Stuck in the middle ground...no actual customer help at all...

[RiderKick]

I have been a fan of AT&T since the merger with Cingular happened some years ago. I never had any problems at all. Even my first smart phone was problem free. My family is huge so we take full advantage of the family plan and since about half of us are away at college, calling each other is easy. Just last Wednesday, my family and I went in to upgrade/renew our contract since it was up. We got 3 brand new iphones for that 0.99 price each they had going. We went home and opened the new smart phones and my brothers and I got right into getting some online games that we could play together. After a while my wifi lost it's signal and tried to reconnect. I had to reset the network settings to get it back. Though this happened a few more times and I had to it reset again. Ironically, my brothers never had to do that. I just thought it was a problem with our wifi, but this happened at a McDonalds, Target, friend's house, and the neighbor's. I knew something had to be wrong so I went back to the AT&T store to see what they could do. They told me I had to get it diagnosed at an Apple store since their policy just changed on 1/1/2013 to Apple stores handling fixes, problems, and exchanges with anything Apple related. I understood that and went to the local Apple store. I waited half an hour, told the tech my problem, and handed over the phone. Couple of minutes later he came back with despairing news. Apparently my phone was missing screws on the inside, a cowl plate, and a serial number plate. Also the back of my phone was an off market part according to him. Since it had no serial number and an OM part, it wasn't considered an Apple product, so they could not do anything with it at all. I called the AT&T store right away and told them what I was just told and they said I had to come back with a list and some verification that this was a legitimate Apple store that I got my phone diagnosed at. I got the card of the manager and the testament of the tech with the list and came back to the AT&T store. I had to tell the same story again now to the manager at the AT&T store and hand over the info/testament that I had. He contacted the Apple store in the backroom and came back out to say he could not do anything with that phone either since it not being a legal Apple product, he could not take it back into inventory or what not. Bottom line I could not exchange/refund it in any way since this phone wasn't the product they gave to me according to them. IT HAS ONLY BEEN 5 DAYS since I initially got the phone from that store!!! Isn't there a 14 day window period to return anything no matter what? I have not even removed the initial plastic slips on the iphone since I didn't want to get fingerprints on the screen. I have been given a product from a store that I thought I could trust. Now I just feel disappointment and wasted a full 3.5 hours of my day going back and forth hoping for some answers or actual help...

[jamileh]

This is definitely an odd occurrence. 

Where did you purchase the phones from?

[RiderKick]

All three phones were purchased from the same cooperate AT&T store. 2 on the same day and 1 the next.

[jamileh]

Okay, will you please send a private message to ATTCustomerCare with your name, account number, email address, phone number and the best time to contact you?

Please include the location of the store (the address) as well as any other information you think would be helpful.  




To send a private message, you can either click on the link in this message or click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type ATTCustomerCare in the "Send To" field.

[RiderKick]

Do I have to explain my whole story again?

[RiderKick]

So now I found out the manager is accusing me of tampering with the phone...

[jamileh]

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RiderKick wrote:

Do I have to explain my whole story again?

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They can read what you've written here as well as see any notes on the account. 

[RiderKick]

After talking with customer care over the phone, apparently cooperate cannot do anything since this should be a store only issue, but shouldn't their authority be above a store's? Also when is it right for a store to accuse a loyal customer when I was trying to find a solution fix for my phone I got from that exact store.

[jamileh]

Please give the ATTCustomerCare folks a chance to reply to your message and call you. 

I know you're frustrated but this needs some detailed research to resolve. 

[ATTCustomerCare]

Hi! I just sent you a private message in regards to your concerns. Thanks. ^CathyW