The pain of mailing older trade-in device

I Went to the AT&T store to pick up the new iPhone returning the current one on the NEXT plan two weeks back. Little did I know what I was about to go through in completing this transaction.

I had the iPhone 5S also in the NEXT plan that I wanted to upgrade.
The lady at the AT&T store said she does not have the iPhone 6s on stock but she suggested picking up the phone from apple store and mailing the trade in. That sounded simple enough, so I decided to do that.

I went to the apple store and picked up the new phone, also on the next plan. The Apple store employee made an AT&T return label for shipping my old iPhone 5s device back.

The very next day, I packed it and stuck the shipping label and headed to USPS with AT&T's instructions.

The instruction said - "get a US mail receipt" as the last step.

I went to the post office, they said they would not give a receipt for a drop off. They asked me to leave the package on a table, no receipt. I was not comfortable dropping off my device with absolutely no proof or receipt that I did drop off. Not after the horror stories I read about AT&T charging the customers for the phones USPS lost.


I contacted AT&T again informing this. They made a new label and said that you can drop off your phone at the nearest ATT store.

I printed the new label and went to the AT&T store, they would not accept the package and were rude and unhelpful. They asked me to contact AT&T again to find out what can be done.

I did that. They finally said that I can return package through Fedex with the same shipping label. I confirmed with the representative twice if this was right, as the label cleary mentions 'USPS'. He said yes. I went to Fedex and surprise surprise, the label did not work after scanning. I had asked for a physical address from AT&T incase this happened.

So I shipped it to AT&T address that the AT&T representative gave with my own money.
Address AT&T gave: AT&T Inc., 175 E. Houston St., San Antonio, TX 78205

Today, I get a message “Incorrect address - Recipient moved” from Fedex that the delivery address is wrong and that the package is held with them for further instructions.

I contacted AT&T again. This representative suggested things like - you should have returned at the Apple store, we don’t have a physical address, basically contradicting all that has been said so far. Why would I not have returned to the Apple store had they taken it.

He confirmed with his manager and asked me to get the shipment back and give it physically to AT&T Store close to my residence. He said they would accept my phone as he made a “note” with them.

I am currently waiting for my phone to come back to return to the AT&T store. I have had the most terrible customer experience from any service, ever. This ordeal has caused me so much of mental stress and running around and it is still not over.

I really would not recommend AT&T even to my worst enemy.