take a $200 hit every month......
]]>If the aforementioned "manager" doesn't do anything, the OP should just fire off a EECB. Be polite, professional, and concise, and kindly explain to them that you can always take your business elsewhere.
You can also just get another SIM card from AT&T, and buy another iPhone off of eBay. Also, can't you just walk into an Apple store and pick up an iPhone if you want to? Contract or not.
]]>FWIW, running an iPhone on T-Mobile is cheaper, both for minutes and data/texts, than AT&T. No 3G though, but if this is what AT&T is doing to its customers to reward their loyalty (and turning down $500???), then screw that, eh?
]]>I work for AT & T and can tell you that 499 is not unsubsidized pricing. There is not an unsubsidized price for the Iphone. You have to get a new 24 month contract and the 499 is considered "exception" pricing.
From my experience, one of two things happened. The OP either took his initial 8 gig Iphone and didnt return it to the store to get his 16 and chose to sell it on Ebay and since you are only allowed one exception, he would not be eligible.... or he returned the 8 gig and it wasn't returned properly and is still showing that he has already had his one exception.
The OP was misinformed from the fact that this policy isnt only two weeks old, but was put into place a long time ago.
]]>If you don't like how you're being treated, take your business elsewhere. If enough people did that, it would *much* more effective at altering their behavior than complaining on the Internet. If you "just can't live without a iphone!", tough cookies then, you get what you deserve. It's the gadget addicts that are the enablers for poor customer service.
]]>Tell the OP that I'll paint a cute lil apple logo on it and he can have it for $50.
]]>First off, this is a system issue that a manager literally can not override. There is not a button that can be clicked to override this.
]]>Mind you, I didn't really have a better idea for Apple if they wanted to get into the cellphone business. I just wasn't really that impressed.
]]>It doesn't sound like telling them it was stolen would make any difference with this asinine policy though.
]]>yeah! cause apple is totally behind the at&t policy!! boo apple! too restrictive!
]]>It's AT&T's loss and it's too bad.
Maybe threaten to buy a jailbroken iPhone and use it on T-Mobile's service. :)
]]>I get that you're paying an ETF and all that, but if you cancel that number, would you still have to pay the ETF?
Seriously, if you want another Iphone that bad, just cancel the number and get a new one instead of whining about it.
]]>This is why I won't ever buy one. Can you imagine going to a car dealer and them saying "Don't ever paint it red, or you'll be in trouble!" Really people rent I phones. They don't own them.
]]>@Skaperen: they dont disable phones thru IMEI ...
]]>Hunt down the jailbreakers on Ebay, not in your loyal customers who are actually willing to shop at an AT&T store.
]]>That didn't sound like a real manager, with any decision making authority, either.
Yup, we need another law.
]]>Considering that you're buying a phone for full price, it shouldn't matter what you do with your phone...as long as Apple gets their money for it. I love my MacBook and iPod, but I'll probably never buy an Apple product again (at the VERY least I am NEVER buying an iPhone) seeing how they treat their customers.
]]>P.S. cute kitty!!
]]>Aka, they're looking for people that are buying the phones, jailbreaking and unlocking them, and then selling them on eBay.
]]>