I have to vent...

So for my wife's birthday I decide to give her a special present - an iPhone. She's got an iMac, is a graphics designer, and loves to rant about how Microsoft sucks in her spare time. I did the research and elected to make the switch. I bought a pair of iPhones online, and asked a very simple question: Can I wait to activate these phones? The answer: Yes, you can wait up to 30 days.

So April 1st (bad omen from the start) my iPhones arrive in the mail. I leave them in box and attempt to use http://www.cellswapper.com to find someone to take my Verizon contracts. And lucky me, I find a guy willing to swap 2 AT&T lines for my Verizon lines. Sweet! Well, it was around this time (April 14th) that, to my surprise, I get a BILL from AT&T. I call customer service to say "WTF?" Their answer: "Oh well iPhone accounts are activated the day they arrive in the mail.

....

Now, if I'm not mistaken, this particular fact DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS WHAT I WAS TOLD EARLIER. I say as much to customer service. No dice. I now have accounts with both AT&T and Verizon. Now what? Well, I decide to use the AT&T account, b/c my wife is dying to use her iPhone. So I activate the iPhones, setup the account... and port in the #'s from the Verizon account.

That... that was a bad move...

See I figured that an account with no active line which just "go dormant." By that I mean the monthly charges would continue even though no calls/texts/etc. were being made. But no, this is not the case. Port out the number for an active line, band the line is automatically canceled. So when I try to swap contracts with "the other guy," I'm informed that I just screwed myself over (my words, not there's).

Back to Verizon customer service. I get a guy on the line that says he can set me up with 2 new Verizon lines which he'd "fix" so that their contract lengths would match the what I had previously. One problem - I had to wait til the end of the billing cycle - May 3rd - before I could do this. Make note of that date. It's important.

So, the day I'm supposed to do this comes and goes. The customer service rep doesn't call like he said he would to get the process started. Tried calling him multiple times. No dice. So I explain the situation to a NEW customer service rep. Guess what he tells me? "Oh, well what that other guys said is bullshit. No way we can do something like that."

....

Now this is getting fucking ridiculous...

Ok, so we come up with a NEW plan - port my #'s BACK to Verizon, do the assumption of liability, and THEN port the #'s back to AT&T. So I do this. I port the number back to Verizon. I go through all the stupid steps again. I reactivate my old Verizon phones. They work fine, now time to make the switch. Thankfully "the other guy" was patient enough to stick with the plan.

Now, this evening, time comes to start the switch. At long last this was going to be over. We could do a normal "Assumption of Liability" switch, and be DONE with it. But, before calling AT&T customer service (b/c God knows it was fun dealing with Verizon and just HAD to have some more), I started thinking...

"Wait a sec. I have an AT&T account, thus I have AT&T contracts. Will I have cancellation charges if I port my numbers out? After all I already committed that fuck-up with Verizon and God forbid I make the mistake again. Oh shit... please don't say I'm screwed again... PLEASE don't say I'm screwed again..."

Response from AT&T: "Our records show that you have $350 in cancellation fees... b/c your 30-day window to cancel without penalty ended on May 1st."

....

Fuck... me...


So yeah, I'm screwed. So (tonight) I went ahead and did the only thing I could - I ported my numbers back to AT&T (AGAIN) and ate the cancellation charges with Verizon ($230). Funny, I could have done this a month ago. And to think... if I had done so I'd have never had to go through any of this hassle... including...

- the couple DOZEN hours I spent on the phone with not one but TWO different customer service agencies
- having representatives from BOTH companies tell me things I later found out were bullshit (those being (A) that I could wait up to 30 days to activate the iPhones, and (B) that I could setup two new lines to complete the "Assumption of Liability" process)
- having NEW representatives from BOTH companies inform me of said bullshit
- having the Verizon rep walk me through a long drawn out plan that actually WOULD work... only to have it fall through b/c I missed a 30-day deadline by FOUR DAMN DAYS...
- having to explain all this to "the other guy" who is a lawyer working for an Indian Tribe on a reservation that, shockingly enough, doesn't have reception with AT&T
- also having to explain to my wife that all the hours I spent finding "the other guy" and trying to make this convoluted plan work all fell through... and we STILL HAVE TO PAY THE FUCKING $230 CANCELLATION FEE...



And now... I'm going home. Thankfully now I've calmed down a little. It's "Coronas & lime" time now...


[/epic rant]

5/5/2010 8:06:18 PM

i did this, with my att phone too. my sprint plan was set to end at the end of the month but i forgot to call them when i ported the number. they waived the cancellation charge and pretty much told me i was pretty.

guess that's not like your story at all.

5/5/2010 8:11:08 PM

I don't know that I would have admitted this on TWW. Even in the lounge.

5/5/2010 8:12:28 PM

It sounds like to me you are gonna have four lines with AT&T. The two you agreed to when you ordered the iPhones, and the two you accepted responsibility for from the guy via http://www.cellswapper.com.

Are you sure you do not still have two different accounts with AT&T? AT&T has nothing to gain by allowing you to accept someone else-es service contract and sending you two new heavily subsidized phones. The whole point of the 2 year contracts is that during that period you are also paying them back for the subsidy you took on the handsets. If you "assume" another persons contract you had best be getting some phones from them because the company has no obligation to give you new handsets at the discounted prices.

5/5/2010 8:33:24 PM

Idiot tax.

Seriously though, I guess it's because you're trying to do things that are too complicated. I've had fairly decent results dealing with AT&T service. I'd say stop doing stuff. Cut your losses...and for fucks sake don't break that iPhone and don't let the reality distortion field wear off.

5/5/2010 8:46:16 PM

Yeah I would have kept all this to myself...

5/5/2010 9:20:18 PM

Why kind of condition do you have that causes you to incessantly type up these 500 word shitstorms

5/5/2010 9:23:44 PM

I'm not so sure you got screwed from the fine print. I think you got screwed because you didn't properly think through your plan. Also, I'm surprised you couldn't get the cancellation fee waved. Sounds like you weren't persistent enough.

5/5/2010 9:29:07 PM

Should have given your wife an ATT phone with a new #, told her to change her voicemail on the Verizon phone to say the new number, drop your plan down to the $granny plan, then ran out the contract.

5/5/2010 10:18:53 PM

when i think "phone company" i immediately think "fucking me over" so i never would have let this happen because i watch those people/read those terms like a hawk

5/5/2010 10:21:54 PM

Lesson learned: Always get the name, date and time of every person you talk to at a cell phone company. Also where did you buy the iPhones that it wasn't made clear you were signing up for a new att account?

5/5/2010 10:24:05 PM

I am so confused by this post. It is just someone making something WAY more difficult than it needs to be, right?

5/5/2010 10:24:19 PM

I cannot wait to leave AT&T. Absolute shit service, retarded support, expensive nickel and dime shit all over the place, and the iPhone that I can barely even use 3g service on.

August can't get here soon enough. You must really, really love your wife because Verizon is worlds better in every respect other than their actual phones (which is why I can't wait till august)

5/5/2010 10:39:07 PM

WINDOWS PHONE?!

DON'T YOU TEASE ME, Noen!

5/5/2010 10:46:25 PM

Imma lol if the iphone is announced for verizon on june 22

5/5/2010 11:01:39 PM

I can not believe ATT has the gall do to make you activate the devices they sold you for hundreds less than the actual cost! What bastartds!

5/5/2010 11:01:57 PM

^^ I was thinking the same thing. Could have sworn I heard the iPhone was going to be available on Verizon's network soon.

5/6/2010 4:26:21 AM

step 1: get a blog

step 2: write down all of your bullshit there

5/6/2010 8:55:27 AM

Quote :

"So for my wife's birthday I decide to give her a special present"

I found out where you went wrong.

5/6/2010 9:00:42 AM

i thought most of the stuff in the OP was fairly common knowledge

5/6/2010 9:26:04 AM

Sounds like a 2-207 problem to me.

5/6/2010 9:59:54 AM

your thread sucks

5/6/2010 10:09:22 AM

sounds like you are a fucking idiot. no offense.

5/6/2010 10:38:29 AM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20003930-71.html

5/6/2010 11:35:57 AM

too much to read

5/6/2010 11:37:37 AM

i tried man, i really tried

but the length of that post was too intimidating to read

just too many words, and hell, even id even go so far as to say too many paragraphs

and heller, id go so far as to say too too many special fonts

that does not invite and engage the reader, or in my case, the non-reader

Be Concise

[Edited on May 6, 2010 at 11:52 AM. Reason : and by "I tried" I meant I didnt really try at all, i gave up after my panoramic view of your post]

[Edited on May 6, 2010 at 11:53 AM. Reason : which wasnt really completely panoramic because i still had to scroll down to see the rest of it]

5/6/2010 11:48:41 AM

Some dumb mother fuckers that find that post too lengthy to get through

[Edited on May 6, 2010 at 11:54 AM. Reason : *]

5/6/2010 11:54:10 AM

Whatever gives you your 3mins back

5/6/2010 12:42:53 PM

Some dumb mother fuckers that find that post takes 3 minutes to get through

5/6/2010 12:59:51 PM

Some dumb mother fuckers that find that post takes 3 minutes to get through

5/6/2010 1:19:51 PM

aha

why the hell you didn't just take the phones in to a at&t and/or verizon store on the day you wanted to do all of this (activate etc) is beyond me though... would have saved you about 11 hours and a boat load of money.

[Edited on May 6, 2010 at 3:29 PM. Reason : why]

5/6/2010 3:26:49 PM

I realize this thread is about getting screwed because you didn't read the fine print....which I have not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

5/6/2010 3:35:47 PM

Quote :

"I can not believe ATT has the gall do to make you activate the devices they sold you for hundreds less than the actual cost! What bastartds!"

Good luck trying to buy one off-contract. It's like running the gauntlet.

5/6/2010 3:37:48 PM

I hear you - I hate AT&T.

My husband gets a huge discount w/ Verizon through work so once our contract was about to be over, we went to the store to cancel everything & switch from AT&T to Verizon. So basically the manager there says she can match the discount AND give us free internet, blah blah blah. So we sign up for another two year deal and get new phones.

A few weeks later, we receive our first bill which is twice the size of our previous bills AND we are being charged an insane amount for internet.

We call and go to the store and basically waste hours of our life to find that we were lied to by the manager and there is no way she could get us the discount. We at least got the ridiculous amounts credited back and now we're back to exactly where we started... Feb 2011 can't come soon enough. AT&T - you suck at life.

5/6/2010 3:53:31 PM

i guess thats just too much reading for some brains to handle

5/6/2010 5:14:46 PM

i read it all and was amused

probably because i know full well how much of a pain in the ass it is to transfer a phone between a couple different carriers

a guy i used to work with was leaving work to go to grad school...he had a company phone through verizon...we basically just wanted to cancel it, or go to the minimum plan until the contract was up to avoid the cancellation fee...the guy also had an alltel account for his personal phone and wanted to switch the work number to that account...this was all during the time that verizon was buying out alltel

it was a complete clusterfuck...took probably 2-3 months for all the billing name, charges, etc to work themselves out...they had serious issues with their computer system...i'd give them the account number right off the bill and they said it didn't exist...i think they merged all their records piece by piece

frustrating though

5/6/2010 5:49:46 PM

^^^ Did you get it in writing? You should always get crap like that in writing.

5/6/2010 6:59:22 PM

Quote :

"Good luck trying to buy one off-contract. It's like running the gauntlet."

Walk into store, ask for iPhone with no contract, pay money, walk out.

Gauntlet?

5/6/2010 8:21:49 PM

I hear you can buy them from this place called the internet. I've never checked it out myself to confirm though.

5/6/2010 10:03:02 PM

Don't waste your time thinking about their rules and shit. You're acting like a medieval farmer stressing out about the specific rules of the indulgence you bought to get your dead mother time off from purgatory. it's all fake structure to lend legitimacy. Assume they are going to fuck you over some amount from the beginning. If the cost of the service + some anal probing is threatening your budget, you souldn't be doing it anyway.

5/7/2010 12:34:49 AM

cell phone contracts are awesome and vital to our society

5/7/2010 8:11:23 AM

Quote :

"^^^ Did you get it in writing? You should always get crap like that in writing."

Yes - We had the fax that they sent to corporate verifying the discount... Still didn't matter.

5/7/2010 9:06:36 AM

It would have if you had had it written into the contract. Probably even the fax would have had the courts rule in your favor. But it probably wasn't worth bringing into small claims, though the threat might have done something.

5/7/2010 10:07:17 AM

You can not take Verizon or att to small claims due to the binding arbitration clause you agree to when you subscribe to their service.

5/7/2010 10:24:28 AM

That's what I mean though. If the store told you one thing, and you didn't bother to make sure it was in the contract, then you're only screwing yourself.

5/7/2010 10:26:27 AM

First World Problems.

5/7/2010 10:34:35 AM

haha it was a bit more complicated than that - but we decided in the end, it wasn't worth it and that we definitely learned the lesson that AT&T sucks donkey nuts.

5/7/2010 10:40:16 AM

So the OP went through all this shit "just" so he could keep the same numbers. Big freaking deal. It's a number. I've gone from Sprint to Verizon and now AT&T and have just gotten a new number each time (though the last time I didn't want to but didn't have a choice).

I hate AT&T but have their service now b/c my iPhone is my personal and business phone. Thus, my company pays for the majority of the bill and its dirty cheap for me to own it. So in that sense it makes it worthwhile for me instead of my old Verizon account. If, however, we had the option at work to have a Droid w/Verizon (we also have a corporate agreement with Verizon) I'd switch back in a heart beat.

Before switching to AT&T I asked a lot of people how good their network was compared to Verizon's. They all said it was fine, no difference. Bunch of liars I tell ya

5/7/2010 1:56:15 PM

AT&T is awesome. Just as good as Verizon but with faster 3g speeds.

5/7/2010 2:06:52 PM

SCREWED BY THE TOWN OF CARY

5/7/2010 2:12:03 PM