Stuck with the Consequences of Being Lied to, of Naively Trusting the Lies Told to Me by Multiple AT&T Representatives

It’s a long story but I’ll try to make it as brief as I can. The essential facts are:

1. I had and still have a 12 pro max. This phone, which I fully paid for (with a discount) at the time of purchase, I bought through my employer in October 2021. As part of receiving a special discounted price, you sign up for a 2 year service agreement.

2.My girlfriend (non-ATT customer) had and still has an 11 pro max.

3. On February 5th an AT&T representative told me in no uncertain terms, that I could upgrade to a 14 pro max using gf’s 11. Girlfriend could then transfer the 12 to her carrier, and then I would get the 14 along with the 36 month contract. This sounded too good to be true so we asked for confirmation about the

“transferring” of my 12 to non-ATT gf, explicitly mentioning and asking about the service agreement through my work in exchange for the discount when I bought it. He said extremely certainly, there will be no difficulty transferring the iphone12 to a non-ATT carrier. He explained, the 2 year service agreement was specifically for the service, for the account (“True”-ish, but it means the same as if it were false). He said I could use any phone for the service (actually true). If the phone is paid off then all we’d have to do -according to AT&T representative- is bring the phone to her carrier (false) and they would unlock it (false) for free (false).

4. 14 ProMax was delivered to me 2/8/23, at which time I restored my 12 in the 14, erased 12. GF Restored 11 in the 12, but we got an incompatible sim error when she popped in her SIM. The notice in the phone said to contact carrier to get it unlocked, and because the AT&T rep had mentioned this would happen, at this point we think everything is going according to plan. So over the next 2 days, she attempts to have her carrier unlock the device, who eventually charges her $65 to do it, and when they say it’s complete we check and of course it is still locked. She calls again and is told the unlock has to be done by previous carrier.

And here begins AT&T dragging their feet for 2 weeks, making sure that I am financially responsible for and personally stuck with the consequences of trusting what several of their employees  told me. They had already lied to me at this point, and they will continue to do so repeatedly for the next 2 weeks.

The first AT&T rep I speak to after receiving the device tells me that not AT&T (false), not any carrier for that matter (false), but only Apple can unlock devices (false), and he purportedly opened a request with Apple on my behalf (false) and told me that Apple would contact me in the coming days (false). I ask him if he has any idea how long it may take, if he has heard back from customers about how long it’s taken and he said he’s heard from customers that apple has resolved it in 2 to 3 business days, but could take up to 5 business days (totally false—Apple has never done that a single time, and no customer has ever told him that they did).

At this point, I am not thinking something is really out of the ordinary, just that the first person I spoke to regarding the upgrade might have not had a perfect understanding of the process. And so I wait, but by business day 3, calendar day 5, I start to get the feeling that if apple were going to contact me they would have, at least as a confirmation of receiving my request. So I call AT&T to confirm the contact information Apple would be using to update me on the unlock request. I was then told by AT&T that they have no record of an unlock request ever being submitted, and that Apple does not do unlock requests, AT&T does. But this 2nd rep told me not to worry, she would escalate it to the highest priority possible and I would be contacted in under 24 hours when it is solved and the device is unlocked. I asked if she could tell why I was having this issue, and she said it’s because I requested the 12 to be unlocked after starting to use the 14 that is making the 12 unable to be unlocked (false), because the 14 is under contract, it’s showing up as the 12 is under contract (false). She said the only way I could have avoided this is if I requested the 12 to be unlocked before I initiated the upgrade,  which is not only false but totally dumb because who would ever realistically do something like that before they have a reason to do it.

So I wait the 24 hours, no word from AT&T until 36 hours, and the info I got was as follows: “Your request has been resolved! To view details of the resolution, please follow this link.” I get logged in and there are of course no details at all, all it says is that it’s been resolved. Check the phone: it’s locked, reset it, locked. Call in again. Get connected with the department that physically does the unlocking, who then tells me that the reason it cannot be unlocked is because it has a 2 year service agreement attached to it. I told them I know, I explained that to the very first AT&T employee. The guy I was talking to at this time and every single AT&T employee I have spoken to since then have all had the same response, “Oh sorry he did that but there’s nothing I can do.” He said he could connect me with the business accounts who should be able to provide me with more information on how to unlock it.

The representative with the business accounts department confirmed that it is my plan that has the 2 year agreement, I can use any phone I want on the plan, I could even use the 14 pro max. I said, “I am. I am calling you on that business account line using the 14 pro max” and her response was, “Ob great, so what is the problem?” The 12 pro max is the problem. The problem is that I foresaw this being an issue and specifically asked your employee about it who told me it was not going to impede anything.. and just to be clear, you’re telling me that the 2 year agreement is for my plan, the iphone12 does not need to be used to finish out the 2 year agreement, and you’re telling me I could even trade in the 12 for the 14. “Yes”. Ok, so then the iphone 12  is not bound to the contract? “No”, Ok, well then can I get it unlocked? “Well no, cuz it’s under contract.” Right, and the fact that your own employee told me that the agreement is for the account and not for the phone, and the fact that he told me that is the only reason I am now in this mess means nothing?? So what am I supposed to do now exactly? “I’m sorry he did that, but there’s nothing I can do. You can trade in the 12 pro max for the 14 though, and we won’t charge you anything extra to do that.”

If that is what they offered me from the start, I would have said, “No thank you,” and kept walking. But they relied on the total ignorance, lack of training and lack of knowledge of their own employees, as well as half truths, dishonesties, and flat out certifiable lies to get me to do something that I had no interest in doing until their employee lied to me, promising something he either had no idea if it was true, or he knew was false and said it anyways. And the icing on the cake, is the entire time during the upgrade and through this whole process they told me I had 30 days to send in the trade in phone. Not a single person mentioned the 14 day “change of heart” return policy until it was day 15. And even then, I just got back from the AT&T store, who told me that if I was going to return the phone, it would cost me a $55 restocking fee to do it.

This is the last time I will ever trust a single word spoken by an AT&T employeee. The total disregard for any basic ethics or integrity is flat out shocking to me, but it’s clear as day that I am the naive one. Never again. From top to bottom the entire company is full of crooked 2face “We’ll make you pay for trusting us” scum.