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Boy do I ever have an iPhone Story for you all....

aleksivic

aleksivic

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 23, 2006
33
3
New York, NY
We rocked up at noon at the downtown Cleveland AT&T store (ERIEVIEW PLAZA) being 8th and 9th in Line and was having a great time socializing with the other queuers. As the golden hour approached, there was about 60-70 of us in line.

At 5:55pm, A NBA Player by the name of IRA Newbie (no joke google him) appeared with 3 bodyguards and the AT&T employees just let him in. He came out with two bags of filled iPhones (there was at least 4-6 total)!! All of us were totally pissed off!!

Well when it was out turn, the AT&T employee tried to give us the bs spiel of going through credit check and getting the pre-credit activation code. As she finished her last question she told us that no more 8gb were left and basically these were the last two 4gb models! It would be another 2-3 days to get more shipments in which was a joke!! I said more like 4-6 weeks!!

Well when we got home, our Activation was a big nightmare. We neither got rejected or accepted. Just an email 1hr later saying please call AT&T.

This frustrated me to the extreme... after reading up everybody else's heartache, one thing striked out on me. There was an option to go on a prepaid plan which I wanted to do in the first place!@#$*(#$*

So I deliberately filed out zero's in the SSN and pre-credit check fields while singing up to a '2yr contract' which obviously failed. This gave me the option to choose a prepaid plan with unlimited data!!

So what have we learnt?

1) AT&T staff neglected their corporate policies of giving preferential treatment. Letting somebody in before 6pm and buying at least more than 4 iPhones.

2) The activation process is designed to hide the option to let consumers go on a prepaid plan

3) AT&T have completely made my experience of purchasing and setting up an Apple product for the first time extremely PAINFUL!!!!!!!!
 
Well OF COURSE they want to lock you into a plan that would allow you to somehow go over and be charged for it rather than a pre paid spending limit.
 
Funny how most people's complaints are with AT&T and not Apple. Stupid cellular carriers, they always screw things up.

Apple Cellular anyone? :p
 
Sbrocket said:
Funny how most people's complaints are with AT&T and not Apple. Stupid cellular carriers, they always screw things up.

Apple Cellular anyone? :p
Click to expand...
In the words of Joe Peschi in Lethal Weapon 4....The **** you with the cell phone!
 
Why is everyone ignoring the most annoying fact? A douchebag NBA player walks in and comes out with bags full (of 8GB no doubt) and everyone else gets the screw job. Go to the local media with this story, as it's a bunch of BS that anyone get preferential treatment like this, let alone so blatant. AT&T should fire this manager by tomorrow.
 
I decided to go to an Apple store as I didn't feel like an AT&T employee would have the same heart in the matter. We had Apple employees sitting with some of us am laughing with us and taking pictures. They were really enjoying the whole thing. Some one who sells contracts all day just doesn't seem to me to be one all to up on the whole thing, or maybe their just bitter that ALL full time Apple employees get a free 8G iPhone by the end on July.
 
aleksivic said:
We rocked up at noon at the downtown Cleveland AT&T store being 8th and 9th in Line and was having a great time socializing with the other queuers. As the golden hour approached, there was about 60-70 of us in line.

At 5:55pm, A NBA Player by the name of IRA Newbie (no joke google him) appeared with 3 bodyguards and the AT&T employees just let him in. He came out with two bags of filled iPhones (there was at least 4-6 total)!! All of us were totally pissed off!!

Well when it was out turn, the AT&T employee tried to give us the bs spiel of going through credit check and getting the pre-credit activation code. As she finished her last question she told us that no more 8gb were left and basically these were the last two 4gb models! It would be another 2-3 days to get more shipments in which was a joke!! I said more like 4-6 weeks!!

Well when we got home, our Activation was a big nightmare. We neither got rejected or accepted. Just an email 1hr later saying please call AT&T.

This frustrated me to the extreme... after reading up everybody else's heartache, one thing striked out on me. There was an option to go on a prepaid plan which I wanted to do in the first place!@#$*(#$*

So I deliberately filed out zero's in the SSN and pre-credit check fields while singing up to a '2yr contract' which obviously failed. This gave me the option to choose a prepaid plan with unlimited data!!

So what have we learnt?

1) AT&T staff neglected their corporate policies of giving preferential treatment. Letting somebody in before 6pm and buying at least more than 4 iPhones.

2) The activation process is designed to hide the option to let consumers go on a prepaid plan

3) AT&T have completely made my experience of purchasing and setting up an Apple product for the first time extremely PAINFUL!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Hey! So wait a minute! Does this mean that if I get the iPhone tomorrow, go to activate it online and then fill out the online activation information but put down 000-00-0000 as my SSN, that would report back that I can have a pre-paid option? I didn't think that was possible with the iPhone?

What are the Pre-paid costs? Just 20$ of unlimited data /month + $36 act. fee + $45 voice credit just to start? Is there some deposit you have to put down online?

Please elaborate as this interests me greatly, as I'm sure alot of other as well :p !
 
spimp31 said:
Why is everyone ignoring the most annoying fact? A douchebag NBA player walks in and comes out with bags full (of 8GB no doubt) and everyone else gets the screw job. Go to the local media with this story, as it's a bunch of BS that anyone get preferential treatment like this, let alone so blatant. AT&T should fire this manager by tomorrow.
Click to expand...


The whole "bad sports player" revolution is dead. Thats why. Its pointless to argue about someone who has millions, and "perks" to go with those millions, to a group of people who already have been over the topic hundreds of times.

Yeah he was a jerk. So what?:confused:
 
If this NBA guy had three body guards that means they were with four people. At two iPhones each they were entitled to eight phones in total.
 
Morris said:
If this NBA guy had three body guards that means they were with four people. At two iPhones each they were entitled to eight phones in total.
Click to expand...

That's all fine and good, but I believe judging by the OP's comments, they skipped line, thus causing those who had waited to get knocked out of the 8 gig models.
 
AlexGFX88 said:
That's all fine and good, but I believe judging by the OP's comments, they skipped line, thus causing those who had waited to get knocked out of the 8 gig models.
Click to expand...

The 6-8 eight gig models that this guy got would have satisfied 6-8 more people. The rest would still be complaining.
 
iPhonePhan said:
Hey! So wait a minute! Does this mean that if I get the iPhone tomorrow, go to activate it online and then fill out the online activation information but put down 000-00-0000 as my SSN, that would report back that I can have a pre-paid option? I didn't think that was possible with the iPhone?

What are the Pre-paid costs? Just 20$ of unlimited data /month + $36 act. fee + $45 voice credit just to start? Is there some deposit you have to put down online?

Please elaborate as this interests me greatly, as I'm sure alot of other as well :p !
Click to expand...

I just used 000-00-0000 as an example, use any combination to just meet the form validation criteria =)

All you want to do is to get onto the option to sign up for a goPhone plan.
 
aleksivic said:
I just used 000-00-0000 as an example, use any combination to just meet the form validation criteria =)

All you want to do is to get onto the option to sign up for a goPhone plan.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on this. This is what I was looking for w/o having to sign up for a contract or have a credit check done on my account.

What Go Phone plan did you go with? Pay as you Go or Pick Your Plan?
 
It's amazing how rich and famous people get special treatment and DEMAND special treatment. My buddy ran a movie theater near Detroit and he used to get athletes coming in and asking for free tickets and food. They were making millions of dollars yet wanted a comped movie ticket.
 
davede70 said:
It's amazing how rich and famous people get special treatment and DEMAND special treatment. My buddy ran a movie theater near Detroit and he used to get athletes coming in and asking for free tickets and food. They were making millions of dollars yet wanted a comped movie ticket.
Click to expand...

I hope he didn't give it to them! Stupid famous people!
 
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