Sorry, it is not a loophole and if you do it the wrong way you will end up with two (2) new 2-year service contracts instead of just one. Then you will be posting and crying about messing up your account.
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AT&T gives me loophole for upgrade elibibility.
- Thread starter cpljwlusmc
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Thanks for posting this, I'm in the exact situation and may just do what you did to get the 3G iPhone myself. the only thing that sounded weird to me was the waiving of an upgrade fee on the primary line? I didn't know they do that. its awesome so I'm not complaining. and yes, I consider this a loophole too.. since prior to reading this, I was not able to get the iPhone for 199/299 until july of NEXT YEAR.. but now if i try this, I just may! thanks again
Why did you have to make it so complicated with switching sim cards... Sure, it works, but you realize that guys at the AT&T store will do the dirty work for you...
As long as you are on the same family plan as another phone number that is eligible for an upgrade. AT&T will let you "steal" that upgrade for your line, keeping your phone number, you get a new phone, your contract doesn't get extended, but the phone number who had the upgrade will get their contract extended and not get a new phone... lol.
As long as you are on the same family plan as another phone number that is eligible for an upgrade. AT&T will let you "steal" that upgrade for your line, keeping your phone number, you get a new phone, your contract doesn't get extended, but the phone number who had the upgrade will get their contract extended and not get a new phone... lol.
Yeah I've done that many times. You can just go to AT&T and they will transfer the upgrade to another line and just activate it there that way you don't have to worry about switching and deactivating sim cards
just to make sure i understand. i can setup a 2nd line, and upgrade my 2nd line to an iphone, and then go to an att store and transfer the upgraded iphone to my main line, and then i will be able to cancel the 2nd line with no cancellation fee or issues and still be able to keep the upgraded phone? also will i be able to order the phone from apple?
Lol, no, you can't do that. You will have to pay a cancelation fee for 2 years, becuase even though the iPhone goes under the primary phone number, the contract is still for the second phone line...
You do have 30 days to cancel, but you have to return the iPhone then. Even though you are using it for your other phone line, in the contract it is under that second line. There is no way around this otherwise everyone would have done it.
Sorry, it is not a loophole and if you do it the wrong way you will end up with two (2) new 2-year service contracts instead of just one. Then you will be posting and crying about messing up your account.
All you are doing is essentially buying a new phone on one account using its upgrade and giving the phone away to someone else (in this case the OP) for free. There is no circumventing a system here, no loophole. Its the same thing as using your upgrade and selling the phone you get from it, you are signing a contract to get a discount and that is all that matters, not what you do with the phone after that.
I don't really see how this is a loophole... isn't it common knowledge that the phone number is tied to the sim card? Logic would dictate that as long as you swap the sim cards, everything will be good to go. It certainly isn't against AT&Ts rules to swap SIMs. Just have to be lucky enough to have family members who don't give a crap about the upgrade (or are willing to accept your old phone as their upgrade).
I did this a while back but it wasn't explained properly to me. I had a spare phone (not an iPhone) and needed a new iPhone to replace a broken one. They told me I could transfer my contract to the spare phone on a new number, and start a new contract with my existing number.
So I did it.
Come to find out months later that this was a lie. Contracts do not follow phones. They follow numbers. I tried to cancel the number on the spare phone, thinking it was out of contract. I was told that I'd have to pay a penalty. My primary number was out of contract. They will not transfer a contract from one number to another.
This is a mess. I'm quite upset. I'd rather have paid upfront had this been explained to me properly.
In the end they get you one way or another and you are generally better off paying at the start rather than getting stuck with penalties at the end. ATT hates its customers.
So I did it.
Come to find out months later that this was a lie. Contracts do not follow phones. They follow numbers. I tried to cancel the number on the spare phone, thinking it was out of contract. I was told that I'd have to pay a penalty. My primary number was out of contract. They will not transfer a contract from one number to another.
This is a mess. I'm quite upset. I'd rather have paid upfront had this been explained to me properly.
In the end they get you one way or another and you are generally better off paying at the start rather than getting stuck with penalties at the end. ATT hates its customers.
I'm pretty sure that this is not a loophole and is referred as an "upgrade swap". The number with the available upgrade gets renewed, but the phone goes on the other line. I've done it before. If you walk into an AT&T store and tell them you want a new phone, and they see you don't have an upgrade but another line does, they'll ask you if you want to use that upgrade to get a new phone on your line.
You have the responsibility to read the contract. Its all explained in plain language. It's not that hard.
No one is obligated to explain it to you.
AT&T loves their customers, I have been a customer for ten years. I get frequent upgrades, great service, and terrific coverage.
I have also been a Verizon customer, they're not as friendly and helpful, but not bad.
Remember a contact is a legal document & you should know what you agreed to.
Just upgrade the other line then downgrade yours (to the other lines phone), then have the #'s switched. Then u have your new iPhone and the other one is the same. They Did it for me at At&T and it's all good.
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+1 - recently added my mother-in-law to mine and they offered me the 16gb ip4 for $200.
I agree with the first sentence. I disagree with everything else. Even if they aren't obligated to explain it to me, they certainly shouldn't have explained it to me incorrectly. All they had to say was, "Contract follows number and cannot be changed."
Interestingly the contract (which I read at the time and read again later when they refused to do what they had said they would) has nothing to say about this issue. This isn't a matter of the contract, it is a matter of ATT policy.
If they loved their customers they'd allow you to transfer a contract to a different number. There is no technical reason why they can't to that. They simply choose not to.
Ummm that is not a loophole at all, I used to do this all the time when I was working at Tmobile, if one line was illegible to upgrade and the other wasnt, we would just upgrade the one and swap the sim card for the other person. They dont care if u do this since u resign the contract, u can swap sims back n forth and it wouldnt matter.
In all fairness, it hit that low 3 years ago, someone just opened up a really old thread.