Well I have the billing statement already which you accept before you continue the process and it is indeed $15. Of course if you could have easily created a cart yourself to see. Also to note is that the only thing they consider "Due Today" on the bill is the phone cost, none of the fees or monthly charges.
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I'm actually interested in your case as I ordered T-mobile phone from Apple, but might want to order from AT&T to get A1633 model -it's the only way for any new customer to get AT&T iphone now- and do exactly the same thing you're doing now.
I asked around and yes you are correct on not having to pay for phone plan you're forced to choose to order the phone (and possibly the $15 activation fee) if you call and cancel. What I am interested in is
1) whether your phone will be locked to AT&T or not at any point initially
b) how easy it will be for you to request to get it unlocked if you cancel your plan without even activating or soon after the activation.
Since you already have a pre-paid AT&T account, it might be different for you than me, though. I don't have AT&T account at all right now.
I'm more curious about how canceling the plan without the activation would affect requesting unlock on your phone since as you say, it would be like you didn't have a phone with them. But since you can put in your AT&T pre paid sim card, you should be able to request to get it unlocked without any issue. As for me, if I do it, it could be that I might have to activate the phone first to request to be unlocked and therefore can't avoid losing $15.
Hopefully I get A1633 from Apple and not have to go through with this, though. Folks here discussed as if T-mobile is automatically A1688, but we'll see. Nothing is 100% definite until I open the box or someone else post here who received T-mobile iphone from Apple.