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16 Messages
Only buy from Sam's Club AT&T - here's why
I currently work as an authorized dealer for AT&T in Sam's Club and am making this thread because of all the misinformation surrounding the Sam's Club program and wanted to educate potential buyers with accurate information and highlight the benefits you get when going with Sam's as opposed to your normal AT&T retail store. I work at the Palmdale, California club. My name is Matt N. - say hi if you see me :)
*Disclosure: promos might differ depending on when you read this. Time of writing is 09/23/2021
What type of customer should buy from Sam's AT&T?
Anyone who is NOT already an AT&T or Cricket customer. Why? Because of the port-in promo. As of now, there is a 25 month promo for porting your existing number from Verizon, T-Mobile, ect. over to AT&T. Here's how it works.
Each line you port over from a competitive carrier receives $250 in bill credits OR $10 off AT&T corporate pricing for each line for 25 months. After 25 months it goes up to the original $140 you would've been paying anyways.
Example: Four lines of unlimited talk, text, and data (starter plan) is normally $140. When you buy in Sam's however, it's ONLY $100 for 25 months. That's a total of $1,000 in savings ($250 × 4). You don't get that deal at your corporate AT&T store.
Reason # 2
Each $30 activation fee per line gets waived. In the example of 4 lines, that's an additional $120 in savings.
Reason # 3
You get the EXACT phone you want. So many times when I wanted a new phone, I was at the mercy of the stores available inventory. Sometimes they had the phone but not the color I wanted. Or, they had the phone and color but not the storage I needed. Who wants to make a dozen calls and drive all over the city to get a phone. I'm not buying a car!!! With Sam's, you pick the exact phone you want and it gets shipped to your home within 1-2 days. Think of it as Amazon Prime for your phone. If you're a little patient, you don't have to compromise.
Reason #4
You get to stack promos. Currently, AT&T is giving $1,000 in bill credits when you trade-in a iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11 or newer towards an iPhone 13 Pro & Pro Max. If you trade iPhone 11 and get $1,000 in bill credits and purchase a iPhone 13 Pro 128GB which is $1,000, it becomes free.
Example: If you're a family of 4 and all have an iPhone XS Max or newer, you can get 4 new iPhone 13 Pro's 128GB and unlimited text, talk, and data for $100 (+tax & fees add $10) because you're stacking both Sam's port-in promo with AT&T trade-in promo!!! Yes, you read that right! Four lines of unlimited talk, text, and data with four iPhone 13 Pro's 128GB included for ONLY $100 + tax & fees (so about $110ish give or take all-in).
So why the misinformation and what should you REALLY expect?
All promotional credits can take 2 to 3 billing cycles to appear and this is where customers get confused or are flat out upset because their salesperson did not properly educate them on the process.
So if you're expecting to pay $100 for 4 lines of unlimited talk, text, and data with 4 new iPhone 13 Pro's on your first bill, you're in for a rude awakening.
Allow me to explain:
Your first bill is going to be typical AT&T corporate pricing, NOT the Sam's Club price you were quoted in the store.
That means you will see $140 for unlimited service instead of $100. You will also see $27.77 for each iPhone 13 Pro ($999.99 / 36 = $27.77) on the first bill as well. So far, we are at $251. Then you need to add $30 activation fee per line so 30 × 4 = $120... add that to the total and we are at $371. Also, there could be prorated charges of service depending on when you bought the phones and when your billing cycle starts. I've seen bills $400-500. That's the first bill.
Second bill: You'll see a credit of $30 per line credited back to you for the activation fee being waived that was charged on the first bill. You should also see a credit of +$10 per line credited to you (this is the port-in promo credit) but it could also appear on the third bill.
Third bill: You will see the credit of +$27.77 per line for the iPhone 11 trade-ins making the iPhone 13 Pro essentially free.
Fourth bill: You will be reimbursed for any over charges from Sam's Discount to retail pricing that you paid on the first/ second bill. Your bill might be $-36 for example because AT&T owes you for charging you regular price.
Who this is not for:
If you can financially afford the high up-front cost of admission so you can benefit from the long term savings, then this is for you.
However, if you are living check to check and cannot afford the initial cost of entry OR are expecting the quote you received in the store to appear on your first bill, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU!
If you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask!
Constructive
Former Employee
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31.5K Messages
2 years ago
Why would that be?
because thats the way the trade in works im sure @lizdance40 can explain it better
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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107.5K Messages
2 years ago
@A12CPA
This is not part of the trade-in deal. Either it is a discount on your phone for signing up through Sam's Club, or it is a BYOD credit for bringing your own phone when you ported your phone number to AT&T.
Any time you upgrade early, or cancel a line, you owe the full accelerated balance on the phone. ( it's no different than if you sell your house or your car. If you haven't paid off the mortgage or the loan, you still have to pay that off in order to zero out your loan)
Read your bill. Your bill should tell you how much your total loan was when you purchased your phone. It will also show how many payments you have made and how many credits AT&T has made against the full original purchase price.
Anything that is left over when you upgrade is money that you owe.
If you upgrade before you have paid your previous phone off 100%, you are not eligible for the current trade-in to upgrade deal. You cannot trade in a phone you do not own 100%.
If you traded in your phone through this trade in credit offer that is currently on AT&T sales page and advertised at Sam's Club, please pay off the phone that you have traded in or AT&T will void the trade-in deal.
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A12CPA
New Member
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13 Messages
2 years ago
One more time and I will drop. I agree that I should owe the remaking 20 payments for the IPhone 12. Just like the house situation you mentioned. However, what I don’t understand is that they took my old phone and have credited me 10 times but still owe me the remaining 20 credits. If you netted the remaining payments due for the IPhone 12 and offset that with the remaing 20 credits they owe me for the value of my old phone it would net out to $200. Which is what I believe is owed.
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sandblaster
ACE - Expert
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64K Messages
2 years ago
@A12CPA Please don’t hijack someone else’s thread. You started your own thread here:
https://forums.att.com/conversations/wireless-billing/understanding-trade-in-payoff/614e22562091224058c2a6e2
Please get your answer there.
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Khasler
New Member
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1 Message
1 year ago
Our sleazy Sams Club representative that lied to us said that after three months our phones would be free and clear after our trade ins were approved. I SPECIFICALLY asked her if it was like most places where you had to pay it off over installments and she said “no the phone is yours after three months and you can even leave AT&T and move that phone to someone else.”
All the other things people have complained about are all true. The much larger bills than they claimed, the horrible customer service to rectify it etc… just awful and I feel stuck.
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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107.5K Messages
1 year ago
@Khasler
Cost of plans is as published on att.com. Check the prices and make sure you are signed up for auto-pay and paperless billing as required for those prices.
People at Sam's Club seem to be very inconsistent about providing the correct information. Information which should be on the paperwork agreement that you signed.
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Sharp7937
New Member
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1 Message
1 year ago
I was not told this up-front by sales members and just pushed through the signing of contract. Was also told unlimited everything. I now see data is being measured and a note that says data will be slowed down. I would not have done this if I would have read this poast prior. Thank you for posting this. Good for you for disclosing this to your customers prior.
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formerlyknownas
ACE - Sage
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107.5K Messages
1 year ago
@Sharp7937
When you're signing up with Sam's you were signing up in person and there is paperwork in front of you that you should be reading. That paperwork explains how everything works. It explains the 36-month installment commitment, how the trade-in works, and the limits of unlimited data.
As of now there is no truly unlimited everything plan from any carrier. However AT&T unlimited Elite is probably the most generous unlimited plan. The phone itself has no limits whatsoever on its data usage you can use a full terabyte, I don't know how I've never managed to use more than two hundred gigs on a tablet.
Hotspot usage is limited to 40 gigs.
Any service provider that says its data never slows down ever is lying to you.
Cellular data is a shared resource. No matter how few or how many people you are sharing with you still are limited to whatever the networks bandwidth is oh, and the number of people that are using that bandwidth at any particular time.
This is not throttling. Throttling means at some point during the month your data is purposely deprioritized when you reach a certain level. Some of the older plans do you deprioritize your data when you reach a certain number of gigabytes. The elite plan never does that.
(edited)
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Hdworkman
New Member
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5 Messages
1 year ago
My husband and I did this promo for our family plan of 7 lines. We received our phones in the mail yesterday. I can’t even get onto my account on att.com. Says suspended or inactive. So therefor I can’t activate any of our phones so we are still using T-Mobile. Att representative said I have no plans saved on the account so all they can do is give me standard pricing. They can’t honor what sams club promised because the man didn’t save any of the plans we talked about and I signed for.
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OttoPylot
ACE - Expert
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20.7K Messages
1 year ago
@Hdworkman This is an older thread that you have posted to. I would keep to your other post to make it easier to respond to you and follow the replies. It also makes it easier for other to search who are in a similar situation.
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