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bidwalj

macrumors 65816
Feb 16, 2007
1,056
136
Do you guys think att played favorites with certain customers. Not only did I order Sunday night, I got 2 day FedEx shipping that I didn't pay for. I been a customer for a while though with 3 services. People that ordered Friday have no movement seems weird.
 

saltd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2010
760
371
According to the prolonged conversation that I just had with an AT&T rep, the cancellations are happening because their warehouse address is acting as the shipping address, which obviously is not matching the home shipping address. This discrepancy is throwing a flag, and so the order is canceled. A glitch in their system, and not any fault of mine.

She talked to the warehouse distribution center on my behalf, and they confirmed that they have no more stock available for shipping at this time.
 
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NM08SRT8

macrumors 6502a
Jan 18, 2010
985
324
Earf
I understand that. I used a checking account which does actually pull and hold the available funds from the balance, putting it dangerously close to overdraft territory in my case.

It's a temporary hold of funds. Mine did it and released them after 2 days.

Most of us don't buy things if we don't have funds to support the purchase.
 

saltd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2010
760
371
Do you guys think att played favorites with certain customers. Not only did I order Sunday night, I got 2 day FedEx shipping that I didn't pay for. I been a customer for a while though with 3 services. People that ordered Friday have no movement seems weird.
No, I don't think it was anything as organized as that. Just a glitchy system on their end.
 

saltd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2010
760
371
It's a temporary hold of funds. Mine did it and released them after 2 days.

Most of us don't buy things if we don't have funds to support the purchase.
A temporary hold is means that those funds are being "held", i.e. "tied up". That's what I stated initially.

If I didn't have the funds to make the purchase, then they wouldn't have been able to authorize it from a checking account in the first place-so I'm not really sure what you're driving at with that comment.

I have a number of accounts-this one in particular is earmarked for frivolous purchases such as these.
 
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Silentman73

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2017
21
10
Do you see any updates with your USPS tracking number? Mine has had no info/updates since I got the email last night.
I've seen movement on my USPS tracking number, yes. I got the tracking number yesterday (the 6th, Monday) at around 11:00 in the morning my time. It wasn't in USPS' system the whole day. This morning I checked, and it's showing as having left a distribution center in North Texas this morning, about 6:00am my time (which would be around 8:00am Texas time, since I'm on the west coast). It was sent Priority Mail, which means it's likely to be in my mailbox either Wednesday or Thursday.
[doublepost=1486494334][/doublepost]
No it still said 'in progress' so I chatted with a rep and they told me it was backordered
If your order status w/ AT&T is currently showing "In Progress", it seems one of 3 things is going to happen:

1) It will change to "Preparing for Shipment" if they have stock allocated for your order, or
2) It will change to "Canceled" if they "couldn't verify your identity" (I've seen reports of that on this thread), or
3) It will change to "Back Ordered" if they intend on keeping your order and shipping when new stock comes in.

I've discovered, having dealt with reps from this past Friday & Saturday, that if you speak to 4 different reps, you're often going to get 4 different answers. That's really frustrating to me in particular, because I used to work for them when they were AT&T Wireless, all the way up to the Cingular merger. I remember when the Motorola Razr came out, and they wouldn't let people put phone insurance on it because it was too expensive of a phone. Smartphones were, for the most part, not really a thing aside from a couple of really high-end Nokia phones that almost no one had. Blackberries filled that niche at the time.

The frustration came from the realization that it was drilled into us that we needed to really insure we were giving consistent information to customers. "Rep shopping" (calling back repeatedly until you got a CSR who'd give you what you wanted; this was why we always had to put notes on an account after a call, which any other rep who got called should have been checking if the customer called again) was discouraged; the notes on the account helped insure a consistent company response to the customer. I hope they still do that; I don't know for sure if they do. I left the company about 2-3 months after the Cingular merger.

If your order gets canceled, they'll immediately refund your money (which, unlike Apple & Best Buy, they immediately charge your card for; Apple & BB wait til your order moves before charging your account). If it moves to Backordered, I recommend contact AT&T for a refund, which will take 2-3 business days (if they try to tell you it'll take longer, politely escalate the call until you get what you want; they all have the ability to immediately initiate the refund, then it just becomes a matter of their bank sending the money back to yours; I note this because I left 24 Hour Fitness at one point and they tried to tell me I'd get my refund in 30 days; it took outing them on social media before a manager contacted me and told me it'd be 2-3 business days til I saw my refund, which was more sensible), and once you have that money back, do these things:

1) Place an order with Apple. You're likely to see an estimated shipping date of mid-March, but it won't matter, because they won't charge you until they prepare you for shipping, and

2) Sign up for online stock alerts that watch for stores in your area getting stock. If a store gets stock before your online order is filled, go immediately to that store and get your Airpods, then cancel your Apple order.

If you wind up getting double-charged (the Apple order hits just as you're purchasing your in-person item), take heart: you'll almost definitely be able to sell them on Ebay for around $200.
 

Sneakerp

macrumors regular
Oct 10, 2012
125
35
I have over $100 in BestBuy gift cards. I need these to be available for in-store pickup asap.

I also have $100 amazon gift card, but won't pay resale.

Here's to hoping all retailers get a nice stock of these soon.
 

Silentman73

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2017
21
10
I have over $100 in BestBuy gift cards. I need these to be available for in-store pickup asap.

I also have $100 amazon gift card, but won't pay resale.

Here's to hoping all retailers get a nice stock of these soon.
This whole thing, in conjunction with difficulty at release in filling orders for the iPhone 7 and the new MacBook, is showing me Apple either has serious problems with their procurement pipeline, or they're intentionally underordering stock at release to keep demand high, which is good for their bottom line, but not good for customers.

To me, I would think it'd make more sense to manufacture enough to at least stock stores for about 2 weeks at release, then start dialing in ongoing manufacturing based on daily sales reporting trends from the first week.

It's insane that people are having to resort to third-party stock alerts & rabid scrambling once the tiniest amount of new stock shows up to try to get a set.
 
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Helloimjacob

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2017
21
6
This whole thing, in conjunction with difficulty at release in filling orders for the iPhone 7 and the new MacBook, is showing me Apple either has serious problems with their procurement pipeline, or they're intentionally underordering stock at release to keep demand high, which is good for their bottom line, but not good for customers.

To me, I would think it'd make more sense to manufacture enough to at least stock stores for about 2 weeks at release, then start dialing in ongoing manufacturing based on daily sales reporting trends from the first week.

It's insane that people are having to resort to third-party stock alerts & rabid scrambling once the tiniest amount of new stock shows up to try to get a set.

I agree. You'd think Apple would've anticipated the demand for all these products
 

Cool6324

macrumors member
Sep 18, 2007
62
7
Raleigh, NC
With all the latest waves (even deb got some :p), are you all stuffed ? Still chasing ?

I'm confident I won't see any airpods in February. My AT&T order is backordered (2:15PM EST on 2/3). The same thing happened with my order from Verizon(last time they had stock). I can't seem to get lucky.
 

deb90

macrumors member
Apr 10, 2015
77
21
Siena, Italy
With all the latest waves (even deb got some :p), are you all stuffed ? Still chasing ?

ce1e90201b8e6880fa4a3a203f72e619.jpg

That's LOVE
 

billycuth

macrumors 6502a
Jul 31, 2010
754
75
With all the latest waves (even deb got some :p), are you all stuffed ? Still chasing ?
Ordered 1/5 through Apple.com and I am patiently waiting. Too far from a store to try a walk in, and not interested in getting them from a 3rd party.
 

CarolG

macrumors 6502a
Sep 14, 2013
893
1,319
Northern California
With all the latest waves (even deb got some :p), are you all stuffed ? Still chasing ?
Ordered 1/1/17 from Apple App. Says 2/22 delivery. Hope to see movement this week with next week delivery, optimistically. Ordered from AT&T on Friday and got cancellation notice yesterday. Depending on Apple to come through soon. I check iStockNow all day long, too. Thanks!
 

saltd

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2010
760
371
Definitely still chasing, the AT&T debacle left me a little grumpy but I'm getting over it . Mistakes were made.
 

Silentman73

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2017
21
10
Definitely still chasing, the AT&T debacle left me a little grumpy but I'm getting over it . Mistakes were made.
"I did not listen to music on those earbuds." Sorry, had to throw in the political joke. ;)

AT&T seems to have a strange way of handling their orders; this is the first time I've ever ordered anything from them, even though I've been one of their wireless customers for 12 or 13 years at this point. It sounds like there are people who ordered before me and paid for expedited shipping, but got confirmation of their order shipping out a day after I got my confirmation (which was yesterday). I can't quite put a finger on how they're working out their orders; I'd think it's "first come, first served", and would be something along the lines of, "Okay, this set of people ordered on this day. The priority shipping people get theirs first, then the regular shipping people get theirs." You fill orders for every person who placed an order when your website showed stock, and fill it in that priority, and if you run out of available stock, then the people who ordered after the last order you fulfilled get put into backordered status.

I don't think I'm going to order from AT&T again either way, but it's mostly because their customer service seems unable to give unified messaging either way. That concerns me more than maybe having to wait a couple more weeks for my product (though I'm glad I don't; mine are indicating they'll be arriving tomorrow, which means I'll have them in my mailbox when I get home from work tomorrow afternoon).
 
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