I purchased two AT&T iPhone 6's in September of 2014 under the AT&T Next Agreement. Under this plan, after the 13th payment one can upgrade to a new phone. In September of 2015, I executed the ageement plan to upgrade to iPhone 6+ phones for myself and my wife. As part of the plan, a return label is supposed to follow the new phones to return the old. I did not receive return labels. After a couple of weeks, I called AT&T and told them I had not received return labels. I was told to take them to an AT&T store and return them to ensure I received credit and not be charged. Upon arriving the store I was told they do not accept Next plan returns. I called AT&T back and reported they would not accept the phones locally and ended up making multiple calls to get the return labels but could not get anyone to send me the return labels. One of the reps suggested I call Apple. I reported to Apple and ended up being elevated to their top tier support. I was informed their was a system glitch that didn't produce return labels for some Next participants. I was told to be patient, the problem was being worked on. To their credit, I did receive multiple emails and phone calls spanning a couple of weeks. Tim ? from Apple had been assigned to the case and communicated frequently the problem was trying to be resolved. Unfortunately, I did not keep a record of the dates and attempts to reconcile the issue, but on October 21, 2015 Tim called me and asked to conference AT&T in for a phone call as he felt he had a resolution. We spoke to an AT&T rep and he was able to email me return labels requesting the two phones be put in separate packages. I did so and about a week later I received a charge on my American Express. I called AT&T again and a customer service rep by the name of Charmaine-G told me everything was resolved and the charges would be credited. I waited a week and they were not. I even contested the charge with American Express and then I received a suspension notice threatening to pull the plug on my account if I didn't pay $955.29 for the two iPhones my service would be interrupted, and top it off one of the phones showed back up at my house telling me AT&T refused the phone because it had violated their 14 day return policy. I called AT&T again. I sent 1 hour 40 minutes on the phone with AT&T customer service rep Dallas K. He attempted mutiple avenues to find a resolution, but failed. He told me to pay the $955.29 for the phones to keep my service active and he and his supervisor would continue to work on the issue. He emailed me a return label to send the iPhone I received back again to the AT&T service center and he hoped the notes in the file would provide a path of reconcilation to credit my account. So, AT&T now has my old phone and they have $955.29 doubling the negative hit from the system issue with the Next program.
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