My tedious pre-order experience
I've been following this thread since the beginning and figured I'd finally toss my story out there. Warning: it's relatively long, so skip it if you're not interested.
I've still got a launch-day iPhone 4 that I pre-ordered through Apple in June 2010. Needless to say, I've been looking forward to upgrading. I went to Apple's website shortly after I got to work at about 7:30 am EDT on 9/14 and obviously Apple had already pushed delivery back a week by that point, so I went to AT&T's website and was pleasantly surprised they were still promising launch day delivery. So I logged in with no issues and went to my upgrade screen (I've been eligible for about a year), but every time I clicked the link it kept taking me to this same splash page with a URL containing "IRUHandoffError." I have an IRU and receive a discount through my employer, and I figured the servers were just busy so I kept trying and kept being redirected to that same page. Eventually, I walk into my buddy's office that was also pre-ordering and ask if he's having issues with the website and he proceeds to click right through and complete his order with no issues. At this point, I realize something is wrong with my account, so I call Customer Support.
I spend pretty much the entire morning on hold, being randomly hung up on, and being transferred to various CS agents that tell me the following:
CS#1: I'm sorry, but you're a Premier customer, so I need to connect you with them.
(Transfer)
(Hold)
CS#2: My account is listed in the system as a CRU and my employer's Corporate Service Agreement expired in July, and for reasons I can't articulate, you'll need to contact your TeleComs manager to authorize an upgrade. (Completely incorrect. This has always been a personal account, my employer has never paid any of my bills for me, I simply had the discount added to my account by entering my email address into the website.) My only option other than contacting my TeleComs manager would be to call back regular CS and have my account transferred to a regular consumer account.
(Transfer)
(Hold)
CS#3: Your account is definitely listed as an IRU so there's really nothing I can do as far as making changes to it. Let me transfer you to Technical Support to see if they can figure out why you're getting the website error.
(Transfer)
(Hold)
CS#4: Has me try a few basic things like clearing my cookies and retrying to get through the website. Has no reports of anyone else getting this same error and can't do anything at the moment other than put in a support ticket.
ME: So there's no way for me to pre-order an iPhone today?
CS#4: I can connect you to Phone Sales and you can order it over the phone.
ME: (in my head) REALLY? After hours on hold and talking to 4 different people, all of which were aware of my issues ordering online, and none of them thought to suggest that I could just pre-order over the phone?
ME: (out loud) Thanks, that would be great.
(Transfer)
(Hold for probably 45 minutes. At this point, it's right at noon EDT, and I'm supposed to be leaving to meet friends for lunch. Give it 30 more seconds before I hang up and just go. Someone finally picks up. Thank God.)
CS#5: Very nice girl puts in my pre-order for a 32GB Black at 12:06 pm, waives my upgrade fee (I didn't ask her to), explains I should get a T&C email that I need to approve to finalize my order. I get it immediately and approve it while still on the phone with her at 12:08 pm EDT. She says I should be good to go and and she's still showing that I'll receive it launch day and I should receive an email confirming that shortly.
Awesome. I hang up, refresh the website and see that they are still guaranteeing launch day delivery, and go to lunch frustrated but happy. After lunch, I notice that a hold on my CC for the amount of the phone went through immediately.
Hours go by, no email confirmation. I'm nervous, but figure again that they're overloaded, plus I have no intention of trying to call CS again that day under any circumstance. Go to bed, still no email.
Wake up Saturday morning with an email confirmation received at 7:03 am EDT. Order # EXTP889981XXXX Says ships in 14-21 business days. I'm disappointed, but had already seen Friday afternoon that I got my order in right around the supposed "cutoff" time, so I knew there was a chance I just missed it.
Check my order on the website on Monday (9/17) and notice that it says Date Ordered: 9/15/2012. Against my better judgement, I call CS and get through relatively fast this time and a nice lady tells me that the system is really backed up, everything looks good with my order, and it looks like I actually did get my order in on time to receive it on the 21st. Once the system catches up, my correct order date of 9/14 should be reflected within 24 hours.
I'm still skeptical that I'll receive it on the 21st, but happy to know that my order went through correctly and I at least secured my proper place in the queue.
By Wednesday (9/19), my date ordered still says 9/15 and by that point my CC auth had completely dropped off. My neuroticism takes over, and I feel the need to call CS yet again to make sure everything is okay. This time, the CS agent explains that although the system shows my order as being entered as of 12:06 pm EDT and my T&C's being accepted 2 minutes later, for some reason my order didn't actually get processed until shortly after midnight on 9/15 and I'd therefore be looking at mid-to-late October for delivery. I politely explained that I understand that their system was overloaded and whatnot, but since he can clearly see that my order was finalized at 12:08 pm on 9/14, all I ask is that their system be corrected to reflect my proper place in queue and not 12 hours later and behind probably a million more pre-orders that came in after mine.
He insists there is nothing he can do and offers to credit my bill for one month of service fees (roughly $90). I tell him that I appreciate the gesture and understand that this isn't his fault, but I didn't call to get money off my bill, I called to get a resolution to my problem. I understood if there was nothing he could do, but there's somebody at AT&T that can correct it, and I'd like to figure out who that is so I can contact them. He puts me on hold and ends up connecting me with his supervisor. Again, I politely explain my situation and just ask that my order reflect my proper place in queue so that I'll receive it when I should based on the time of my order, be it on launch day or later. She apologizes and says there's no way to override the system and asks me if a $250 account credit would help ease the burden of having to wait longer. Again, I never asked for any type of compensation, but when she threw that offer at me, I said "Yeah, that's enough to get me off the phone."
I figure that if you told me in advance that Apple was going to drop the price of a 32GB iPhone 5 to $50 (which is essentially what I'm paying for it after the credit) after a month, I'd have waited a month to buy the phone. So even if I don't get it until late October, I guess I can deal with it at this point.
Either way though, I can't help by check my order status a few times a day. I did see at least one or two people in the dreaded EXTP8899 group with me are starting to go off backorder today.
Good luck to everyone, I hope you all get your phones ASAP.
