What they don't tell you about buy one get one

I have had an account with AT&T for over 10 years, and have switched my sat. TV etc... Always loyal always paid on time! I have a family share plan that had 7 lines.  My daughter got married and we added her husband to our account making it 9 lines.  When doing so we were also having to buy him a new phone.  We were offered the buy one get one IPHONE deal.  It was explained that this would be in the form of a bill credit, on the second phone and that it would not be paid off until the other phone is paid off, and that if we defaulted on the other phone we would be charged for the second phone.  This was fine.  Until my son in law who is in the military went into the At&T store in San Diego to find out about upgrading his phone.  He was told if he moved his and my daughters lines to their own plan with the military discount it would be cheaper, at which time they contacted me and I spoke with the representative who assured me this would have no effect on my lines or my bill except removing the portion for those two lines.  The only stipulation was that his phone that was on the payment plan had to be paid off, easy enough.  Of course we were willing to do this if it was going to save them money and had no other consequences, so we paid off the phone and transferred the lines.  I was told it make take a cycle to catch up, OK... Next cycle I am still being billed for the 2nd phone though not receiving bill credit.  I called I was told not to pay that amount and it was being fixed and would be reflected on new bill.  Next bill, late notice for not paying that amount, still being billed and no credit. When I called I spent over an hour trying to explain the situation and not able to understand person I was speaking to and they were unable to explain why.  At which time I went to At&T store, they said they only handle new orders not billing information.  Back home back on the phone 2 people 3 1/2 hours later this is the explanation:

Buy one get one was applied to the two phones both are billed and one receives a credit back each month until other phone is paid off, though if you default you do not receive credit anymore. When you switched lines and paid off the one phone you paid off the phone that was free and was receiving the credit, so you paid off the free phone not the one that was being paid for.  The phone paid off was my son in laws, which was the original phone I bought, the buy one get one was suggested and I took advantage of it for another family member. It was my son in laws phone I paid off? Yes but, when it was set up his phone # was set up as the free one.  So your saying if they had applied the payment to the other phone number it would have paid it off and then the phone would have been free? Yes. Well then why was it not done this way, or told to us? Will you reverse it? No, there is nothing we can do now.  So basically we just paid $385 that was not applied to the phone I owed $385 to it was applied to the free phone and I still owe $385 on the phone? Yes and there is nothing we can do I apologize.  Can it be refunded, bill credit etc? No

This conversation went on as I was so upset to be loyal customer, and because of someones hurry to sell a new phone the customer service portion of this company, went out the window... This is the thanks you get for being loyal...

So long At&T, now that you have wasted 4 hours of my day, I can tell you what I will be doing this week, shopping for a new cellular provider.