I ordered my iPhone 5s today. However, it has taken me ALL day. Why you ask? Well I’m going to share the story.
I have an iPhone 4 and if I have to see the spinning circle take for freakin’ ever anymore I am going to stab my eyes out. I’m moving back to AT&T from Verizon and will save $50 a month too! I love corporate discounts. The store is by Carter’s preschool so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I get to the store and there are 4 AT&T employees at the door. I ask what the wait is. “You’re next” says clean-cut-iPad-holding employee. First I was stunned after I read a Facebook post from my friend Fred about long lines.
There were quite a few people in the store but less than I thought since this is 5s day. So I begin to tell guy at the door that I am coming over from Verizon, adding a line, porting my number and I want to buy the iPhone 5s in silver. Um yeah…no. Nothing but black and by-the-way, there is a 21 to 28 day wait for all who want anything but black. I also can’t get it shipped to my home. Only to the store. Once I knew they didn’t have it I told them i’d go order online. No big deal. It is what it is. Oh that was not to be. Once in the store they didn’t want me out of the store and they wanted me to purchase iPhone 5 accessories “that fit because the 5s is the same footprint as the 5”. Well, yes and no. Footprint is the same. Camera and flash shape. No, does not fit. Buyer beware.
I say “alright I guess I can place an order since I’m here”. Clean cut says “OK, someone will be right with you”. Weird. So I wait and then wait some more (no wait…yeah right) and wait some more for a salesperson since clean cut guy can’t take my order. I thought “what a bummer that I can’t get my iPhone for about a month”. More spinning circles in my near future. Yay me! I’m feeling like I don’t want to be there anymore and really shouldn’t have come in to begin with, should have known it would not be amazing and should have done research. An hour later my salesperson has my order, arranges porting and I finally get to get out of the store.
So I hop in my minivan that I love so much and head on home. Silly me thought I’d check the AT&T website and see what messages customers get when they order. An order can be placed and it says it will ship in 7 to 14 days. I freak when I see it because it’s THEIR website. So I get to online chat on the website. I tell (type) her my dilemma. Well online can’t do anything about what happens in a store. I call store and ask them (nicely) to cancel my order because I can get the phone in half the time if I order online on the AT&T website. Meanwhile online chat is still going and “Mary” will wait for me. They nicely cancel my order but not before telling me that “we give the information we are given and don’t know what’s on the website”. I am stunned that they wouldn’t know what is on the website, but am grateful they are canceling for me so I said nothing about it.
I’m relieved that I won’t have to go back to the store. I’m still chatting with Mary about placing the order online. She says she’ll talk me through it. HA! I go through the process and too much time lapses and I get kicked out of my account after I have some trouble accessing it. Then my browser tab is blank. Mary asks me to clear cookies. I go to my other PC. Try the process and can’t port my number. What? Seriously? So I go try at the Apple website. Same thing. Mary is still waiting and “is here for me”. I chat back to her that I can’t port. She tells me to call Verizon to get a release. I chat back that at the store they had no problem. I call Verizon anyway. As I suspected they were not holding it and hadn’t even been notified yet. Verizon is so awesome and the girl I spoke to was fabulous and tried to keep my business. I told her that that I understood but they could not match our combined price from AT&T. I had a little guilt saying that but it is the bottom line. Meanwhile Mary is chatting to me that I should just take a new number and then when I get the phone have the number ported. Um no. I think not. Soooo I ask Mary if I couldn’t do it online because they set up the port at the store? She chats that she doesn’t know. I dial the store and they tell me that I have to call the “port number”. I call the 800 number and get a nice person who is in the process of removing the first port the number request and the call drops. Awesome. Not. So I call back. They cancel the port. I am finally able to do it online but not before getting kicked out at least 3 more times because I needed to get my Verizon account number, looked at me email and didn’t advance the screen fast enough. Then I get an alert on slow phone that there was an accident near my house. Then what do you know? The internet goes down. Finally, yes finally I place my order online and get confirmation. I started at 9 a.m. when I stepped foot into the store and at approximately 2 p.m. I am successful.
So in 7 to 14 days we’ll see what happens. Hubs says it’s because “you have to have the latest and greatest”. Well no, not really. I’m 3 phones ago. Cut me some slack daddy-o! I thought it was going to be easy!
On another note, I downloaded iOS 7 on my slow phone. I love it.