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Apple blocks activating 4s on carrier employee phone lines

M

mmmtastybusch

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 31, 2011
104
0
I'm not very happy with Apple right now. I'm a Verizon Wireless employee and I bought a 64GB iPhone 4s a week after launch. I went to activate it on my employee phone line the next day at work, and was told they weren't allowed to activate 4s' on employee lines for an undisclosed amount of time. Then, an hour later a notice was posted to employees about it. AFTER I had already bought one and tried to activate it. Here I am, a MONTH later, and still no one can even give me a DATE when I can activate it. At first I thought Verizon was doing this, but I have a friend who works at a Sprint store and he says it's the same with them, that Apple is the one blocking employee activation.

Unbelievable that they would want the very people selling their phones not to be able to show them off to customers! They're essentially forcing me to continue advertising their competitor's product (my android phone) to my customers and friends. Google should be thanking Apple for the free advertising! Any other carrier employees angry about this?
 
Why would Apple do that? I'm not saying they wouldn't, but what would their reason be?

Could it just be both carriers do it?
 
I've always heard sometimes carrier employees aren't allowed to have big ticket devices (iPhones) for a while after launch.
 
I believe it was for the original iPhone and maybe the 3G you couldn't order the iPhone on AT&T through the premier site. I guess with the discount they feel like they are losing (or not making) money on it? I don't know. Sucks.
 
ericrwalker said:
I believe it was for the original iPhone and maybe the 3G you couldn't order the iPhone on AT&T through the premier site. I guess with the discount they feel like they are losing (or not making) money on it? I don't know. Sucks.
Click to expand...

Or they want the maximum number available for their customers immediately after launch.
 
It's not Apple, it's Verizon limiting you. Don't blame Apple for Verizons stupid policy.
 
Apple doesn't activate the phone. The carrier does. So if you cannot activate your phone, then that's because the CARRIER isn't letting you.
 
It's Verizon. Trust me, Apple will never block you from adding a device of theirs on any type of line.

I have an AT&T employee line, and the day after the 4S launched, I got the iPhone and added the phone to the line. No issues.

Blame Verizon, not Apple.
 
cannot say I would be surprised in the least bit if verizon was doing this (as well as sprint).
 
afd

i know several verizon employees with the iphone 4s active. This is not why the phone cant be activated. If anything the carrier blocks it. Apple has no regulation over carrier accounts. As an employee you should know that.
 
The reason they gave me was that they wanted to "make sure there's enough for the customers" so after they aren't back ordered anymore, I'll be able to activate it. The reason AT&T may not do this could possibly be cause there's not much they can do to stop activations. You can just slap a SIM card in it and go. I don't know for sure who it is, and I can't find anything on the web about it. I could easily see it being Verizon, but don't act like this isn't the kind of thing Apple would do. It doesn't make sense for EITHER company to do it, it's definitely in no way good for business for both, and it's a piss-poor way to treat employees if it's Verizon.

----------
lulla01 said:
i know several verizon employees with the iphone 4s active. This is not why the phone cant be activated. If anything the carrier blocks it. Apple has no regulation over carrier accounts. As an employee you should know that.
Click to expand...

not over the accounts themselves, but sure they have regulation over certain aspects of activation. Apple has ALL KINDS of control on things when they make a deal to sell iPhones with a carrier. This is the exact reason Verizon wouldn't do business with them when they first came into the cell phone industry. Like I said, I could easily see this being either one, don't act so naive about Apple's business practices, they're well known for them
 
mmmtastybusch said:
The reason they gave me was that they wanted to "make sure there's enough for the customers" so after they aren't back ordered anymore, I'll be able to activate it.
Click to expand...

That makes no sense. You already HAVE the phone....If the above statement were true, then you wouldn't have been able to purchase one. You already having that phone still means -1 iPhone 4S out there for the "customers" to buy. Whether it's activated or not means nothing.

Did you do the automated activation (*228)?
 
Very common type of policy. The customer is always right and denying a sale because there aren't enough phones when the sales representative has one is rather embarrassing.
 
I'll echo above. This is Verizon's policy, not Apple's. This is not something apple would do. The phone has already been sold from Apple to Verizon so after that they don't care who has the phone. It's Verizon limiting employees having it so there will be more for customers until inventory gets more steady. Apple doesn't activate your phone, Verizon does. Apple sells the phone to Verizon and Verizon sells is to you. Period.
 
Are you an employee with Verizon corporate or are you on an authorized agent plan? I work for Verizon and know for a 100% fact this has been policy for high anticipated device launches for a long time now. I suspect you are on an agent plan as am I. Corporate employees are a little different since they are under a different billing system. But what you experienced is standard policy until they get a stable allotment of devices. It doesn't matter if you bought the phone outright somewhere else, they have it set in the system for any 4S device IMEI/ESN to be blocked by the activation system on employee accounts.
 
I'm failing to see how this is Apples fault. They already sold you the phone. If you can't activate the phone then Verizon is the one to blame.
 
My fiance is the operations manager at Best Buy and has a verizon discount (I am not talking a FAN discount, I am talking all you can eat line for $30 through Verizon). She got a 4S and we took it into the Verizon brick and mortar store and they said they couldn't do anything. She talked to the Verizon rep at her store, he worked his magic, and her phone was activated a few days later.

Maybe you need to just know the right people? The guys at the Verizon store were saying something about them not being able to activate ANY phones for a line like this, not just the iPhone 4S. Maybe they were full of ish, or maybe the rep was able to pull some strings? Either way, I would have been pissed if it wouldn't have worked since the lady begged and pleaded me to get her the 4S for her B-Day even though I just got her the 4 -_-
 
weak.

As a customer who had to wait for my 4s (first time I've EVER paid for a phone and not walked out with it in my hand) I couldn't care less if an employee had one. How many employees are there at verizon? I bet Foxcon could meet the demand for Verizon employees before their first mid-morning ping-pong game.

Seriously. If they *really* think it would look bad to have employees have them while the customer has to wait then why does everyo corporate verizon store have 4 or more on display? isn't 1 black one and 1 white one sufficient? or is that not enough to meet the demand of people who just want to tinker?

Sorry about your luck OP. I'd sell it for $600+ and give verizon a middle finger.
 
They could care less if you had the phone on a full paying plan. The fact is they have these policies for employee discounted plans only.
 
It's written in the contract between Apple & Verizon. They agreed, as did AT&T, for the first two years a new carrier has the iPhone Apple has control over employee activations. Verizon cannot activate employee lines until Apple says so.

If they do, which is obviously very easy, once that line is detected a surcharge hits Verizon. Make _No Mistake_ the only company in charge of iPhone policy every step of the way is Apple.

Those who find that hard to believe have no clue regarding Apples power.

Witness the fact that the iPhone is the _only phone_ ever to be exempt from Carrier Bloatware.

Don't be fooled, Apple does what Apple wants, when Apple wants, without consequence. No one comes between Apple & their products.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

mikeydeezy said:
I've always heard sometimes carrier employees aren't allowed to have big ticket devices (iPhones) for a while after launch.
Click to expand...

I believe this has been true since the first iPhone. With limited supplies they don't want employees taking a significant chunk of supplies over customers.

Completely reasonable policy. I suspect if the op asked around he might have discovered it but Verizon has only had the iPhone for a short time so perhaps it is not as known and due to production issues might not have happened on the launch of the Verizon 4.

Imagine employees of all the wireless companies getting first dibs on iPhones. It would cause a limited supply issue to become much worse.
 
Leonard1818 said:
Seriously. If they *really* think it would look bad to have employees have them while the customer has to wait then why does everyo corporate verizon store have 4 or more on display? isn't 1 black one and 1 white one sufficient? or is that not enough to meet the demand of people who just want to tinker
Click to expand...
Because they're accounting for times with high foot traffic (launch day, weekends, etc). Which is worse, having 2 phones not being tinkered with, or having a large amount of people getting impatient when all they want to do is look at the demo phone? That's why Apple Stores always have multiple display models.

Carriers are known to block employees from being able to activated big ticket phones on their employee lines. I remember reading the same thing when the EVO came out on Sprint (employees couldn't get them for a few months or so).
 
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