Sam's Club ATT Scams

Someone should start a (Edited per community guidelines) (Edited per community guidelines) against Sam's Club and ATT.

First bills are always higher because the include more than one month of service and activation fees, etc. 

What plan do you have and how many phones? $180/month sounds like it could be possible (assuming they didn't include the military discount which you aren't eligible for). If your dad if one of the people on your plan, you can transfer the billing responsibility to him so he's the owner and eligible for the discount. 

It sounds like you know the issue with the phones, even if it's incorrect. Did you reset them to factory settings, remove Find my iPhone, etc.? Also, trade in credits are not applied until the 3rd billing cycle, so that might not even be a real problem. 

@Gbollman  There is always a certain amount of risk purchasing AT&T goods and services from an Authorized Reseller (Sam's Club, Target, Costco, physical store, etc). They are independently owned are operated (Smart Circle for example) separate from AT&T and are not staffed with AT&T employees. Unfortunately, because of the long term contractural agreements, AT&T has little to no control over their business practices. This is unfortunate because all it does is make AT&T continually look bad. Some Retail Stores/outlets do offer a good service, and do know what they are doing, but reading all of the posts here it appears that Smart Circle is not one of them. All you can do is file a BBB complaint. Those will go to AT&T Corporate and you will get contacted by someone from the Office of the President and they MAY be able to help you. Other than that, there is not a whole lot you can do because of binding arbitration.

@Gbollman 

Sam's Club is not the seller. That would be a 3rd party/authorized retailier that just rents/leases space in the store. Historically that seller is Smart Circle.

Monthly service military discounts only apply if the account owner is in the military. If you are an authorized dependant in his DEERS where you are eligible for a dependant USID card, then a lot of businesses will give you a discount on purchases (retail goods, resturaunts, etc.), but that doesn't apply to an ongoing service. That is because he is always the military sponsor, the one who earned any ongoing perks.

I was in my local Sams Club and the deal seemed to be real good. The salesperson stated that I should call him rather than ATT for any support, should have been a red flag right there. When I got home the next day I called 1-888-625-4553 a line for Sams Clubs ATT only and went over the numbers a found out that they were way off the mark. I will be returning the phones and go with Verizon, they are a little more money but they seem to have alot less complaints.

This happened to us too.  I directly told them I would NOT get a new phone (which I really did need) if they couldn't port my old number.  They told me to take the new one and go to the ATT store and they could fix it.  Of course, they can't.  The also set a pin number this new account, and we don't have it so we can literally do nothing.  We were directed by ATT to send the new phone in by the ATT representative, which we did.  The representative OF ATT told us the account would be cancelled with receipt of the phone.  Lo and behold, we were charged $110.00 for the line two days ago.  Still not cleared so I can dispute. 

We have been prepaid customers for over 15 years... but after this mess I may switch to Verizon. 

@gal_261

I can't tell but by the end of your post it sounds like you were already an AT&T customer. If you're already an AT&T customer your numbers can't be ported to AT&T they already are with AT&T, just with the prepaid side of its service plans.

There is no way to replace brand new numbers with already existing numbers. Port in using temporary numbers is a common practice and is possible but that's not what happened.

There is nothing that those big box third party authorized retailers can do for you that you cannot get directly from AT&T as a new or existing customer. I wish people would just read AT&T's website and know what they can and cannot get.

I hope that someday legislation will make it necessary to provide easy to understand Total charges (printed hard copy) not only for your first bill but those going forward. I have already shared my experience with  friends and relatives 

@formerlyknownas 

I thought that was the case, but they insisted it could. The reps at the Club insisted that I speak with their person, who told me directly he was a regional manager over ATT sales and it could be done.  

I think I'm more frustrated with ATT since they have done nothing to help fix the issue. We have done everything they required, and yet we're still charged when we were told the phone line account would be cancelled when the phone was received. As of now it's been go back to ATT store, who will then send us back to a phone rep or supervisor, and go around again.

Yeah, hi. I was one of those workers, through a company called allegiant acquisitions, and I got fired by them for refusing to follow the unethical business practices you've all been hurt by. 

I was told that if the customers zipcode wasn't covered by AT&T, to lie and say it was. To lie and say the credit check wouldn't hurt your score. To lie and say the phone would be free. To knowingly lie and say the bill would be within a certain range and that it would be easy. To put myself in harm's way by giving out my name and personal phone number to victims once we'd taken their money. 

I got out of there before someone felt the burn and decided to come back and take advantage of the location being in gun country. 

If you want AT&T services or to switch in,  just go to an AT&T retailer. You can look up if they even have service where you live and see for yourself if it's even worth it.