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Wow, I'd say you did pretty well. I politely pointed out to the AT&T rep that my ETF was $225 but the early upgrade fee is $250, and she admitted that it would be $25 cheaper for me to cancel my contract and get a new contract (with AT&T or another carrier), but she did not offer any reason or incentive not to cancel.

I guess I'll wait and see, since the ETF will continue to shrink by $10/month.

I did that too. Then they told me you will lose unlimited. I want unlimited on the LTE iPhone. :(
 
i bought every iphone on every launch day religiously and i just told them i think they should do right by me and let me be able to purchase this one....

Wow, that's pathetic. "do right" by you? I can smell your inflated sense of entitlement from here.
 
I don't mean to hijack this thread, does anybody know when pre-orders will start with AT&T. I can't order from Apple store cause of the FFN account won't let me do it it weird. So I have order through AT&T.

I believe the 21st.
 
Might be switching to VZ... ATT hasn't been very good for me.
 
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I believe the 21st.
I thought the pre-order was the 14th and it ships the 21st. I was wondering what time can we pre-order on the 14th with AT&T. I know somewhere they say for Verizon is like 12:01am. Just wondering if anybody heard what time AT&T.

Here the link where they say Verizon and Sprint

http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/12/sprint-and-verizon-clarify-iphone-5-plans-sprint-pre-orders-beginning-at-1201am-sept-19th-verizon-requires-that-you-pay-full-price-to-keep-your-unlimited-data-plan/
 
Sounds like he is unable to order the phone online - thus ordering in store. Not too sure. Never ordered an iPhone through AT&T on pre-order date.
 
did any one actaully got their date moved up when they called?

i was told by at&t that who ever in customer service dept is promising they will change early upgrade date for iPhone is giving out incorrect info ... i was given a $100 credit for 3 month as i requested for my eligibility date to be moved from December 2012 to right now , and there is nothing they can do about it ..

my question is did any one actually got there date changed by calling AT&T, not just a promise to change it later some time...???
 
i was told by at&t that who ever in customer service dept is promising they will change early upgrade date for iPhone is giving out incorrect info ... i was given a $100 credit for 3 month as i requested for my eligibility date to be moved from December 2012 to right now , and there is nothing they can do about it ..

my question is did any one actually got there date changed by calling AT&T, not just a promise to change it later some time...???

From what I've read on here most have gotten a promise.
 
From what I've read on here most have gotten a promise.



yes i know , i have read thur too .. people are only getting promises... nothing will change over night (why promise and not change date right then), or at least if some thing would change like a new policy, a retention dept rep answering the phone wont know until its in place...
 
yes i know , i have read thur too .. people are only getting promises... nothing will change over night (why promise and not change date right then), or at least if some thing would change like a new policy, a retention dept rep answering the phone wont know until its in place...

I was promised the same thing the first time I called (out of 3). The 2nd time I called to see if I can order it on release date, I was informed that I was misinformed - basically the rep had no clue what he was talking about and just wanted to get me off the phone. Promises are promises - they can and will be broken by AT&T.
 
I was promised the same thing the first time I called (out of 3). The 2nd time I called to see if I can order it on release date, I was informed that I was misinformed - basically the rep had no clue what he was talking about and just wanted to get me off the phone. Promises are promises - they can and will be broken by AT&T.

My guess is that AT&T will gladly take the extra $250 from the people who absolutely have to have the iPhone5 on day 1. Once the initial rush is over, I wouldn't be surprised if they move the rest of us up (or waive the $250) to keep us as customers.
 
My guess is that AT&T will gladly take the extra $250 from the people who absolutely have to have the iPhone5 on day 1. Once the initial rush is over, I wouldn't be surprised if they move the rest of us up (or waive the $250) to keep us as customers.

Don't bet on the dates being moved especially with customers paying the $250 early upgrade fee.
 
i figured this would work itself out by now but two of my lines which saw iphone 4S purchases last december are eligible for an early upgrade yet my line that got a 4S the first week it was available is not eligible for an early upgrade until november. Both of the other lines are on the cheapest data plan as well where as my line is still unlimited data.
 
i figured this would work itself out by now but two of my lines which saw iphone 4S purchases last december are eligible for an early upgrade yet my line that got a 4S the first week it was available is not eligible for an early upgrade until november. Both of the other lines are on the cheapest data plan as well where as my line is still unlimited data.

An early upgrade isn't the 199 pricing anyway, it's 199 + 250 pricing..
 
I wouldn't be surprised if they move the rest of us up (or waive the $250) to keep us as customers.

lol rite because AT&T will have such a tough time selling them. Either they lose money on selling you a subsidized phone after already having given you one on your current contract or they lose money by you canceling and not finishing your current contract. Regardless they would rather keep the 20 dumbphone and other smartphone users that don't complain every year vs (not saying this is you, co22) 1 iPhone user who thinks their 'loyalty' in paying their bill each and every month (!) entitles them to $199 iPhone upgrades for the duration of their lives, screaming at front end CSRs after a keynote is over with because the eligibility thing says they have to pay a few bucks more.
 
i am aware of this. Just odd to me that a line that was upgraded earlier last year and costs more per month isnt eligible for the early upgrade yet my 2 cheaper lines are.

If on a family plan, the "master" number on the family plan is entitled to 12-18month upgrades, depending on monthly bill cost.. But with AT&Ts new "upgrade policy" not sure if that is even true anymore..
 
If on a family plan, the "master" number on the family plan is entitled to 12-18month upgrades, depending on monthly bill cost.. But with AT&Ts new "upgrade policy" not sure if that is even true anymore..

yea all 3 lines in question are not the "master" line. My main line is eligible for a full upgrade in november of this year which falls in that 12-18 month window.
 
Well that was fun.

Just called ATT Customer Care, to see if anything came of their supposed "meeting" today. The CC agent and the Retention agent (to whom I asked to be transferred) knew nothing about it. Policies have not changed, upgrade date cannot be altered.

The retention guy tried to go through a spiel about how transferring to VZW would cost me more, a bald-faced lie. My $250 upgrade fee from ATT is cheaper than my $225 ETF -- plus there'd be a $36 upgrade charge from ATT, as well.

He then tried to tell me I'd lose my unlimited data plan. This is true, and a minor concern. Still, over the past six months I've only averaged 1.2GB of data usage per month. I spend a lot of time on wifi. Maybe I'll end up using more with the 5, and I'll end up needing the 4GB plan. Could be.

Next, he went into a spiel about how the iPhone 5 isn't that much of an upgrade, and do I really want to spend that $$$? I know ATT makes their money off service, not equipment. But I doubt Apple would appreciate the ATT reps dissuading people from upgrading!!!

Finally, he made a half-assed attempt to keep me, by offering to give me six months of texting free ($60 total). But, he then admitted that my texting plan would then go up from $10 to $20 after the six months was up!!!! So I'd save $60 in six months, then break even after twelve months, and at 13+ months ATT would be getting MORE of my money!!!!!!

So, the bottom line is that it looks like I'm jumping ship to Big Red tomorrow. The $225 ETF is painful, but I figure that my iPhone 4S resale value is probably $75-100 higher NOW than it will be 8 months from now, partially offsetting the difference. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but oh well.

And of course, a year from now, I'll probably be moaning and groaning that VZW won't give me an upgrade, but that's next year's problem.
 
Annual subsidy means LESS profit (not a LOSS) for AT&T

lol rite because AT&T will have such a tough time selling them. Either they lose money on selling you a subsidized phone after already having given you one on your current contract or they lose money by you canceling and not finishing your current contract. Regardless they would rather keep the 20 dumbphone and other smartphone users that don't complain every year vs (not saying this is you, co22) 1 iPhone user who thinks their 'loyalty' in paying their bill each and every month (!) entitles them to $199 iPhone upgrades for the duration of their lives, screaming at front end CSRs after a keynote is over with because the eligibility thing says they have to pay a few bucks more.

Just to be clear, I'm not complaining, nor am I shouting at anyone, nor do I don't think I'm entitled to anything. I'm simply looking into options for getting an iPhone5 sooner than May. After talking to an AT&T rep, it would appear that those options are:

1. Pay AT&T the $250 early upgrade fee plus the subsidized price.
2. Pay AT&T the ETF (which is already less than $250 for most current customers and which drops another $10 each month) and get a subsidized IP5 with a new contract (from AT&T or from their competition).
3. Wait and hope that AT&T moves up the fully subsidized upgrade eligibility date to some time before May 2013.

Obviously AT&T would prefer that customers go for option 1 (get the $250 and lock the customer in for another two years). However, for most customers option 2 is already cheaper than option 1 and keeps getting cheaper by $10 every month. So unless you're grandfathered with unlimited data, option 1 is a bad deal. Many of us don't have unlimited data, so if AT&T wants to keep us as their customers, they'd be better off with option 3 than with option 2 (and risk their customers defecting to Verizon or Sprint).

Why would AT&T want to keep their current iPhone customers? That's obvious since I don't buy your argument that AT&T is losing any money on me (or most other iPhone customers) by selling me a subsidized phone. When you consider that I pay them about $100 + taxes and fees every month ($1,200/year), they're still going to make plenty of money even if they give me a $450 subsidy each year. Of course, they'd rather also pocket the subsidy as additional profit, but either way they're making a profit on each customer. So they might prefer not to give me a subsidy earlier than May 2013, but if they do they're better off (making a less profit by giving me a subsidy) than making nothing when I switch to another carrier. That's not a complaint, that's just the facts...
 
Yeah, leaving at&t for a carrier that makes you wait out your contract before upgrading makes a lot of sense :rolleyes:

hop every year? :)

for those who bought the 4S on launch, you pay an ETF of 325-(10*months of contract fulfilled) which is 12. $205 vs. $250+36=286. hmmm.... i don't really like verizon.... buuuut.....
 
Yeah, leaving at&t for a carrier that makes you wait out your contract before upgrading makes a lot of sense :rolleyes:

They do not make you wait out your contract before upgrading. They have the exact same policy as ATT. Upgrade at 20 months, date can not be adjusted. Trust me, I spent the whole day working on this trying to get a upgrade 16 days early.
 
They do not make you wait out your contract before upgrading. They have the exact same policy as ATT. Upgrade at 20 months, date can not be adjusted. Trust me, I spent the whole day working on this trying to get a upgrade 16 days early.

Upgrading at 20 months is essentially what people mean by "waiting out your contract," as opposed to upgrading after 12 months for some individuals with at&t.
 
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