Att selling refurbished iPhone to unknowing consumers

The ATT booth is not ATT employees. You are not buying phones from ATT, you are buying them from Sam’s. 

@Juju55: Not AT&T, most likely Sam’s Club bought refurbished AT&T branded iphone 6 from someplace. The Sam’s Club employee never clarified iphones were refurbs.😉

How do you know they are refurbished?  

when opened to replace battery it was obvious it was not from the factory. Fingerprints, foam cushioners moved, etc

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@Juju55 wrote:

when opened to replace battery it was obvious it was not from the factory. Fingerprints, foam cushioners moved, etc

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apple tracks refurbs they can tell by the serial number of the phone if its been refurbed...  Or someone at sams pulled a fast one...  The latter is probably true. 

@Juju55  When was this purchase?   If they needed new batteries they are not new phones.  They never had service before now?  

This happened to me too!! From an actual AT&T storefront though. There was a Beats pair always trying to sync with my phone with someone else’s name and there was already someone’s email address populated in the Find My iPhone app. And I realized there’s no sound when you record video on Instagram and based on the email she seemed young so I bet this was the exact reason it was returned. I’m very upset that I was duped, they should not be getting away with this. JOHN OLIVER DO YOU HEAR ME?!

Same thing happened to me. I purchased 2 "brand new" iPhone 6 plus. After phones were paid off and we upgraded to the "X", I took my 6 in to have a new battery put in (because of the issue Apple is having with the battery and saying we needed to have it replaced) by the Geek squad who is an authorized Apple tech agent. When they opened the display screen he comes out and says I can not work on your phone or replace the battery because the display screen has been refurbished. The cables are not original and are a different color and the screws are stripped.  I have NEVER had any work done on my phone. It stayed in the otter box case that I purchased at the same time as I purchased the phone. The only time the phone ever came out of that case was so I could clean the case and it went right back in afterwards. The phone does not have one scratch on it.  So I called Apple and discussed it with them, they said sounds like the store sold you a used phone. You will need to go back to the store you purchased it from. I went back to said store (hwy 92 in woodstock ga) and they said "oh we do not sell refurbished phones here. They sell them online but not in the store". You will have to call customer retention or office of the president. So again I'm on the phone making another call to someone else. This time I get customer retention who says there is nothing they can do because it looks like the phone was sold only to me. They would have to have proof that the phone was sold as a refurbished phone and they can not find any proof. Also who is to say that I did  not take the phone and have it worked on somewhere else. Where is my proof?  So we get into a discussion over that comment and I told him that the phone has never been worked on period. AT&T   sold me a refurbished phone for the price of a new one. He says there could have been a mix up when shipped from Apple to the store but it is not their fault. So now I have to wait on his manager to call me back next week and work my way up the ladder to the office of the president. Oh and it just so happens that no one has the phone numbers to the office of the president. AT&T should be sued for selling customers refurbished phones with out them knowing AND charging them the full price of a new phone. Now I question if my other iPhone 6 plus and the 2 new iPhone X's are refurbs as well. How would I know unless I take them in to get them checked by someone? I never would have knows I was sold a refurbished phone had I not of taken it in to get the battery replaced at Apple's recommendation. 

Did anyone ever get a resolution to this? The same thing happened to me. I was sold an iphone 6 as new in the retail AT&T store. Come to find out when I tried to unlock it for my trip overseas, it has had 2 previous owners, one of which was an ATT employee and they are telling me it can't be unlocked because it is a "corporate-owned device". I've made it to the Office of the President after filing a complaint with BBB and FCC but still don't have resolution. They told me to go to the store I purchased it from but the people there have no idea how to help me because they don't have any direction on what to do in this situation.

@brooke1488

The FCC complaint should do the job.  Have you had a response ?   Post when you do.