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Carrier $30 Carrier Upgrade fee with iPhone Upgrade Program?

manhattanmania said:
Just posted a thread about this myself. It’s absurd. Carrier is doing nothing. We can obviously attempt to get it waived but that’s not guaranteed. With Apple care being available monthly now I may just buy an unlocked phone and avoid this whole thing.
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Yep, bye bye Upgrade program for me as well.

No AT& T upgrade fee last year in Apple program. I spent 35 minutes being passed around Apple last week on the phone only to be disconnected on hold! Nice,and surprise, no Apple "feedback Email" to rate my experience.

I'm just going to buy the new phone and AppleCare + next year.

Drafted and sent an Email to "Tim" as an Apple loyalist and shareholder. If your gonna change the program, then tell us. Gotta DO BETTER. I EXPECT THIS FROM APPLE. My bet is Apple gets a % of the upgrade fee. Asked in my Email, see if I get a response much less on this question.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 
I got AT&T to waive two $30 upgrade fees this evening. I had a chat with them a few days ago day where the rep said he was going to put in a “request” to have them waive the fees. I knew that probably wasn’t going anywhere so after my credit card was charged today for the full bill, I opened another chat and said, hey, the rep the other day said you’d waive the stupid fees and if you don’t waive them, I’m going to switch carriers. A few minutes later, I had a $63.60 credit (you are actually charged sales tax on the fees in PA and they refunded that too). It is such an obnoxious fee - essentially a charge for the privilege of remaining their customer. I’m sure a lot of people don’t even notice it or don’t think to ask for a refund so they probably make a lot of money off of these fees. Easy money from their perspective.
 
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Usually I ask my carrier (Verizon) to waive the fee right after I upgrade. I never had it fail. This time I asked for it to be waived a week in advance of getting my phone, and the rep made a note on my account, and it successfully applied. Then again whenever I ask they thank me for being a loyal customer so they will do that for me, although I’ve only been with them since 2013, YMMV.
 
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This is the reply I got from Verizon Support. After that the rep held his position of not waiving the fee and ended up with me leaving Verizon for ATT. How did you convince your reps to waive?

PS: the phones were bought using the iUP so I don’t even know what he was smoking when he was talking about “warranty”, since it’s provided, and paid for, but AppleCare+
 
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stafil said:
View attachment 790047 This is the reply I got from Verizon Support. After that the rep held his position of not waiving the fee and ended up with me leaving Verizon for ATT. How did you convince your reps to waive?

PS: the phone were bought using the iUP so I don’t even know what he was smoking when he was talking about “warranty”, since it’s provided, and paid for, but AppleCare+
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It probably depends on the rep you get. I basically told them the same thing and threw in there how I was a loyal customer who has always been in good standing. She gave me the same canned response about the fee going towards this and that, but didn't give me a hard time or anything and said because I was a loyal customer she would waive the fee
 
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stafil said:
View attachment 790047 This is the reply I got from Verizon Support. After that the rep held his position of not waiving the fee and ended up with me leaving Verizon for ATT. How did you convince your reps to waive?

PS: the phone were bought using the iUP so I don’t even know what he was smoking when he was talking about “warranty”, since it’s provided, and paid for, but AppleCare+
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Wow! That sucks. I think it may depend on the rep. I usually either call for activation help when I get my phone, and then ask to waive the fee right after -- or I just use the online chat system. They always are happy to remove the fee for me. I don't even mention I'm a loyal customer, they say that to me, and thank me for being with them. My usual go to question is "So I see that I am charged for $30 activation fee, is there a way that you could waive it?"
 
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airjay75 said:
I got AT&T to waive two $30 upgrade fees this evening. I had a chat with them a few days ago day where the rep said he was going to put in a “request” to have them waive the fees. I knew that probably wasn’t going anywhere so after my credit card was charged today for the full bill, I opened another chat and said, hey, the rep the other day said you’d waive the stupid fees and if you don’t waive them, I’m going to switch carriers. A few minutes later, I had a $63.60 credit (you are actually charged sales tax on the fees in PA and they refunded that too). It is such an obnoxious fee - essentially a charge for the privilege of remaining their customer. I’m sure a lot of people don’t even notice it or don’t think to ask for a refund so they probably make a lot of money off of these fees. Easy money from their perspective.
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I chatted ATT this morning and got my two fees waived as well. They tried standard boiler plate responses but I nicely persisted on the fact that the phones are full price and ATT hasn’t given me any discount and he said he understood and got them removed for me!
 
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swarlos said:
I chatted with a Verizon agent and I got $25 credited to my account!
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How long did it take for the activation fee to be billed to your account? Mine has been a few days and no fee. I did a sim swap prior to activation.
 
mac.cali said:
How long did it take for the activation fee to be billed to your account? Mine has been a few days and no fee. I did a sim swap prior to activation.
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It was supposed to be on my next bill. I tried to do the swim swap thing but couldn’t get texts to come through so I had to pop back in the sim that came preinstalled in my X Max.
 
swarlos said:
It was supposed to be on my next bill. I tried to do the swim swap thing but couldn’t get texts to come through so I had to pop back in the sim that came preinstalled in my X Max.
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I guess I got lucky because sim swap has everything working. Been using the phone with no issues, but the fee isn’t on the account. Not sure if it’s going to show up or not.
 
stafil said:
View attachment 790047 This is the reply I got from Verizon Support. After that the rep held his position of not waiving the fee and ended up with me leaving Verizon for ATT. How did you convince your reps to waive?

PS: the phones were bought using the iUP so I don’t even know what he was smoking when he was talking about “warranty”, since it’s provided, and paid for, but AppleCare+
Click to expand...
That's stupid... The carrier is doing absolutely nothing here, it's all between you and Apple. "The cost of connecting your device to our tower"?? How is it any different from me just swapping the SIM myself which is free? And isn't the cost of maintaining the towers what my monthly bill is going to?
 
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mac.cali said:
I guess I got lucky because sim swap has everything working. Been using the phone with no issues, but the fee isn’t on the account. Not sure if it’s going to show up or not.
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I did the sim swap, too, and the fee hasn’t been charged or posted after a week. It might show up on my bill in a few days, I suppose. I did call at&t and the rep said that she sees no upgrade (or any other fee, or pending fee, on my account). We’ll see soon.
 
When iPhoneX came out, I paid in full with Apple and did the sim swap for Verizon. Ne Upgrade fee was posted ever to my account.
 
bobTX10 said:
Is there a specific dept. to talk to with ATT? Or just any rep? We’re you threatening to cancel service?
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for me normal rep worked. i had reserved the walk away option as last but i didn’t have to use t
 
The fact that Apple mentions and then notifies AT&T to charge a so-called upgrade fee is fraud on their part. AT&T actually does nothing at all when upgrading under IUP, or even when you buy the phone out-right.

There is NO need to activate a new SIM, just use your current one. This is a total scam.
 
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ZipZap said:
The fact that Apple mentions and then notifies AT&T to charge a so-called upgrade fee is fraud on their part. AT&T actually does nothing at all when upgrading under IUP, or even when you buy the phone out-right.

There is NO need to activate a new SIM, just use your current one. This is a total scam.
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I did the sim swap and still no fee charged on Verizon.
 
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