Yes, as you see, I re-asked it several times and I just don't think anyone really pushed it far enough to know.
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Buy iphone 3g, cancel, and don't give phone back to at&T?
- Thread starter pufftissue
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Yes, as you see, I re-asked it several times and I just don't think anyone really pushed it far enough to know.
I don't understand the question. I have done the opening of account and terminating after first 30 days and pay the ETF. But I don't understand the logic of terminating prior to 30 days when you are responsbile for paying the 1st month service and ETF on 2nd day or the 31st day.
So why won't you keep and use the service you have already paid for? Plus to terminate on the 31st day, you just have to call in customer service and ask them to cancel. Even if it is an international long distance call, it isn't more than few dollars and few minutes out of the way. So I don't understand the premise of this question, other than to avoid little inconvinience.
Being that I was in and now work for the military, I can tell you that most of them require official orders to do this, and .... It is still lying.
Canadian. Thank God we aren't slaves to phone carriers like you guys are
ahha dude what are you talking about? we are slaves to rogers if you want an iPhone, for teh same service you pay a lot less in the states...
That's a fair point... (and FWIW it occurred to me also). The only thing I can think of is if there might be any kind of hassle with immediately re-selling it for someone else to use during the first month, while it would still technically be active on the original buyer's account (or worse, I guess, if AT&T were to blacklist the IMEI, but that seems unlikely). But since IMEIs aren't generally tracked and don't need to be provisioned, unlike for CDMA phones, I don't see exactly what harm waiting a month would do either.
I'm still curious.
It's fairly well established Apple geek dogma that AT&T will "make you return it" if you cancel too quickly, but I was always curious what exactly that meant.... Perhaps it's a business tactic targeting the psych of most consumers, making it a hassle to cancel when the customer's intent is clearly to cancel. Similar to rebates, and those auto-renewal if you sign up with credit card as oppose to paying cash.I'm still curious.
Most people wouldn't mark their calendar to close the account on the exact day past the initial 30 days, hence each additional day the person is on the account, they make more money.
Since nobody actually answered the question the OP asked (at least nobody that's done it), then I'll do! I got my 16gb iPhone doing just that. I went to the Apple store, signed up for the iPhone for $299 up front. After a month or so of service I called in and just told the rep that I wanted to cancel the contract. The only question he asked was if I knew someone who would be willing to take the phone (and contract) so I don't get get charged the ETF. I even misplaced the ETF bill and paid it a month late (you can't pay it online) and wasn't even charged a late fee. So it's actually far more simple than people are making it out to be. The total was $299 + $125 (first month + activation + taxes) + $170 (ETF) = $594 total.
I am, Mom & Pop shops that sells cell phones do this for a living. Plenty of first generation iPhones last I checked, but only a few 3Gs.
Try reading harder.
Again, scroll up to where I mentioned that these "exceptions" are not the norm.
My bad if I missed it. Doesn't seem like anybody who actually did it wrote on here. It's been about 2 months since I canceled my contract and just wanted to let the OP know.
What do you do with the iPhone now? So basically you have an iPod Touch? What happens with future updates? Will you be risking bricking the iPhone when connecting to iTunes??