How can we get help with Dealing with ATT and a lost returned phone?

[steve knight]

this is pretty much the last straw for us. they screwed up a couple years ago on a phone return this year they screwed up on both our phone returns. I have all the tracking numbers and printouts of the phones progress. my wife phone is somewhere in newgistics hands and mine was in their warehouse we thought they dealt with my wife's lost phone and we have been battling getting credit for mine. but just now they charged us for her lost phone trying to claim with are responsible for the phone till it is in their warehouse. it will take a few more days to see what will happen with mine. they screwed up so many times with that one but they acknowledge they have it so I have a tiny bit of hope.

 

[Huntn]

Wow, I’d say if you have tracking numbers, it’s in the system, especially if the progress shows them delivered to their facility. My guess it is conceivable that if they came up missing during transit, that they might expect you to go to the carrier and have insurance on them. 😔

 

[steve knight]

the problem is the address the return goes to is not actually a real address. it is just a holding place for newgistics to pick them up. they got both phones but lost my wife's phone. so it is out of the post offices hands. I took them to the post office to get proof I shipped them thats the best I could do.

 

[faust]

That sounds really awful, steve. I hope AT&T returns to a place of sanity for your continued usage of their service, but yeah. I recently discovered I could not return T-Mobile phone orders made from their online store to a physical location, and fearing precisely what happened to you is what led me to shift things around a bit so it would be less risky for me.

To drive home the point though. My ex. girlfriend & I started phone service with AT&T earlier this year, and they accepted our payments for the devices, shipped them, but locked them from being activated once they arrived at my home. That caused so many headaches. They demanded we go to an AT&T store to resolve their identity verification concerns, but my ex had lost her ID card, and was not going to work with me to get it replaced because of the anxiety induced by going to the DMV. It was a pretty absurd situation, no two ways about it.

 

[Roller]

OP, how high have you escalated this with AT&T? There are CR tiers above the base level person you're initially connected to who can often solve problems. If that doesn't work, ask to speak to the customer loyalty department. As a last resort, email the CEO directly or post about your experience on Twitter or other social media platform.

 

[jtara]

When you ship with a common carrier the burden of loss is on the shipper. The carrier may or may not provide some level of insurance. the shipper can purchase additional insurance. if there is a loss the shipper has to make a claim.

First thing is to determine who the shipper is. Were you provided with a prepaid shipping box or envelope? If so ATT (or the their designate) is probably the shipper.

if you shipped in your own packaging and paid you are the shipper.

This is why i have always taken my returns (ATT Next) to an ATT store. They might be a little “deer in headlights” for a minute but they have always accepted it and then I have documentation that it’s been returned.

BTW this is why I don’t get it about why people get so up in arms about porch pirates. The burden is on the shipper. They have to replace your stolen packages. But misperceptions about this sell a lot of Ring doorbells.

 

[Joe h]

They pulled this same **** on my parents and then a few years later, on me. Best advice, once you get this settled, DO NOT EVER return a phone to at&t. Hopefully, if they cannot get this straight, they just ship them back, like they did with us, then pay off the balance and eBay them.

 

[Z6128]

same thing happened to me, upgrade to iPhone 11 9/20, sent back my other phone the next day and had shipping confirmation through Newgistics it was received 9/30. About mid-october, I get an e-mail from ATT saying they never received it and would bill be $550 if they didn't get it back.l

So I online chat, give the tracking info, they say they got it. and would put a note in to have the charge not hit my account. Two weeks later, get another e-mail saying same thing. Online chat again, once again I am told it won't hit my account.

Get my bill a few weeks ago, it was $550 more. Chat online, first person says they got it back and would put in to reverse the charge and in a few days it would come off. Told them I didn't believe them and why can't they just put it back on. Supervisor comes on to chat and says oh no, we never received, you'll be billed and that I need to call another department.

So I call, this lady says it shows my ticket was denied as part of a promotion. I tell her this has nothing to do with a promotion, I upgraded and sent my old phone back. Puts me on hold, transfers me, then get disconnected.

Call back, having to explain the whole thing AGAIN, this guy was more sympathetic and said he'd talk to a supervisor and call me back in two hours. Called me back about 9 hours later. In that time, I called again and got someone different and basically begged him to help me. He looked at my notes and tracking, said he agreed they were the ones who lost it, went to talk to his supervisor, came back and said he had to put in the $550 credit and it would go to his supervisor to approve and that he would approve it since he had already spoken to him about it. 3 days later, I got a text saying my case was resolved and my $550 charge dropped off.

Keep trying! This was the same reason I left Verizon, I'm running out of carriers at this point. I think I may just need to buy my phones outright, but it's hard as I do like to upgrade each year.

 

[Clix Pix]

This kind of crap is what eventually led me to just simply paying for my iPhones outright straight from the beginning and forgetting all this other nonsense. Now I start saving for a new phone a year in advance so that I am ready to just buy the darned thing then-and-there when the time does come, no carrier financing or payments, etc.

 

[Huntn]

same thing happened to me, upgrade to iPhone 11 9/20, sent back my other phone the next day and had shipping confirmation through Newgistics it was received 9/30. About mid-october, I get an e-mail from ATT saying they never received it and would bill be $550 if they didn't get it back.l

So I online chat, give the tracking info, they say they got it. and would put a note in to have the charge not hit my account. Two weeks later, get another e-mail saying same thing. Online chat again, once again I am told it won't hit my account.

Get my bill a few weeks ago, it was $550 more. Chat online, first person says they got it back and would put in to reverse the charge and in a few days it would come off. Told them I didn't believe them and why can't they just put it back on. Supervisor comes on to chat and says oh no, we never received, you'll be billed and that I need to call another department.

So I call, this lady says it shows my ticket was denied as part of a promotion. I tell her this has nothing to do with a promotion, I upgraded and sent my old phone back. Puts me on hold, transfers me, then get disconnected.

Call back, having to explain the whole thing AGAIN, this guy was more sympathetic and said he'd talk to a supervisor and call me back in two hours. Called me back about 9 hours later. In that time, I called again and got someone different and basically begged him to help me. He looked at my notes and tracking, said he agreed they were the ones who lost it, went to talk to his supervisor, came back and said he had to put in the $550 credit and it would go to his supervisor to approve and that he would approve it since he had already spoken to him about it. 3 days later, I got a text saying my case was resolved and my $550 charge dropped off.

Keep trying! This was the same reason I left Verizon, I'm running out of carriers at this point. I think I may just need to buy my phones outright, but it's hard as I do like to upgrade each year.

... ATT sucks, based on your description. 👀 Of note I upgraded my phones to XRs at the end on 2018, sent back old phones to T-Mobile in boxes they provided, with their shipping, and it went as smooth as silk.