Apple Collecting Customer Information in Effort to Address iPhone Upgrade Program Pre-Order Issues

[Weaselboy]

I've been thinking about signing up for this. Is there anyway to get a CDMA enabled phone through the upgrade program when I'm currently using AT&T? The store options don't seem to include a simple unlocked option...

I agree, however the option to buy the Sim free, carrier independent iphone is not present again at this launch. Those wanting to pay full price are still without a direct unlocked option.

I don't think the SIM free unlocked issue is related to this IUP problem. From what I recall about previous iPhone launches they have never released the SIM free unlocked phone at the same time as the initial release. The SIM free option was not available until two weeks after the 6S launch.

 

[Modernboy]

Wow I got quoted in a Mac Rumors article. Nice! I also wrote an email to Tim Cook but did not get a response or a call (not that I expected to).

Fingers crossed I get a call today since it will have been 48 hours.

 

[840quadra]

I don't think the SIM free unlocked issue is related to this IUP problem. From what I recall about previous iPhone launches they have never released the SIM free unlocked phone at the same time as the initial release. The SIM free option was not available until two weeks after the 6S launch.

Agreed.

In the end, the point of my initial comment is to state that it could be worse. Those of us that like full unlocked phones are actually worse off, and wish we got a little priority too.

 

[576316]

This is definitely a US only thing. The UK site doesn't have the same message and it seems they're only dealing with people already enrolled in the program. But it gives me hope that next year, when I'm fully enrolled, things will be better.

 

[JFK1979]

Wow I got quoted in a Mac Rumors article. Nice! I also wrote an email to Tim Cook but did not get a response or a call (not that I expected to).

Fingers crossed I get a call today since it will have been 48 hours.

Keep us posted on what they says. Im still under 24h since my call so you are way ahead of me.

 

[now i see it]

IUP participants just have to accept the harsh truth that they are deemed second class citizens in Apple's eyes and for the most part have to wait at the end of the line.

Hard to accept I know. But based on a this iPhone launch, apparently true.

 

[acegreen]

Is it just feel or is Apple treating upgrade customers as second class citizen? Those customers should have been Apple's highest priority since they are loyal, recurring customers.

 

[Weaselboy]

Agreed.

In the end, the point of my initial comment is to state that it could be worse. Those of us that like full unlocked phones are actually worse off, and wish we got a little priority too.

Ah... gotcha. I missed your point.

 

[576316]

Hmm ... I actually got screwed over by the fact that they didn't let T-Mobile customers signed up online (for people who aren't yet in Upgrade Program) and didn't have reservation link available publicly. I wonder if the rep will be able to help me because I'm not in the program ... yet.

Has anyone tried this yet?

This is what I'm thinking too. Those of us in the UK have to go in store to sign up meaning those of us who intended to sign up this year had absolutely no chance of getting a phone. Which seems unfair and Apple's fault. They've made the program look unattractive to UK customers because of this and I dunno if it might be worth calling customer service and moaning to see if I get anywhere.

 

[iPunish901]

baffles me how people come into thread not understanding the situation and trying to make those in this situation look selfish.

if I pre-ordered and apple told me id have to wait until November, I would be cool with that. I do not want to be prioritized over others, just given the same opportunity. but at 2:02am central time, I literally couldnt order an iphone. that is the problem. I had no opportunity.

 

[lazyntired]

73 minutes on the phone. Same as others have posted... they took all my info and preferred phone options, said they will try and locate a phone for me and someone will call me within 2 days. Rep was very appolgetic.

Glad you got something!

 

[576316]

Is it just feel or is Apple treating upgrade customers as second class citizen? Those customers should have been Apple's highest priority since they are loyal, recurring customers.

Exactly. IUP customers should have been automatically allocated stock. That should be part of the deal. Every IUP customer is going to want an upgrade so it should be automatic. I'm certain they'll fix this for next year.

 

[bean dip]

Exactly. They know how many are signed up for IUP and that all those people will want a new iPhone. They should have taken model/capacity requests early and automatically reserved a device at the customer's local store. This is the whole point of the program.

The problem with that is the carriers. The big 3 all have a similar upgrade program so it's logistically impossible for everyone to get appropriate stock at launch. Well, they could but it would be old tech because they'd have to start production months earlier.
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Exactly. They know how many are signed up for IUP and that all those people will want a new iPhone. They should have taken model/capacity requests early and automatically reserved a device at the customer's local store. This is the whole point of the program.

The problem with that is the carriers. The big 3 all have a similar upgrade program so it's logistically impossible for everyone to get appropriate stock at launch. Well, they could but it would be old tech because they'd have to start production months earlier.

 

[JFK1979]

The problem with that is the carriers. The big 3 all have a similar upgrade program so it's logistically impossible for everyone to get appropriate stock at launch. Well, they could but it would be old tech because they'd have to start production months earlier.

All the loans for AUP are through Citizen Bank. Im sure Apple knows exactly how many are on AUP since as soon as you sign up Citizen Bank pays the whole amount for the phone to Apple

 

[Exile714]

Been on the phone 90 minutes so far. Spoke with a rep who, after finally getting someone "who can help" available, comes back with "your iPhone isn't enrolled in the IUP program."

Me: Um, but it is...

We went around for about 15 minutes before I finally asked for a manager. Turns out she put a wrong letter down on my serial number and was looking up the wrong phone. She read it back to me once and it sounded right, but she refused to check again after she decided I was just an idiot.

Anyway, still on hold but what's with all the people on here saying people on IUP want special treatment? All we want to do is place an order for a phone. I don't care if I have to wait until November, just as long as I have a place in line, any line.

There should be a single set of phones, not one for pre-order, one for IUP and one for walk-ins. Anyone should be able to pre-order, ship to home if they're paying outright or ship to store if they're on IUP and deal with payments then.

All I want is to be able to line up, not to cut ahead.

 

[DrewDaHilp1]

The stuff that happens when you finance a cell phone.

 

[ics55]

WORSE THAN COMCAST

I haD all kinds of issues with my preorder. I ordered in the first 30 minutes, but the date was pushed to Sept 26-Oct 3. They sent me a reservation on Friday morning and when I went to use it, the site said it could not find the reservation.

I spent almost 3 hours on hold Friday, listening to the same horrible three songs over and over and over (one of the songs had a lady making suggestive moaning noises, so I couldn't even put my phone on speaker at work). They told me that they knew about the issue, but it would be resolved by 6 or 7 Central. If it wasn't fixed, they said I had to call them back and wait on hold as long as necessary. The problem wasn't fixed. So I spent almost 2 hours on hold again on Friday night. Their solution was that it would be fixed by morning.

Saturday morning rolled around and it still wasn't fixed. I had an email address that I got from the first call to Apple and sent him two emails letting him know the problem was not fixed. No one responded.

I called them around 2PM. I was on hold for 2 hours and 45 minutes and the music stopped and the phone started ringing. Finally! I was going to get an agent. Nope, the phone rang about 20 times and then disconnected. Keep in mind, I was an hour from losing my reservation.

I decided to try a chat. After about an hour of waiting for an agent, they said they would have a supervisor call. Well, someone called, but it wasn't a supervisor, it was the first agent I talked to. He said they would extend my reservation and he would call me on Sunday. Apple sent over a new reservation email in the middle of the night, but it did not work, either.

Sunday afternoon, the agent called me back. He said to try the email again because they thought they had it fixed. It was fixed, but my delivery date was moved to Oct 26-Nov 1. I told him that I wanted my reserved date, which was the only reason I stayed on hold for hours, but he said there was nothing he could do. He was supposed to have a Supervisor call me, as of right now, no one has called me back. Unbelievable.

This does sound bad. In a situation like this, I would send an email to Angela Ahredts, who is the SVP of retail. You can use google to find her email. It sounds crazy but it really works. They have a special team that follows up on these. If you have a real issue, which you seem to, they will fix it. I did this about a year ago and her assistant fixed the issue which involved getting me a very high demand item in just 2 days. Good luck.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I'm sorry, but everyone here sounds like a bunch of entitled whining losers.

You have to use a phone that, as of a few days ago, is only the second best, for fewer than 2 months.

You're all talking like your current phones have suddenly been bricked or something.

Here, Apple can make this up to you guys. For the time while you're waiting on your new phones, Apple will reduce your monthly payments by $1. There. Feel better over your single dollar saved?

 

[malencar]

I'm sorry, but everyone here sounds like a bunch of entitled whining losers.

You have to use a phone that, as of a few days ago, is only the second best, for fewer than 2 months.

You're all talking like your current phones have suddenly been bricked or something.

Here, Apple can make this up to you guys. For the time while you're waiting on your new phones, Apple will reduce your monthly payments by $1. There. Feel better over your single dollar saved?

Sourpuss much?

 

[nwlondonlad]

You're in the US, different process as I understand it.

For the Uk you have to make a store reservation, for which the ability to do so is restricted to store stock. Also the UK site was screwed and sending us all to the US site. By the time it was resolved there was no stock anywhere.

Yeah this is what happened to me the link kept redirecting to Apple.com and took about 15 mins to actually go the IUP at which point almost everything except Rose/Gold was sold out.

Need to call Apple UK for them to follow suit

 

[malencar]

Been on the phone 90 minutes so far. Spoke with a rep who, after finally getting someone "who can help" available, comes back with "your iPhone isn't enrolled in the IUP program."

Me: Um, but it is...

We went around for about 15 minutes before I finally asked for a manager. Turns out she put a wrong letter down on my serial number and was looking up the wrong phone. She read it back to me once and it sounded right, but she refused to check again after she decided I was just an idiot.

Anyway, still on hold but what's with all the people on here saying people on IUP want special treatment? All we want to do is place an order for a phone. I don't care if I have to wait until November, just as long as I have a place in line, any line.

There should be a single set of phones, not one for pre-order, one for IUP and one for walk-ins. Anyone should be able to pre-order, ship to home if they're paying outright or ship to store if they're on IUP and deal with payments then.

All I want is to be able to line up, not to cut ahead.

After a 35 minute hold I got someone who told me she would transfer me to the IUP department... only to have the call disconnected. Now I'm on my second long hold, this time it's been 40 minutes already.

Remember when Apple's customer support was as great as their products?

Talk about not being able to scale appropriately...

 

[shk718]

Can someone direct me to the part in the iPhone Upgrade Program where it says you get PRIORITY treatment over other customers? I don't recall it being there. Such a non-issue (unless I'm mistaken and it DID say that)?

it has nothing to do with priority. Those of us in the iUP program were give a different SMALLER subset of phones to select from. We were segregated from the main population so we didn't have the same access. None of us is asking for priority treatment - we want equal access. In order to make it right Apple will supposedly give us priority to in store phones as they arrive. We'll find out today or tomorrow what Apple plans.

 

[cheff114]

New thread, new wave of people that don't really understand what's going on. So let me try to summarize.

• This is for people who signed up for the IUP last year and are trying to upgrade this year.
• We're supposed to be able to upgrade after 12 months. Phil Schiller talked this up during the iPhone 7 announcement. Before everything went bad the Apple IUP page was still saying "First to join, first to upgrade."
• And most importantly, this isn't about having to wait. Many of us could not even place an order. There were few to no phones available in the separate ordering system we had to use. It's not that we placed an order and are unhappy that we'll have to wait until after release day. We could not and still can't place an order. We can speculate on the nature of the system or planning failure that caused this, at the moment we don't really know. But that's why Apple is now having people call, they are gathering info and trying to figure out what they can do about all these upgrade customers that couldn't, and still can't, upgrade.
• If we can't upgrade at 12 months, well will have to make extra payments on the current phone and extra payments on the next phone (or upgrade late).
  
• Nothing in the contract would have lead us to believe we'd have to do the upgrade in store, in fact the language in the contract indicates we'd have 14 days to send in the old phone after receiving the new one. The contract was clearly written with the idea that the upgrade would, or at least could, be done by mail.
• And finally, from the other thread, if you had this problem you need to call (not chat) to get help, and it's clear at least half of the front line Apple Support people are still clueless. Insist on talking to an iPhone Upgrade Program Specialist, as instructed on the web page. If they won't transfer you, hang up and call back.

In my case, I got into the store at about 12:03 and there were no phones available. There haven't been since. We watched everyone else ordering, and ship times slipping into October and November, and we couldn't (and still can't) place an order.

THIS!!!! Thank you! Tired of reading the comments by those quick to put "IUP whiners in their place". This pretty much mirrors my exact experience. Even down to getting into the store at 12:03 PST (and I'm on EST!!).

Mods please sticky this one. ;-)

 

[MacLawyer]

No problem for me. I just switched to the new Galaxy 7, and let me tell you it is awes

<disconnected>

 

[shk718]

After a 35 minute hold I got someone who told me she would transfer me to the IUP department... only to have the call disconnected. Now I'm on my second long hold, this time it's been 40 minutes already.

Remember when Apple's customer support was as great as their products?

Talk about not being able to scale appropriately...

are you on hold waiting for someone in the iup program or on hold waiting for the main help number (who will then transfer you to the iup support staff)? if its the latter you can go to apples support page and schedule them to call you. I did it and was able to get in contact with someone 30 minutes later w/ no hold. The man who originally helped me stayed on the phone with me until someone from the iup dept connected. I found their customer support to be top notch! very professional.