A recent report details an interesting tale of woe for preorder iPhone 4S customers. These customers decided that the right thing to do would be to preorder their iPhone 4S for home or office delivery. After all that sure beats waiting in line for hours on launch day right?
Unfortunately for some customers that isn’t true since they are going to have to wait weeks to get their preordered iPhone 4S while Apple Stores or other brick-and-mortar stores either had or continue to have stacks of them.
The biggest problem – they can’t even cancel their pre-orders and buy one from a local store.
According to Stacey, who originally submitted this message to the Consumerist, this is the problem and she isn’t the only one having it either:
So, I’m a little peeved that I’ve been walking around with a cracked screen Apple iPhone 3Gs for a month and a half, waiting for the new iPhones to come out. I ordered one for myself and one for my husband, all in the same 20 minute span of time. Well, his came three days ago, but I’ve been told that mine won’t ship for 21-28 days because it’s “first come, first served.”
So, I was thinking that I can cancel my order with AT&T and just go to the Apple store 5 minutes from my house. I talked to 3 reps at AT&T and can’t get a straight story: the first time, I was told it would take 3 days to reinstate my upgrade. This was before I knew the 21 day thing, so I figured I’d just wait it out, assuming incorrectly that my phone wasn’t far behind. The next rep said she could cancel it immediately and reinstate my upgrade immediately, but I wanted to check with Apple to make sure they had them in stock. Well, I’m regretting that I didn’t take her offer. My third phone call resulted in being routed to the internet navigation department (WTF?) and being told that they are not allowed to cancel any iPhone pre-orders and that I will just have to wait for my phone to arrive and mail it back or refuse delivery if I don’t want it.
This is unfortunate when you consider that Apple is taking preorders in 22 more countries yet they aren’t able to fulfill preorders in a reasonable amount of time.
Besides this pre-ordering fiasco you’ll find yourself in a pickle if you try to exchange an iPhone 4S that you preordered online at one of Apple’s retail stores. I tried to exchange my 32GB model for a 64GB model on launch day and after spending two hours in line with a ticket for the model I wanted I wasn’t allowed to exchange the iPhone 4S even though the Baybrook Mall store in Friendswood, Texas had stacks and stacks of them available.
I was told to go to the Apple Online Store to exchange my iPhone 4S using a process that meant I’d be without a phone to use for two to three weeks. I’ve reached out to Ron Johnson the Senior Vice President of Retail for a resolution since for the first time the store staff wasn’t particularly helpful. I’m also going to ask Apple about this new issue with preorder fulfillment.
[via The Consumerist]
