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Apple blocks activating 4s on carrier employee phone lines

jedolley said:
My guess (and it's simply that and in no way the official Sprint answer) is that it was to discourage employees or friends/families on employee accounts from buying the phone off contract in the first place. If an employee account obtains an iPhone and adds it to the employee account, Sprint doesn't really get anything out of it since they are either $0 or heavily discount rates to begin with. By implementing this "policy" it's more likely that the phones will be sold to "regular" paying customers.

Again, I don't know if that's the official story and honestly it was never a big deal for me.
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I can see that, I suppose. But they eventually lift (Verizon) this restriction, don't they?
 
lordofthereef said:
I can see that, I suppose. But they eventually lift (Verizon) this restriction, don't they?
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I would assume so... Sprint made the iPhone available to employee accounts on the 9th (placed my order 11PM on the 8th as soon as I saw they added it to the store :D).
 
Originally Posted by mmmtastybusch
You were implying that I am expecting Verizon to provide me with a new phone as in for free or a discounted price, which isn't the case.

scaredpoet said:
I stated (not implied, stated) that you're making a stink here and to customers about your employer's policy and you are vocally expecting sympathy for your first world problem. I for one, am not sympathetic. Thats all I'm saying.
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Here's where you implied this:
scaredpoet said:
but rather it employees immature, self-entitled people who expect to have expensive smartphones handed to them like candy, when I as a customer am stuck paying full price if I bust mine up and its not yet 2 years. Would I want to give you a commission? Probably not.

It's not Verizon's fault that your screen cracked. It's yours. And phones cost money, even fi you work for them. it's not their obligation to replace a phone you broke all because you treat them like disposable items.
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scaredpoet said:
I made no such statement. And it still has absolutely nothing to do with how or whether carriers sell phones to their employees.
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My mistake, I mistook Mactagonist's post as yours.

scaredpoet said:
I did blame him for breaking his phone two months into owning it. And he did admit that's his fault.
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When did I say two months into owning it? I've had the iPhone going on 3 months. I've had the Droid Pro for about 10 months. So maybe you should read more carefully

scaredpoet said:
When you say things, you need to be prepared to accept the consequences of those statements. Including acknowledgement of the fact that people, not being all identical in their viewpoints, may disagree with you.
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I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me. You however took it upon yourself to tell me I should quit my job over this, and now proceed to give me life advice, belittle me, etc... That's fine if you want to sound like a tool, but not necessary... And where did I say it has discouraged me from voicing my opinion in the future?
 
It doesn't make sense on the basis of having employees actually owning the latest gadget makes them smarter about the product. They can be a better evangelist for the product...

Oh, not I see a possible reason.

They don't want their sales people to evangelize the iPhone. Interesting...
 
Well, there are no longer any delayed shipping dates for the 4S on Verizon's website, so my guess is that they will lift the restriction soon.
 
Yea they've been in stock for about two weeks now so I'm hoping I'll be able to activate this thing soon!
 
Any updates on this front? Maybe an announcement of exactly when they're going to lift the restriction? They've been readily available for a long time now. I don't see any benefit for Verizon to keep employees from buying them at this point. It seems disadvantageous now because employees can't evangelize based on personal usage. Unless they want to advertise Android phones more if they think iPhones just sell themselves (and don't need advertisement or evangelism).
 
Well I talked to my regional manager the other day about it, and he said even though they're in stock online and easily direct-ordered to customers through our store, they won't be lifting the restriction until we can actually have them in stock. He said maybe one to two more weeks. That was a week ago, I just called in and they still have no idea.

The part I don't get is- if customers can get them easily, how would me activating an iPhone effect the customer? Why does it matter if we can't have them sitting on a shelf in the back if I have one? At this point, it's completely useless and petty to have this restriction IMO. All it's doing now is pissing off employees. It's literally doing nothing else lol
 
... and relatives of employees lol

Well... Hopefully it will happen soon. I can't imagine it would take very long to ship them to stores if they're readily available online.

I've had an upgrade since last May. I was planning on buying an Android phone, but nothing good has come out since then. Everybody's gushing about the Galaxy Nexus, but it's too big for my taste. Not to mention they don't have a 16GB model, so it's $100 more expensive than the 4S I want to get. I just want to use my upgrade!
 
mmmtastybusch said:
The part I don't get is- if customers can get them easily, how would me activating an iPhone effect the customer? Why does it matter if we can't have them sitting on a shelf in the back if I have one? At this point, it's completely useless and petty to have this restriction IMO. All it's doing now is pissing off employees. It's literally doing nothing else lol
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It won't, but they don't care, because they don't have to. Big business.
 
So has anyone heard anything about this? I'm trying to buy an iPhone 4S for my VZW account, and I don't want to get denied when I go to activate it. Can I just activate it on the website without hassle?
 
Shamrock13 said:
So has anyone heard anything about this? I'm trying to buy an iPhone 4S for my VZW account, and I don't want to get denied when I go to activate it. Can I just activate it on the website without hassle?
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Are you on an employee account? If I go to upgrade my phone, the 4S doesn't even show up for me. I can buy the iPhone 4, but the 4S doesn't show up as an option. I imagine that if you're able to actually purchase it on contract, you should be able to activate it. But if you buy it at full price, trying to activate it on the website won't be any different from any other way. If you can't, you can't.
 
Wow, this is unbelievably ridiculous. Get out of the way corporate. Sheesh!
 
Eh, the black 32GB 4S is backordered again on the VZW website... Not good news for people wanting the restriction lifted since VZW wants everything readily available before opening the gates to employees and their families.
 
Tons of news sites are reporting March 1st as the day. Hopefully all the waiting means they've built up enough stock to deal with the demand.
 
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