AT&T Offers Refurbished iPhone 5 Starting at $99

The Saga Continues

siurpeeman said:

curious to know if one could purchase applecare+ on one of these.

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Yes Applecare plus is available if the phone was originally sold within 30 days of your visit to an Apple Store. Mine was sold Sept 21 so a November 30th visit to the Apple Store was a non event and a waste of 3 hours in travel. When I placed my order an AT&T customer service rep talked with AppleCare and told me that it would be covered by just taking it to my local Apple Store and have it inspected and they would register it for me. It took me contacting AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega and his offices intervention to finally get regular Apple Care. Others have mentioned Apple Refurbs and Apple Care well these phones are not refurbished by Apple but some third party therefore the hitch. If Apple does the refurb an Apple products previous ownership or sales information is wiped off the record books. Then if a third party does a refurb they cannot scrub purchase records and the 30 day registration rule comes into play and a AT&T purchased refurb iPhone becomes a buyer beware.

viperGTS said:

Betting these are the scratched up ones that people have been trading in lately.

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Finally got my 16gb black yesterday. Very impressed. The first guy who posted this is most likely right on. Indeed my phone had one tiny scuff in the mirror finish. But that was it! Everything else flawless! Even though I myself am kinda OCD this isn't bothering me knowing that I got a brand new phone for $100 cheaper! It's gonna get scratched up anyways! Glad I saved one of those thousands of misfit iPhone 5's with a tiny scuff!

imagineadam said:

Finally got my 16gb black yesterday. Very impressed. The first guy who posted this is most likely right on. Indeed my phone had one tiny scuff in the mirror finish. But that was it! Everything else flawless! Even though I myself am kinda OCD this isn't bothering me knowing that I got a brand new phone for $100 cheaper! It's gonna get scratched up anyways! Glad I saved one of those thousands of misfit iPhone 5's with a tiny scuff!

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Actually, you didn't get it for $100 cheaper and you didn't get a brand new phone. You got a scuffed up used iPhone for only $50 cheaper because you can now buy a brand new one at BestBuy, RadioShack or Target for $149.99.

It will be interesting to see what AT&T charges for refurbished iPhone 5 once they get more in stock. I thought $99 was a pretty good deal until the price drop to $149.99 for brand new.

pommephone said:

Actually, you didn't get it for $100 cheaper and you didn't get a brand new phone. You got a scuffed up used iPhone for only $50 cheaper because you can now buy a brand new one at BestBuy, RadioShack or Target for $149.99.

It will be interesting to see what AT&T charges for refurbished iPhone 5 once they get more in stock. I thought $99 was a pretty good deal until the price drop to $149.99 for brand new.

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The $50 discount at those retailers is a limited time offer. The phone will go back up to the normal price after the holidays. I'd say it's a safe bet that At&t will hold out for a little longer at the $50 off rate, but that very soon the standard refurb price will be $100 off the normal rate.

pommephone said:

Actually, you didn't get it for $100 cheaper and you didn't get a brand new phone. You got a scuffed up used iPhone for only $50 cheaper because you can now buy a brand new one at BestBuy, RadioShack or Target for $149.99.

It will be interesting to see what AT&T charges for refurbished iPhone 5 once they get more in stock. I thought $99 was a pretty good deal until the price drop to $149.99 for brand new.

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Okay maybe not brand new but for a phone that has been out for only two months and with all the OCD people returning them with tiny scuffs pretty much the day or day after they have opened them that's pretty much brand new to me! And when I ordered it on the 23rd there were no other deals going on. Maybe there are now like you said. But anyways I'm happy with my barely used tiny scuffed iPhone 5! You can't take it away from me!

Applecare plus?

I finally received my iphones after many hours on the phone and then they messed up the activation, had to go to the store and get a new Sim card, but anyway, I plugged my serial numbers into the web site and it says I have applecare plus on one of them, expires in 2014. Does that mean the AC+ was transferred to the refurb?

pommephone said:

Just got off the phone with "Ron" at Applecare. The basic Applecare IS available for AT&T refurbished iPhones.

The Applecare PLUS is only available if you were lucky enough to get a refurb that is within 30 days of its original purchase- so basically NOT for ACPlus.

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iJimrod said:

Just some closure on my AT&T adventure...

Ordered a 16 gig white refurb iPhone 5 on friday. They said it would qualify for Apple Care Plus.

Recieved and activated it on monday. It was an AT&T refurb. Not an Apple refurb.

Called Apple on tuesday morning to check Apple Care Plus eligibility. Not eligible, past 30 day limit.

Returned refurb to AT&T. Purchased a new iPhone 5. Purchased Apple Care Plus.

And, All is Well!!!

Good Luck All, Jim

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As others have stated, a refurbished iPhone purchased from ATT is apparently an ATT refurb, basically checked and inserted into a generic box. Not authorized by Apple at all. Scratches are likely, in my case of a refurbished white 16GB iPhone 5 purchased from ATT on Black Friday there are several small scratches on the Apple logo on the back, and a hairline barely visible scratch on the display glass. The headphones appeared to be repackaged by ATT, but still had the Apple hard case (if they have been used by someone else, that's disgusting). The power adapter and Lightning cable may have been repackaged, but were in original Apple wrappers.
Because it was intended as a Christmas present, I only verified that the phone powered on and worked, and did not get it working on ATT service. Sadly, I waited beyond ATT's 14-day return policy to find out that my phone was originally purchased Sept 21, and I thus did not qualify for AppleCare+. My standard warranty from Apple expires Sept 21, 2013. ATT's 90 day warranty for refurbished products is useless here, as they will just send me to Apple. I've been back and forth with ATT and Apple's Agreement Administration team, and this is the case. Frustrating to say the least, having owned every iPhone and been an ATT/Cingular customer for over 10 years. After threatening to move to Verizon, ATT gave me $100 off my phone bill. Hardly satisfactory. You better bet I'll be threatening the Verizon move next time I don't qualify for full discounted iPhone pricing when the next iPhone comes out. Ah, first world problems.

jmagg said:

I finally received my iphones after many hours on the phone and then they messed up the activation, had to go to the store and get a new Sim card, but anyway, I plugged my serial numbers into the web site and it says I have applecare plus on one of them, expires in 2014. Does that mean the AC+ was transferred to the refurb?

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This likely means that the original purchaser got AppleCare+ on the phone and it didn't get taken off/refunded for some reason. If the AC+ doesn't get taken off later, you might be one of the lucky few. Congrats.