Dave Stein's Blog: An Independent Perspective on Sales Training and Sales Effectiveness

I spent three hours yesterday trying to buy a new “3G S”  iPhone.

First I went on the Apple site.  I spent 20 minutes there.  They wouldn’t process my order because they said I don’t get reception at my home where I registered for new AT&T service.  The fact is, I do get service there.  I’ve had friends and family receive and make calls as well as surf the web.  I really want this iPhone, but even I wouldn’t buy a phone without checking the service first.

I left the Apple site to try ATT.com.  What a disaster that turned out to be.

The AT&T e-commerce site wouldn’t process my order because my credit card billing address didn’t match up with the billing address I entered with the order. I understand that.   The problem is all of my business and personal bills are sent to a P.O. Box.  We don’t have local mail delivery where I live.  So I have two addresses.  A physical street address, where I live and where FedEx, UPS, and packages from other carriers. I get my U.S. mail at the post office.

So why not just enter my real billing address, P.O. Box and all, into the billing address field as I should have?  Because AT&T won’t accept a P.O. Box as a billing address.  A shipping address I could understand.  I tried to trick the order form, but couldn’t do it.  No matter how I tried to disguise it, my billing address kept getting rejected because it contained a P.O. Box, not a house number.

I got on the phone with AT&T customer service.  By the time I spoke with the third person, 45 minutes into the call, they told me that “we can’t ship to a P.O. Box.  You have to have a street address for us to ship the phone.”  I gave the person my street address.  They were confused.  They suggested that I call my credit card company and have them change my billing address to my street address.  I told the AT&T rep that if I did that I wouldn’t receive any bills, because I have no physical mailbox for the USPS to deliver to.  This went on for a while until I finally asked to place the order on the phone with a manager. I spoke with a manager who told me that he couldn’t place the order, because he would have to use the same order process that I did.  He admitted he would not be able to get past the P.O. Box billing address limitation.  I hung up in frustration.

(Please understand that I have never, ever had a problem ordering anything with this odd P.O. Box/street address situation.)

I then went back to the Apple site and cheated.  I said that I would be using the iPhone primarily in the next town, where there is apparently AT&T service.  My order got processed right up to the very end, when it told me that  the order couldn’t be completed.  No reason why.  I could only reserve a phone to be picked up at my choice of Apple stores.

Now this isn’t a good situation for me.  A trip to an Apple store involves a ferry and a car ride or a plane flight.  I live on an island and believe me, there are no AT&T or Apple stores here.  That’s why I needed to order online to begin with.  But fine.  I’ll fly my plane up to Boston to pick up the iPhone on June 19 because neither Apple nor AT&T can take my order online.  It has become a very expensive phone.

Then I received the email above (click for full size) from Apple.  Apparently, after entering all my credit card information, my SSN and selecting a phone, plan, color, accessories, etc., they had a reservation for me.  But wait… The fine print at the bottom….  Take a look.

At the top of the email:

Thanks for reserving your iPhone. You can come to the store you selected anytime on the day of your reservation. When you arrive, talk to a Concierge in an orange shirt. We’ll help you complete your purchase, set up your phone, and get off to a great start.

Then, down at the bottom… Get this!

Pre-authorization does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

What’s going on here?  Do I have a reserved phone or not?  You’ve got all my information, credit card, and everything else you asked for.

I finally called the AT&T store in New Bedford, MA.  It’s a quick flight in my Cessna.  Fifteen minutes.  I asked, “Would you reserve a phone for me?  I’ll be in the morning of the 19th.  I’ll pay for it now on my credit card.  I’ll do the rest of the paperwork then.”  Answer.  “No.  We can’t do that.  You’ll have to come in on the 19th.  First come, first served.”

All I want to do is buy an iPhone.  If there is an AT&T or Apple salesperson reading this, please sell me a phone.  Have it shipped to my home.  I’ll be delighted to give you the plane ride instead of spending the money on fuel flying up to Boston or New Bedford.

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Update: It’s Friday afternoon, June 12. Two days ago an AT&T customer care manager called me as a result of this post.  He and I have been working hard to overcome the significant challenges to getting a new iPhone shipped to my house.  He says he is determined to make this happen.  He sounds very competent and committed.  But questions remain, such as will I be able to keep the cell phone number I’ve had for 10 years?  Because it’s a New York number and I now live in Massachusetts, I’m being told I can’t retain my old number.   The saga continues.  (I’m humbled and grateful that this is only a cell phone and not a medical, financial or other real issue for me or anyone close to me.)

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Update: It’s Wednesday morning, June 17. We’ve had a bunch of issues to overcome.  There have been phone calls and emails going back and forth every day. Yesterday I got a call from Jason at AT&T.  He conferenced in someone from AT&T credit, who took me through the strangest interview.  The credit manager posed a series of questions, multiple choice.  I was supposed to tell him if one or none of the answers applied.  The first question asked about credit cards I owned.  “Do you have Chase (which I do), Indiana State Credit Union, or Allegheny National Bank?”   I was so confused, I thought he had the credit records for the wrong person.  He had to take me through the instructions for the quiz again.  Then he asked another question about the street address where I’ve lived in the past.  I was supposed to pick the town from three options.  The problem was that the address I was given wasn’t mine, but my brother’s!   Once I answered all the questions, I was given a score of 100% and my credit application was approved.

This morning, I got an urgent email (see graphic to the right) and a more urgent phone call from American Express about possible fraud activity on my AMEX card, which I what I used for the $313 charge for the iPhone.  I had no concerns about the AT&T guys I’ve been working with.  I made certain early on that they were from AT&T and not some scammers.  So why the fraud alert?  The AMEX person couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me.

Jason offered to port over my current New York cell phone number to the soon-to-be-delivered-I-hope Massachusetts-based iPhone.  I told him my understanding was that AT&T was unable to do that.  He asked if there was a New York address I could give him.  I gave him my daughter’s address in New York City.  Then I had second thoughts.  I immediately envisioned that during the porting of my phone number from Verizon to AT&T I might lose cell phone service for a while—perhaps days, weeks, months, years.  So I asked Jason if I could pick out a cool local number.  He was helpful.  I like my new number.  I wish I could share it on this blog, but with all the spammers out there who post hundreds of automated comments on this blog, I’d better not. I may or may not decide to port over my old number once I have the phone.  We’ll see.  Thanks to all of you who’ve been emailing me about this.  I appreciate your support and your interest in my perspective on the frustrations of a person who just wants to buy something.

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Update: It’s Thursday morning, June 18. I just got off the phone with Darrell, my AT&T Customer Experience Manager.  If you read my update from yesterday, you’ll know that I had some nasty problems with AT&T credit and my AMEX card.  It’s worth reading.

Well, this morning Darrell told me that the order for my iPhone which they placed yesterday was CANCELLED by AT&T, because AMEX didn’t get back to AT&T soon enough to tell them I approved the purchase.  I’ll repeat.  After all this, AT&T CANCELLED the order!   I was not happy to hear this.  Fortunately I had just come back from a yoga class, so I was pretty mellow.

Then, the good news.  After building a substantial level of disbelieve on my part that AT&T would CANCEL the order, Darrell told me he had taken matters into his own hands and managed to, let’s say, creatively work around the AT&T order entry system, and managed to again get my order in.  He tells me the phone should ship tomorrow.

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Update: Friday evening, June 19. I just got two calls. The first was from “C” at the Apple store in Burlington, MA.  (See the email message I received to the right from Apple.)  My iPhone was waiting for me, but only for today.  I explained that the email I had received from Apple was more than ambiguous.  I said that based on the email, I didn’t know whether there would be a phone there or not.  Apple did say in the email “First come…”

“C” was apologetic.  Since Darrell, my AT&T Customer Experience Manager, was promising me an iPhone, I hadn’t planned to fly to Burlington to pick up this semi-reserved phone, since it seemed, if I got there late, there wouldn’t be a phone at all.  I thanked “C” for her help. (She didn’t expect me to tell her some of this story. I think she wished the week was over.)  She said she would tell her management about my situation.

A few minutes later (two minutes ago), “C” called back. (Nice lady!)  Said the phone would be waiting for me any time.  Nice!  I can possibly get up there tomorrow.  Darrell at AT&T told me the order had been placed, but he wrote, just this afternoon, “The tracking information is gradually trickling in for all the pre-orders. I do not have yours just yet. I do see the order is going through successfully however. I’ll keep you posted.”

At this point, I’m not sure what that means.  (See all the problems with the order process below.)

Nice of “C” and the Burlington, Mass. Apple store to hold my phone.  Now I have one sure phone, but it’s $250 (travel) and three hours away, and another somewhere in the AT&T system.

If I go for the easy takedown at the Burlington Apple store, will I ever get my money back from AT&T?

What would you do?

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Update: Monday, June 22. My new iPhone arrived this morning.

Thanks to Darrell Saunders at AT&T.  I could never have gotten this done without his hard work, persistence and interest in making me, the customer, happy. From his email:
The tracking information is gradually trickling in for all the pre-orders.  I do not have yours just yet.  I do see the order is going through successfully however.  I’ll keep you posted.

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