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Don't Kill the Messenger

M

MacDryCleaner

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 3, 2007
191
0
I just had a very lengthy conversation with my sales rep (and the Cingular/ATT store manager). He was at a sales meeting this morning and they made it VERY cleaer (his words) that if you are not eligible for an upgrade (i.e. you just became a new customer in the past 6 months) you MAY NOT buy an iphone without buying an entirely new number!!!!

I very carefully explained that this will drive customers away like crazy and he said that was well know to TPTB at Cingular but nevertheless, if you are not eligible for an upgrade, no iphone for you.

Take it to the bank (his words, not mine again).

Often times, on this forum people want to pounce and say things like: liar, trouble maker, B.S. ... all I can say is I have no motive to lie about this and he was a store manager telling me that he got this directly this morning. I'm one of the people who switched to Cingular two months ago so I could get an iPhone and this screws me big time.

I'm just the messenger.
 
while i think the goal is to try to switch as many people to at&t as possible, i think the majority of the iphone-buying populace will still be current at&t customers. requiring them to be eligible for an upgrade will make a lot of people upset, and it wouldn't make any sense.
 
Yeah...odds are, at this point, the person you spoke with either a) doesn't know, b) can't say, c) wants to make sure his friends all get iPhones or d) hates large crowds and is trying to scare people away on opening night.
 
I know, I know

I agree with everything that all of you have said. This would be a customer killer and it just doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, he is, after all a Cingular Store Manager and said he was in a 90 minute meeting this morning and this was the gist of what he was told.

In response to the other questions regarding MMS and so forth, I did ask him about it and he will have those details after a meeting on the morning of the 21st.

I think he knows his stuff .... but like all of you, I hope he is wrong.
 
Well, if for some ungodly reason that turns out to be true, I hate the bb pearl i have now so I can always "accidentally" run it over with the car, after I remove the SIM card of course. What are they going to say, you can have any phone you want expect the iphone? Since the BB isn't insured I have to pay full price anyway. I just don't see it being true, I think the manager is feeding you a line of bull. Power trip or something, maybe just sick and tired of being asked about the iPhone.
 
I'd have to agree with the majority of people that it's not good business to exclude current customers.

However, the most recent survey that I've seen on people planning on buying an iPhone shows that the majority are T-Mobile customers, not AT&T. So they won't be excluding the largest group...

Here's the link:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/top/top-8-indicators-that-youll-line-up-for-an-iphone-266786.php

I'll definitely be one of the switchers, though I really wish they would have gone with T-Mobile, as I've had horrible experiences with AT&T in the past!
 
applehero said:
Well, if for some ungodly reason that turns out to be true, I hate the bb pearl i have now so I can always "accidentally" run it over with the car, after I remove the SIM card of course. What are they going to say, you can have any phone you want expect the iphone? Since the BB isn't insured I have to pay full price anyway. I just don't see it being true, I think the manager is feeding you a line of bull. Power trip or something, maybe just sick and tired of being asked about the iPhone.
Click to expand...

This is true, how many broken phones do you think they are going to have reported?

If they don't have a subsidy, there is NO way for them to enforce this.
 
reps at AT&T know less then apple reps- and apple rep knows very little.
The ad aired, and the next day at 6pm the AT&T manager said they just found out an hour ago about the 29th! Thats like 30 hours late! And thats just a bloody date! take what they say with a grain of saltttttt.

:apple:pwr
 
MacDryCleaner said:
I agree with everything that all of you have said. This would be a customer killer and it just doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, he is, after all a Cingular Store Manager and said he was in a 90 minute meeting this morning and this was the gist of what he was told.

In response to the other questions regarding MMS and so forth, I did ask him about it and he will have those details after a meeting on the morning of the 21st.

I think he knows his stuff .... but like all of you, I hope he is wrong.
Click to expand...

He can't know...like this information is public knowledge yet...few people at AT&T or Apple know whats going on. Each time I go in there, I ask, and the Reps say "We don't know"


Heck on women in the store said the Apple store wouldn't be getting them for a month after them(the AT&T store) and told a couple they would be opening at 6AM. All of this is crap, even the guy I was working with even said it was the 6PM release.

However she did mention activtion over iTunes software, but that was a personal guess.
 
MacDryCleaner said:
I just had a very lengthy conversation with my sales rep (and the Cingular/ATT store manager). He was at a sales meeting this morning and they made it VERY cleaer (his words) that if you are not eligible for an upgrade (i.e. you just became a new customer in the past 6 months) you MAY NOT buy an iphone without buying an entirely new number!!!!
Click to expand...

Based on my experience with Cingular since they purchased AT&T Wireless I would say that the rep is probably correct except for one thing, yo can get any phone with your current number even if you started your contract yesterday. You'll just have to pay a $175 cancellation fee and buy the iPhone at full price ( Not that it's subsidized anyway) and get a new contract. I've done this with Cingular before when I had a Razr and wanted a blackberry to have the Razr number.
 
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