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]
David W. Martin has more than 20 years of experience in the industry as a programmer, systems and business analyst, author, and consultant. David has written for CNET’s iPhoneatlas.com, MacLife.com, CultofMac.com, BYTE.com and recently for aNewDoman.net. He comes to Cult of Mac’s website with deep knowledge and passion for the all things Apple. Follow David on Twitter @david_w_martin or see what he’s up to now at davidwmartin.com.
120 responses to “Preorder iPhone 4S Customers Get Duped Into Long Waits While Others Don’t”
And the point of this story is some dumb bitch got jealous her husband got his phone first and she has to wait? Big deal it’s a phine
tale. Not tail.
ooops. ingesting more coffee that should help….
This is why I love living in a small city. Only bout 20 people in line at my ATT store (I was #6) on launch morning, quick in n out purchase :)
I have had the same frustrating experience. At&T customer service person on the phone was rude and the helpful people at the store could not cancel the order, since they claimed it was already being sent! Still 3 days later no tracking number yet!
How is it that they got duped ???
I per order a black 32gb for AT&T in Best Buy. On the 16th I got tired of Best Buy telling mt they didn’t have one so I went to the local AT&T store in the mall, there was no line, no waiting I was in and out in 30 min. and just yesterday I received an email from best buy saying that it might take them 21 days to receive my order, unbelievable. I call them I cancel the preorder since I have one for almost a week now.
I pre-ordered on the 11th in which it told me shipping time was 1 – 2 weeks. Up until two days ago, I had the option to cancel. I kept checking AT&T and Apple stores in my area (NJ/NYC) and they were sold out. My phone shipped on the 21st, and I will have it on the 25th. There was no duping.
I ended up with 2 iPhone 4S.
I pre-ordered on the 7th and was told that I would have to wait for the week the 21st-28th for it to be delivered.
Being slightly narked off, I went and queued at Apple’s Bullring store, only to get to 4-5 from the front of the queue to be told that they had sold out.
Not one to give up, I went to the somewhat abandoned Three store, where I was handed one with the minimalist of effort.
Yesterday, I had a call from home stating that I had a parcel arrived, once opened it was revealed that it was the iPhone 4S that I pre-ordered, which I forgot to cancel.
Regardless of that being my own fault, it sums up a pretty miserable iPhone launch for myself.
That and Siri not being able to tell me where the nearest pharmacy is so I could get some headache tablets!!!
“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.” To my ears it sounds like “Ones living outside US should not get iPhones or any other, in this case Apple, product until Americans decide that they have plenty of these devices in US and the rest may enjoy these as well.
Same thing happend to my company. Our rep ordered the phones on the Friday preorders began, and we were told we would get them launch day. Well, a week later our order status is “not yet filled”and there’s no word on when our order will be filled. I will never pre-order an Apple item again. Its clear the system is designed to reward people who wait in line launch day, and pre-orders get served as an afterthought. I’m super disappointed with this fiasco.
You can’t return an iPhone bought online in store due to complications with activation.
Ron Johnson is no longer the VP of Retail. He left Apple months ago for JC Penney (ha!), so good luck getting a response from him.
I guess your bitch didn’t order you one humm?
The system is not designed to reward any one group over another…more people simply pre-ordered for this launch rather than wait in line. So now online orders are backed up, and the retailers are relatively well stocked.
It’s funny how everyone takes these problems personally
That’s terrible! I didn’t pre-order but instead walked into my closest BB on launch day just going to check the 4s out. They happened to have 2 32s not on hold for pre-orders so I snagged one within 15 minutes of walking in.
Pre-Ordered on the 7th, took me 9 hours and 47 Minutes to do so. Received my Pre-Ordered 4$ on the 14th at 10:30AM only to have it not get activated until 7PM that day. On Friday and Saturday of that week I walked into the Apple Store and people were walking in and buying 4$ on AT&T and walking out the door in 20 Min.
AT&T rep told me the very same thing about exchanges, thus I was stuck with a $299 brick for most of the day. Apple Store was useless. The local Apple Store has been that way for a while now. I don’t think this is Apple in General, but this particular store. You can visit my blog at http://jtsblog.com for more detail on my iPhone 4$ Pre-Ordering issues.
Yep it’s pretty disgusting to see people act this way over something as trivial as a phone. Guess what everybody? The sun will rise and set tomorrow whether you have an iPhone or not.
UPDATE: I got the phone yesterday (10/24) and this morning I got another email from AT&T saying that I would get my phone 21 to 28 days after I placed my order (which was 10/9). Simply amazing!
————————————————————————————
I ordered mine on 10/8 and the website said it would ship in 14-21 days.
This is what my confirmation email says:
“Your iPhone will ship in approximately 14-21 days.”
Then on 10/17 I got another email with this line:
“We wanted to confirm that your order is still scheduled to be delivered 21 to 28 days from your order date, shown below.”
By using the word “still” they are trying to weasel out of shipping it on time and hoping I won’t notice that they changed the delivery window. Very annoying and rather insulting.
However, I got another email yesterday (10/21):
“We shipped your recently placed AT&T Premier order.”
Accroding to FedEx tracking, I should get the phone on Monday, and that is exactly 14 days after the order was placed.
So, they are unnecessarily annoying their customers.
I pre ordered my iPhone on line and was notified that it would ship between 24th & 31st. I then went to the store first thing Friday morning and by 10:00 AM had my new iPhone. On arriving home I checked the status of my order on line, and cancelled it using the button provided, and am a happy customer.
He’s still listed as the VP on Apple’s website. http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/ or http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/r… so what can I say? Hmmmm….
I ordered 2 yesterday with the 21 to 28 day shipping window. I wont be dissapointed when they arrive because i get to ditch android for good!
Shipped and Delivered are totally different things. The first email said it would SHIP in 14 days, the second email said it would be DELIVERED in 21. they never changed anything, they figured on standard shipping witch normally takes 5-7 business days.
I went to my local Apple store one morning, got a little card to hold an iPhone 4S, waited on line for about 45 minutes then bought one. That’s why I don’t pre-order iPhones or bother with online orders.
lol suckers. i waited for about 5 min at the apple store the day after release and got my iphone all set up & ready in about 20 min. total.
Yeah, I read some horror stories, here is mine. I added a line with AT&T and order through them for the first time, normally go through Apple for pre-order. They promised my phone would arrive launch day. No show it came on Wed the 19th and it wasn’t a 4S, but a 3G S. Got on the line with AT&T and they told me to exchange it in store and the rep told me they will waive the restocking fee. I called my local stores and they were all sold out. I had 30 days to bring it in and they said they can take care of it for me. So, I headed to the store and they had problems completing the order so, they had to cancel my newly created second line and re add a new one and tried to get $35 restocking fee from me. Now I am waiting 21-28 days for it to be shipped to my house.
I’m a little surprised that they accepted more pre-orders than they could handle. They should have only allowed pre-orders for the phones that they actually had available. I would have then tried to pre-order, been told that I couldn’t, and then picked up a phone in stores. Instead, I’m waiting a couple of weeks like so many others.
I had the same issue but finally got the straight answer that as long as your pre-ordered phone has not shipped you can indeed cancel your order and have your upgrade reversed so that you can go to an Apple store and buy one with the discount. I think AT&T is telling the customers stories about the length of time to reverse the upgrade and the impossibility of canceling the order to try to keep the sale. That’s bullS**t. I got my order canceled and was able to buy a 4S from the local Apple store about an hour later.
I wound up with two orders by 4AM launch day, one with AT&T and one with Apple. I called and cancelled the order with AT&T knowing Apple is generally better at handling this. Come the day of shipping emails go out I get an email from Apple telling me I have an order with AT&T and they cancelled the Apple order. I called Apple (nice lady) and she tries to reinstate it but tells me the “block” is at the AT&T end. I call AT&T and the rep tells me that the lady who cancelled my order cancelled the shipment but not the order (?????) and he reinstates it, now with an order date of 10/10 instead of 10/7. So it is AT&T that screwed up my situation yet they can’t make good on it even though they realize the error they made (not fully canceling my AT&T order)! This has been horrid customer service. AT&T should fix the situations they screwed up but they won’t.
She didn’t try very hard to cancel her order.
No, FedEx delivery is more like 2-3 days. (and they use FedEx).
My crazy story…… My girlfriend ordered her’s on the 7th, and it arrived on launch day. She opened it up and within minutes had it set up. I went to the at&t store on launch day and bought mine, and within minutes had it set up.
Yes, we could have ordered one from at&t, and apple, and best buy, and ebay, and craigslist etc., just “to be safe” like some of the folks leaving comments, but that just seems…..bratty? I mean, damn, just order and wait. It will arrive. Everyone wants to blame at&t, and apple, when they’re the ones screwing up their own orders. Multiply them by a million, and no wonder it’s hard to get a device within the first month. you have classic demand, and then you have neurotic brats.
aw man, my phone just broke. damn, karma!
Wow, theses comments are ridiculous. Didn’t anyone read the article? You are duped when you order on 10/7 and PROMISED a phone on launch day. You are duped when you are NOT allowed to cancel your fake pre-order. You are duped when the store has your phone IN STOCK, but customer service won’t let you cancel.
I ordered on 10/8 and I wasn’t able to cancel until TODAY. I bought the phone from Apple. The retentions department at AT&T was top notch. They really need to give first level CSRs a little more power to do things.
Check out the AT&T pre-order thread on Macrumors. There are MANY people who tried repeatedly to cancel and were refused every time. AT&T doesn’t seem to be consistent on this. Some CSRs say you can cancel, others say you can’t. Some store managers will do it, and others say they can’t.
Aren’t you reading any of these comments? Trivial? If you have a BROKEN phone, what do you expect them to do? Do you suggest tin can and string?
Aren’t you reading any of these comments? Trivial? If you have a BROKEN phone, what do you expect them to do? Do you suggest tin can and string?
Because they/we were promised phones ON launch day and AT&T did not deliver. To add insult to injury, the stores HAD phones in stock, but corporate refused to allow them to cancel the ‘pre-order’ and buy from the store.
I would try calling again and talking to retentions. If you are polite, there isn’t much they can’t do. BUT make sure you have an option for buying a phone at either Apple or AT&T. It took me a week, but I was able to get it cancelled and bought from the Apple Store.
I preordered mine online from AT&T late on Friday afternoon, the first day preorders were allowed. I figured I was too late to get it on launch day the next Friday. Sure enough after ordering the phone my confirmation says it will ship in 2 to 3 weeks. I shrugged and figured no big deal, I can live with my 3gs an extra couple of weeks. Then on launch day the next Friday, lo and behold, the phone arrives in the mail. I was sure surprised! The shipping code didn’t match the confirm I received from the online order so AT&T screwed it up. Oh well! I’m not complaining! I got my shiny new white 32gig 4s!
they also use UPS.. bc i pre ordered on the 7th thru verizon wireless and got 2 – 16GB phones.. 1 came via FedEX and the other came via UPS.. I was also really hesitant to pre order and not just wait to buy in store.. thank goodness i got mine.. bc my phone was so bad.. 1st iphone EVER.. never going back to anything else!!
There are other options out there… You can live without Siri.
Wait till iphone 5 came out they just play your emotion
Two days ago I bought two 4s’ at a Sam’s Club. No waiting. Other more popular outlets in the area like Best Buy had no inventory.
i think booking the phone peoples are waste of time ·
Nice hyperbole. There’s no duping going on. You are given the shipping time when you order and no where did they say that online order take priority over stores. It is standard policy that if you order online you return online, they are holding that the same for the phones. Also, this is a contract item whose price is dependent on your carrier status. So yeah if you ordered a phone online they are going to lock down your status so that the price you agreed to pay is the price you are charged. Otherwise they will have broken several state and federal pricing laws.
This isn’t Apple doing anything to anyone. It is people not doing their research before buying and realizing they shouldn’t have hit ‘agree’ after the fact. That you didn’t bother to read is NOT Apple’s fault.
Nice hyperbole. There’s no duping going on. You are given the shipping time when you order and no where did they say that online order take priority over stores. It is standard policy that if you order online you return online, they are holding that the same for the phones. Also, this is a contract item whose price is dependent on your carrier status. So yeah if you ordered a phone online they are going to lock down your status so that the price you agreed to pay is the price you are charged. Otherwise they will have broken several state and federal pricing laws.
This isn’t Apple doing anything to anyone. It is people not doing their research before buying and realizing they shouldn’t have hit ‘agree’ after the fact. That you didn’t bother to read is NOT Apple’s fault.
They did only allow the number of pre-orders they could handle. Which is why about halfway though the day the shipping times when to 1-2 weeks. Those weren’t pre-orders but just straight orders.
Most of these ‘duping’ claims are from folks that are pissed that the stocking of the online store and the B&M stores is not set up so stock goes to the online department first so they were all “I can wait a week whatever it’s just a phone” then when they got jealous of their co-workers that got one launch weekend and tried to get one in store they found out that their eligibility was ‘used’ by the online order, which had started processing to actually ship out. At which point you can’t cancel the order. You can only wait for it to arrive and then do the request to return. Which also means waiting 3 days after they receive it for ATT to flip back your eligibility. Per their rules which they have never hidden.
It’s a phone, not the cure for cancer. You won’t die waiting a few more days for it.
Try again. They didn’t weasel anything, you just need to get the hurt and pissy lens out of your glasses and read what was written.
Will ship = will be processed and leave us within 14 to 21 days
to be delivered = will reach you after being processed, handled over to FedEx/UPS (which depends on the delivery rate you selected and where you leave) and drive to the address you provided. Take on 5-7 days and you get 21-28 days from you hitting submit to you signing for the package
Actually no.
It was announced like 4 months ago that he was leaving and that would happen ‘later in the year’ and then clarified to November.
So he is still there.
That said, he isn’t likely to do much of anything because the policies from Apple and ATT were all spelled out in advance and it’s not his or Apple’s fault if folks don’t read and/or do a little research before they place an order.
You say company and you say rep, which makes me think that you actually didn’t order via Apple since they have a long standing on only being able to handle personal phone sales, not company ones. For companies you are sent to ATT, who has kept those sales for themselves.
So, if this is the case, you are griping at Apple for ATT screwing up your order.
Broken from most of these comments has been physical so why would Apple, who doesn’t warranty you dropping your phone, treat you special when ordering a new one. Nor why should they treat you special because you waited for ages until after your phone was out of warranty to replace it.
how are either of those their fault. That’s like blaming them because the update to iOS 5 bricked your jailbroken device that you never bothered to backup to your computer and in the process all your info was erased.
ATT not delivering on time is NOT Apple’s fault and yet many folks are acting like it was. Nor is it Apple’s fault that ATT’s policies are to not cancel online orders, that their policy is 3 days to get eligibility reset after a return. Nor is it Apple’s fault if ATT didn’t update their website to show the change in delivery times (as Apple did) so folks were told a day later they didn’t get their order in on time.
If they can prove they ordered for launch day and then were told no, they can try filing a complaint with the consumer department for their state as false advertising or whatever. But blaming Apple for ATT’s screwing things up is just wrong since Apple doesn’t control ATT
People forget the power of not being a douche bag when talking to CS folks who often don’t have all the control over what can be done and what can’t. And when they do they are told not to use that power unless deemed really really necessary. Generally you are asking them to break policy you agreed to (but probably didn’t bother reading), and being polite is more likely to get you that favor than being a jerk
AT&T Premier uses FedEx Standard Overnight Delivery. So, no.
Not necessarily true. I canceled my pre-order and walked into an AT&T store and picked up my 64 GB, no problem.
That is the same thing I did , was in the store for over an hour , but still
Yeah u have to read before u agree to apple don’t let them turn you into a human centapeed.