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Procedure for buying iphone in apple store (USA)

livitup said:
I hate to be a pendantic wanker, but as a card accepting merchant who actually follows the rules (and gets yelled at by many a fine customer in the process) I have to verge a little further along the off topic road...

Writing "SEE ID" is actually not acceptable according to Visa/Mastercard and a Merchant should demand that you sign the card in front of them before they process the transaction. Of course you are free not to sign the card, but then the merchant should not accept it.

The reason is that signing the card indicates acceptance of the cardmember agreement, and without doing so you and the card issuer have never really formed a contract. Look on the back of your Visa/MC and it will say "Not Valid Unless Signed" which means signed not "See ID".

The tricky part of this is that if you write SEE ID and your card is ever stolen, and Visa finds out that you wrote SEE ID instead of signing it, they could refuse to cancel fradulent charges due to your failure to sign the card. Or even worse, from my perspective, they could hold the merchants accountable for the fraudlent charges since they accepted an invalid card.

See the following links for more details...

http://usa.visa.com/merchants/risk_management/card_present.html (go to the very bottom of this page)
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6787955

/RANT
Click to expand...

Wow, I had no idea. You can bet my Visa has my signature on it now. I'm only 21 and do not even come close to having the means to be responsible for fraudulent charges! I will forward those links to the people I know who also request ID on their credit cards. I've come to realize that all customer service workers who follow the rules get yelled at - I'm one of them that gets yelled at frequently for following them. :)

And to whoever had hand sensors in their dorms... wow. I am in college and we don't have anything near that fancy, just the swipe cards required to get in. With all of the crime going on at colleges, that seems like it would be a great idea. Too bad it's not implemented here.
 
I paid cash for all 3 of my iPhones. Didn't show ID or credit card. I went in, asked for it, they gave it to me, and that was it. Bought them at an AT&T store. They didn't ask if I had an account or anything. They asked for a cell number at checkout, but I told them I wasn't a customer and it was a gift for someone.

g
 
aerospace said:
I went into my at&t store and said I want an iphone.
He said ok what plan are you interested in.
I say prepaid.
Guy says you can't do iphone prepaid.
I say yes you can.
His co worker says yes you can.
He hands me a phone, I pay for it, and walk out laughing.
Activate at home via itunes.
Click to expand...
wait, you can do iphone pre-Paid? How does that work with att? How does that work with unlimited data etc..... or were you just gonna Unlock it it use it with different service provider?
 
aerospace said:
I went into my at&t store and said I want an iphone.
He said ok what plan are you interested in.
I say prepaid.
Guy says you can't do iphone prepaid.
I say yes you can.
His co worker says yes you can.
He hands me a phone, I pay for it, and walk out laughing.
Activate at home via itunes.
Click to expand...

Hi, can you do the same procedure with an iphone 3G?
 
The iPhone 3G is currently not available for PAYG. It was stated around the time of the 3G announcement that it would be available later this year and the no-contract pricing would be $599 (8GB) and $699 (16GB).

Given how well sales have been going and how supply is still somewhat limited, I wouldn't be surprised to have the PAYG option delayed a couple months.

Edit: And just an FYI, the iPhone 3G will still be locked to AT&T with this option.
 
aerospace said:
I went into my at&t store and said I want an iphone.
He said ok what plan are you interested in.
I say prepaid.
Guy says you can't do iphone prepaid.
I say yes you can.
His co worker says yes you can.
He hands me a phone, I pay for it, and walk out laughing.
Activate at home via itunes.
Click to expand...

Hii. This may sound very stupid, well, maybe.
You went home, you activate via itunes, like saying 'hi, this is an iphone, this is the serial number'.. you inserted a sim card.. any sim card? or an att sim card?
you see, my situation is this: a friend of mine is buying for me an 3g iphone in the us, which i want to use abroad with my sim card (3g sim card), would i still have the att lock situation... right? what can i do, any ideas? i have no other choice rather than unlock it?
thanks anyway! :apple:


ps. sorry for my english :$
 
AppleTree said:
Well I heard you can't buy an iPhone with cash and you can't buy it with a foreign credit card.

This sucks for me, because i want to buy one when i go back to the states...and I only have foreign cards...guess i'll just use a friends credit card...there is always a way.
Click to expand...

I paid cash for mine.
 
was it a contract based phone?

Roy Hobbs said:
  • Drive to Apple Store
  • Enter Apple Store
  • Buy iPhone
  • Leave Apple Store
  • Drive Home
  • Activate Phone
Click to expand...

hey dude can you please help me out with certain questions?
1)when will i start recieving the bill?
2)is it from the day i buy it or from the day i activate it?
3)what if i dont activate the phone?would i still recieve the bill??
 
AppleTree said:
Well I heard you can't buy an iPhone with cash
Click to expand...

This was only for the first iPhone. You had to have a credit or debit card.

With the 3G, they accepted cash but turned it into an Apple gift card and then made the transaction. From the 3GS on, they have just accepted cash.

----------
iphnfan said:
hey dude can you please help me out with certain questions?
1)when will i start recieving the bill?

If you are a brand new account, you should receive your bill within two weeks. Your first bill may be higher because they may prorate part of a month and then bill you in advanced for a full one.

2)is it from the day i buy it or from the day i activate it?

Day you buy it.

3)what if i dont activate the phone?would i still recieve the bill??

Yes.
Click to expand...
 
oldimac said:
One of the reasons you sign your card is so the salesperson can check that signature against a valid government id (drivers license etc). How else do you know the card isn't stolen.:D

I never sign my credit cards. I write PLEASE ASK FOR ID in the signature space. Most of the time they never even look tho. But that way if I do lose it or it is stolen maybe I have a littel breathing room before I cancel the card.
Click to expand...

Then technical your card is invalid and technically a retailer is allowed to take your card because you haven't agreed to Visa/MC/American Express's terms and conditions and in some of Europe I've seen this happen. (When foreigners come)
 
not correct!

andyx3x said:
This was only for the first iPhone. You had to have a credit or debit card.

With the 3G, they accepted cash but turned it into an Apple gift card and then made the transaction. From the 3GS on, they have just accepted cash.

----------
Click to expand...

well this is not the appropriate answer required... plz help me with more info.. :)
 
Andemad12 said:
Hi.

What is the procedure for buying a apple iphone in the USA?
Do they ask for ID or can you just buy it with a credit card without signing up for anything?
Click to expand...

i said "**** you" to AT&T and apple

buy iphone 4 4.10BB off craigslist.
go straight to Walmart
Buy $30 phone w/ activation kit.
Put Gevey ultra in, and sim card
activate on TMO prepaid unlim data/txt +100min for $30 a month
its Edge but im cool wit it
#swag
 
andyx3x said:
Look at my post again. The answers to all your questions are in my post.
Click to expand...

iphnfan said:
m sorry but i still didnt get you.. plz elaborate:confused:
Click to expand...

Here are my answers to your questions again. They were in the previous post but you obviously missed them. No big deal.

hey dude can you please help me out with certain questions?
1)when will i start recieving the bill?

If you are a brand new account, you should receive your bill within two weeks. Your first bill may be higher because they may prorate part of a month and then bill you in advanced for a full one.

2)is it from the day i buy it or from the day i activate it?

Day you buy it.

3)what if i dont activate the phone?would i still recieve the bill??

Yes.
 
It's would funny to me to use a phone with NFC to buy an iPhone if the apple store accepted pay pass or whatever.
 
livitup said:
I hate to be a pendantic wanker, but as a card accepting merchant who actually follows the rules (and gets yelled at by many a fine customer in the process) I have to verge a little further along the off topic road...

Writing "SEE ID" is actually not acceptable according to Visa/Mastercard and a Merchant should demand that you sign the card in front of them before they process the transaction. Of course you are free not to sign the card, but then the merchant should not accept it.

The reason is that signing the card indicates acceptance of the cardmember agreement, and without doing so you and the card issuer have never really formed a contract. Look on the back of your Visa/MC and it will say "Not Valid Unless Signed" which means signed not "See ID".

The tricky part of this is that if you write SEE ID and your card is ever stolen, and Visa finds out that you wrote SEE ID instead of signing it, they could refuse to cancel fradulent charges due to your failure to sign the card. Or even worse, from my perspective, they could hold the merchants accountable for the fraudlent charges since they accepted an invalid card.

See the following links for more details...

http://usa.visa.com/merchants/risk_management/card_present.html (go to the very bottom of this page)
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6787955

/RANT
Click to expand...

Heh, this is pretty accurate to my knowledge except I didn't realize that part about the refusing to cancel fraudulant charges (good to know).

Also, a merchant cannot require your id to accept the card (at least by some of the merchant agreements with the credit cards but it does depend on which one. I actually found a page on it recenty but I can't remember the wording on each).

Personally, I wish they'd require a pin number instead. That's a helluva lot more secure. Never will happen without government prodding though (like how England made it so that merchants are not responsible if they require pin for credit card so all merchants moved to that). CC's don't want to make it hard for anyone to use their card, even small things like having to remember a pin. They want you using it as much as possible with as little hurdles as possible. They don't lose money if it is fraudulant (from what I understand they hold merchants responsible regardless, if they are bad charges they don't pay regardless of see id or not) but they lose money if you don't use the credit card.
 
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