I don't come here often, obviously, because we don't need (or want) phone upgrades frequently. But one of our old iPhones (don't even know how old it is) would only hold a charge for about 4 hours. Decided it was time to upgrade.
Nothing fancy needed here - this is our home phone line that rarely gets taken out of the house. Picked the iPhone SE (3rd gen), which is actually the cheapest iPhone you can buy, but this was precisely the phone we needed.
Chris helped me, and everything was smooth . . . other than the fact that he kept continuously trying to get me to change my plan, going on and on about how much money I could save. Declined. I also, due to past experience, told him all I wanted was the phone itself with no other add-ons. Nothing. No protection, no upgrade option, no NOTHING. And I did not want to change my plan.
So, he starts setting up the new phone, transferring everything from the old one via iCloud. Then he starts telling me that if I change my auto billing from a credit card to a bank draft instead, I could save $50 per month. Woah! Hey, I'll do that.
Back and forth trying to figure out my bank info (did not have my checkbook for routing and account numbers) and I am so reluctant to use my debit card. It seemed, though, that the debit card was my only option, so he takes that, I enter in my pin number (while he watches - what's up with that?) and then tells me that "Ok, we'll get your plan switched now." What? I immediately went into "What are you talking about, changing my plan?" mode, only for him to tell me that if I wanted the $50 savings with an auto pay from my bank, I needed to change the plan - to the plan he was trying to sell me when we first started and I had declined!
Quickly nixed that whole thing, changed my auto pay back to my credit card and confirmed that our plan would not change - at all.
Needless to say, when I got home, I immediately logged onto AT&T to make sure that nothing had been switched, then used my banking app to change my ATM pin number (that's a really freaky feeling thinking that someone was holding your debit card and then watched you enter your pin).
If you go here for an upgrade on any device:
--Make sure you tell the sales associate EXACTLY what you want.
--Listen carefully as they give you the whole spiel about "saving you money" or "this would be a better plan for you" or "you need this add-on because . . ."
--Remember that all of the cases and accessories here are super-pricey. Obviously I needed a case for this new iPhone, and the cheapest one here was $40. Came home and ordered a better one on Amazon for $12. Same goes for additional chargers or charging bricks.
--Log into your AT&T account online after you leave to make sure nothing has changed that you did not authorize and no new charges have been added without your consent.
So wish that every time I leave this store after shelling out a bunch of money that I don't have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something is wrong or that I've just been taken for a world-class buggy ride.
I also wish that AT&T would be environmentally conscious and accept old phones for recycling. I got no trade in on the old phone (yeah, too old), and now it sits in a drawer waiting until I drop it off somewhere to be recycled. read more