Hi everyone. I've been seeing a good number of threads on here regarding angry customers who will not recieve the subsidized price for the iPhone 3G...Here's my scenerio... I signed up with AT&T January of this year. So I've been with AT&T for only about 6 months so far. I got the $400 iPhone when I signed up. About a month ago I sold my iPhone on ebay, and got a cheap Go phone from Best Buy. AT&T switched the sim and things over to the cheap Go phone, took off the data plan, and I've been good to go using that cheap phone for about the past month. According to my att.com/mywireless account, it's showing that I AM eligible for the 3G iPhone for the subsidized price of $199. So my question is... Why are some of you NOT eligible? Are those of you not eligible users who signed up with AT&T and got a good price on a subsidized phone at the time of sign up? Am I eligible only because I paid full price for the iPhone, and haven't gotten a "subsidized" phone from AT&T since signing up? I guess I'm sort of confused as to what is making me eligible, while others are not? Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to make sense of what I'm reading around here. Thanks in advance!
I second heyp. Think of subsidizing as financing the phone (only not for its entire cost). The two year contract is supposed to make up for the money "lost" when AT&T sells you a phone for a much cheaper price than the retail. Now if you sold your original iPhone, then bought a Blackberry for $199 (retail $349) then you won't be eligible. But since you bought a phone from eBay, you're eligible.