If you're looking for good customer service, this is not the place to go. If I could give them zero stars, I would. Dealing with the "manager" at this store made my bad week even worse.
Walked in on Tuesday to purchase a new iPhone and got a defective one (the lock button on the phone didn't work). The sales associate told me he had to charge my phone because it was dead, but later said hang on a second and went to speak with the manager (not too sure what happened because the phone turned on after that). I was having an extremely bad day/week and was really exhausted so didn't think too much about it. When I got home, I realized the lock button didn't work and also that the phone was more than half way charged so there was no way it could have been dead in the first place. That's when I put the pieces of the puzzle together and realized they sold me a defective phone. Granted, the sales associate may not have realized the issue at the point of sale.
When I came back the following day to try to exchange it, the acting manager (who admits to remember there being an issue with the phone) rudely told me I'd have to go to apple because "apple takes care of their customers". I understand that, but before I am an apple customer, I am an AT&T customer. He was rude and unprofessional, just shrugged his shoulders, said I can't help you and whatever rude comments I can't remember. Then I asked him to just return the phone and he refused because he said since its defective he cannot return it. And I'd have to go to apple. I called customer service and put him on the phone with the lady and he told her he will not return my phone as it will mess up his inventory. Eventually he agreed to do a warranty claim (in which I heard I have to make a claim and received a "like new phone" in the mail in 1-2 weeks).
At this point, I just wanted to return the phone and cancel my plan with ATT. He kept going back and forth about whether I could return it or not because it was defective. Eventually, I think he was tired of my persistence, waved his hand and said "Okay, you want to pay the restock fee? Return it." The associate with customer service said she'd put a note in my profile to waive the restock fee, but Mr. Orlando (who said he was the manager) refused to waive it. He started going on and on about how if I had listened to him in the first place (as he was trying to "help me out") and went to Apple I could already have a working phone by now. I told him if he was really trying to provide good customer service and keep his AT&T customer, he wouldn't be so adamant about not waiving the restock fee, even though I went through all that trouble already.
I told Mr. Orlando it is not right that AT&T customers cannot return defective devices back to AT&T (within the same 24 hours that I purchased the phone). Also not right that I would have to go out my way to go all the way to Apple (since they refused to refund it) when I just purchased the phone the day before at this location. He said "I'm not going to go back and forth with you. I am charging you the restock fee and you can call customer service and have them take it off your next bill. But I AM CHARGING YOU the restock fee because you will not be treated differently than any other customer. Have a good day. I said okay. Paid the restock fee and left.
I have been with AT&T since I was 17. I currently pay a phone bill that's about 300$ every month (5 lines as I have my whole family under my plan). I have friends with T-mobile who pay less than half the price I pay and they have unlimited data, but because of my loyalty to AT&T, I pay more money (and I don't even have unlimited data) and I am appalled at the kind of service I received at the corporate AT&T store that day (not to mention he was a manager). He even apathetically motioned (and shrugged) for another colleague to help me when I said I just wanted to cancel my account with them (like a single customer just didn't matter to AT&T).
**I really wish there was a way to express how rude and unprofessional Mr. Orlando was, but unfortunately this is all electronic so there's no way anyone reading this can see how nasty he was and how upset I am to actually CREATE a yelp account just to write this review.**
I will be writing some emails to AT&T to let them know the kind of employees they have in their stores. And I hope they take these types of complaints seriously before they lose all their customers. read more
