AT&T rep promises turn out to be lies

I doubt the rep opened a new account. He likely put the new line on its own plan rather than adding it to your existing plan. Another call to CS will fix that. Not sure what your complaint is about the phone. You didn't think you were getting a free phone, did you? Whether it is financed or not, the cost of the phone is the same. If you don't want to make monthly payments, just pay it off.

Contact @ATTCares via private message. Personally, I can't see why you want to pursue this because it sounds to me like the rep made an honest mistake. I had the same thing happen to me several years ago (about the plan issue, not the phone issue) and we occasionally see others have the same problem. There is no reason I know of for a rep to purposely put a line on its own plan rather than add it to the existing plan, especially knowing it will get changed once identified. 

Yes I did expect a free phone because I was told face-to-face...that the phone was free. There was no mention of an installment plan with a credit....there was no mention of buy one get one free. He said I can give you a free phone and all you have to do is tell me which one you want. I'm talking about one of these in-home reps that are supposedly so worried about customer service. They flat-out lie. There's no other way to put it. 

@CareyD

Since phones are $700 and up, you didn’t smell a catch?  ATT (and any other carrier) would be stupid to hand you a free phone without a catch.  The catch is you have to pay for service to get all the credits, making the phone free.  

Reputable companies don't have "catches." What you said doesn't make sense. I have to pay for service to get all the credits, making the phone free. What does that even mean? of course I'm going to pay for phone service. I don't know what credits you're talking about. There could be many reasons a company chooses to give something away. This guy said it was because I have all the Uverse services which I do pay for. The point is don't say something that is not true. Don't flat out lie to customers. He said other things that weren't true also. $10 credit if you go on auto debit or whatever they call it. That didn't happen. He said the service was $85 a month when it's actually $90. Several lies. Why are you so dead-set on defending this company, and basically putting down others for believing that a sales rep is being forthright and honest?

@CareyD The way all free phone offers work is the phone is put on an installment plan for either 24 or 30 months. You are charged for the phone each month but also get a credit. The only way to get all the credits is to complete the full 24/30 month installment plan. It is kind of like a contract as it keeps a customer from cancelling service on that line because if they do, they are billed for whatever is left on the installment plan and lose all the credits. Those credits take 2-3 bill cycles to show up. We can’t say for sure that is what you got but as I noted above, that is the way every ATT free phone offer I’ve seen works. The same thing for the autopay discount, it takes 1 or 2 bill cycles to show up. The point here, maybe you weren’t lied to. If those credits never show up, however, different story.

@sandblaster I appreciate the way free phones work for those who have been told about the installment plan.  If you agree to the installment plan/credit deal, then that's great.  But if you're never told about this installment plan, it's definitely a lie to be told you're getting a free phone.  And he misrepresented other things as well.

Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions. Part of the definition of lie from Wikipedia. 

I was never told about the installment plan when I signed up.  My in-home service rep never mentioned one thing about an installment plan. He said because I'm such a great UVerse customer with cable, internet and phone, and because they want to provide the best customer service that ever existed, that AT&T was offering me a free phone if I switched from Verizon to AT&T.  He never at anytime said anything about an installment plan or gave me anything in writing that indicated I would be paying for the free phone and be on the installment plan.  I would never have agreed to be given a "free" phone by paying for it for 3 months and then trusting the company to start giving me credits after the third month.

And if the free phones are only for BOGO deals only, then he knew I wouldn't get a free phone because I was only getting one phone with one line.  He just conveniently left things out.  He did reply to my text I sent him after I received an email receipt which indicated I was on an installment plan and was paying for the "free" phone.  His only response was that it's an installment plan with credits from AT&T each month.  He never apologized for not telling me this before and he did not say anything about my having to pay for it for 3 months and hope that I would then receive the credits.....that I'll be paying for the free phone for three months, and he said nothing about free phones only being for BOGO deals.

And it's not just the in-home guy....I got a different story from three other AT&T reps.  Each one claimed different things

I'll never make this mistake again.