Beware: iPhone 11 Pro Shipped as Empty Box

Ordered an iPhone 11 Pro on launch day and it shipped on 9/20. It supposedly arrived 9/21 — but when I opened the box, nothing was inside. Literally an empty box with a bill for the new phone. The FedEx receipt said the box was 2 pounds. It was clearly not. Maybe someone at AT&T is stealing new iPhones and slapping the right labels on anyway.

Customer service was awful after that. To cancel the order I was told to submit a claim to my bank. That or wait up to two weeks for a reorder. The "expedited" process to just stop the order takes at least three days. Throughout the process, even when I spoke with the customer loyalty department, AT&T refused to take responsibility for sending me an empty box. A much better — and more modern — company would figure out a way to let me pick up a new phone and trade in my current device at the hundreds of AT&T or Apple stores in NYC. Or simply express-deliver a new one.

I now have to wait several days for my account to refresh before I can even pay off the contract on AT&T Next. 

I've been a customer for 15 years. Why would AT&T treat its longtime customers this way when we have so many other options? Why are its systems still so sluggish and user-unfriendly?

When I ordered my previous phone two years ago, AT&T shipped it with the wrong account holder's name on the address. It was delivered to my apartment when I wasn't home, but then I was unable to pick it up at FedEx because it had the wrong name. The cheery AT&T chat drones kept feeding me the wrong information about when and how I could pick it up from FedEx. Finally, after I threatened to leave, the company comped me a cab ride.

Anyway, this is all to say: Do not order a new device on AT&T. Use Apple instead. Apple's trade-in and financing plan is far more seamless.