Sad to say... i have become a casualty of this practice. Lured to sending in my paid for iphone 6S 64 for a 7. Promised a 450 gift card by ATT. ATT renigs i want to leave.. pay off 900 phone... guess what? I can go to TMobile...which is like saying do not leave a metro if u want service.
Needless to say... i think Apple just lost my phone business.
I had no idea this was in play. My fault i suppose. Thats what Apple reps said... " all that info is detailed on our website"
Bad business!
I can understand how you would be upset. With the 6s the AT&T version was the same as the SIM-free version and worked on all US carriers. The AT&T version of the 6 worked on Verizon as well. Unfortunately Apple changed this practice with the 7. Generally speaking with past iPhones it's best to buy the Verizon version or the SIM-free version.
Also, when was the last time you've tried T-Mobile? I've heard they've improved a lot.
That's too bad when you checked with Apple employees they told you information was on the Apple website. While they aren't incorrect, Apple definitely took a step back here as previous versions supported more carriers. If only Verizon and Sprint would get rid of their CDMA fallback networks then we wouldn't have the issue of different models.