Vote with your wallet man. Screw them, remind them how every month you pour over a hundred dollars for their services.
This MIGHT mean something to someone at a call center, but it means nothing to the sales grunt at a brick and mortar carrier store or third party reseller whose paycheck gets bigger or smaller depending on whether you sign a new contract or not. If you're a new customer buying a subsidized phone, they make the most money. They make a little bit less if you're an existing customer that's re-upping. But if you're buying full price and not committing to anything but buying the phone, then the sales droid pretty much gets base pay. At that point, they consider you to be a waste of their time.
Whether you pay your bill on time or not beyond the 30-day return period isn't their problem. And obviously, being a 10-year loyal customer actually makes you somewhat LESS valuable to them than some new schlub off the street, as long as their credit's good or they can plunk down a deposit.
Best Buy might be the exception to this. While corporate gets a payment from the wireless carrier for activations through them, I don't think the people on the floor get that commission. I could be wrong on this. There are plenty of other reasons to avoid best Buy, though.
Anyway, feel lucky that they even felt willing to sell you an iPhone at all: Commissions are usually higher on Android phones than Apple products. Ever heard a Verizon or AT&T salesdroid either say completely false things about iPhones, or try to talk someone out of buying an iphone because "Androids are better?" Yeah, there's a reason for that.
I only partially blame the sales people for acting the way they do, though. Most of the blame rests on the carriers, who set commissions and pressure the staff with "sales goals" and other metrics.
Here's another one: Ever left a store, only to log into your account and find you left with a more expensive data or texting plan than you asked for, or with your service plan completely changed around? That's because the sales staff are ordered to upsell. If most of a salesdroid's customers aren't leaving the store without a minimum dollar amount of add-ons to their plan, their manager will write them up for it. If it continues, they'll be shown the door. there's a specific quota they must meet, and it's not usually realistic. Salesdroids and their managers
hate iMessage for that reason. Their job depends on you getting that unlimited texting plan, but what motivation do you have for paying $20 a month for it, if most of your friends use iOS and don't need it?
This is why it makes more sense to buy from the Apple store when you can.
