Well, I got an email last night from Wirefly saying that AT&T wanted to verify some information and asked that I call Wirefly for details. I called and Wirefly informed me that AT&T had my actual upgrade date as being May 28, and that Wirefly couldn’t upgrade my phone until then. I told Wirefly that I would attempt to call AT&T in the morning to see if they could move the date (after all, it was only 20 days early).
So I called this morning and spoke with a rep, who told me that they aren’t allowed to move upgrade dates unless I order the new phone through AT&T directly. I said, “Okay, well if you’ll match the offer Wirefly gave me, I’ll absolutely do that.” She said “we can’t do that but let me see what our current offer is,” and put me on hold. When she came back she said, “Okay, we have them for $199 right now.”
I laughed and said, “No way. Wirefly offered it for $75 with a $75 rebate, so it was essentially free. It’s one of the reasons I decided to upgrade in the first place. I’m not going to pay $199. I want the date moved.”
She hemmed and hahhed and repeated the party line that they can’t do that.
“Then let me speak with a manager, please,” I replied.
She put me on hold for a couple minutes and then sent me to the dispute resolution line. I once again explained my plight, and the guy I spoke with repeated what the girl had said. So I went full-stop and said, “Okay, then I’d like to cancel our account entirely. We’ve been with you guys for over two years so I know I don’t have to pay the early cancellation fee, so I’ll just drop you entirely, go with another plan and get the Blackberry for free through Wirefly.”
Once he heard “cancellation” come out of my mouth he said, “Well hold on – let me see if I can get an additional discount for you.”
I sat on hold for a minute and he came back and said, “Okay, here’s what I can do. If you put the full price of $249 on your credit card when you order the phone, I can give you a $149 credit taking the price to $100, and we are currently offering a $100 rebate, so you’d get the Blackberry at no charge. But you’d have to put the full price charge on your card to get this deal the refund and rebate card.”
I was scornful. “Is that one of those rebate cards that can only be used to pay the bill? Because we got one of those a couple years ago and the fine print said it could only be used on a monthly bill.”
He scanned through the fine print and said, “No, this is a card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted.”
So, I took the deal. He’s going to submit the offer to the “area manager” for approval and then he’ll call me back (within 72 hours) to place the order for the phone. It sucks that I’ll have to put $249 on my Visa, but since I’ll get $149 of that refunded back, it’ll be okay. I can take the Visa rebate card with me to Disney and just move $100 from the Disney fund account to pay towards the Visa bill so it’ll be a wash.
I love how the words “cancel my account” strikes fear in the heart of every customer service agent in the country.
I warned you yesterday you should just ask for a supervisor and tell them you are going to cancel your contract and go elsewhere if they don’t give you what you want. Does Daddy know?
*lol* Daddy knows.