I bought the 3G iPhone on Monday and returned it on Tuesday. Why??? Because it lasted a grand total of 5 hours before it began malfunctioning. Great piece of equipment, huh? Also, I was not impressed anyway. Need to wear a pair of binoculars to read the internet. When I went to AT&T to return this piece of garbage, I was told I had to pay a 10% restocking fee (a grand scam in and of itself). Obivously, I said that was not going to happen. The problem is, they already had my money and I had to fight tooth and nail to get it back.

First, I was told that this was “an Apple thing”. So I called Apple, they said their policy was to fully refund defective products. But of course, since it was bought at AT&T, it was AT&T’s responsibility to reimburse me the remaining $20.

So I call them. Only the great and powerful, yet quite elusive, Manager (This guy is tantamount to the Wizard of Oz, apparantely) could graciously grant me my $20. I was told he would be in meetings all the next day and I should expect a call from him perhaps the following day. Althougn I was not born yesterday, I allow two days to go by, no call, and finally I call the store. I speak with the girl who originally helped me, unlike everyone else involved in this story, she was very helpful. She said the Great and Poweful Manager was in and she would bring it up to him. Rest of story short, I will be getting my $20 credited on my next bill. But……..I should be very very appreciative for they will do it for me “this one time”. So nice of them to fully reimburse me the “restocking” fee on a broken piece of garbage that lasted a total of 5 hours.

My only question is, will they still restock this defective junk even though they are so graciously returning my money in full? HMMMMMMM?

Off to the Mac Store agine to see if anything can be done…

or off to buy a PC to replace the iphone.

I placed a phone order last week for two 16gb IPhone 3g’s. One White and One Black. The AT&T saleshole said both were in stock ready to ship.. The following Monday I get the white one and AT&T said, there are 68000 black phones on back order and the saleshole was wrong.

OK, so you think the easy thing to do was to switch the order and send me a white one which APPLE just might as well recall and paint them black since no one seems to want a white one. Well sounds easy but AT&T says I cannot be done unless I cancel the whole order and send the one unopened phone back.. This is absolutely nuts!! AT&T would rather lose my business than make a simple change on the order. Their answer to every question and complaint is that “Apple won’t let us do that” I spoke with Apple Customer Support and they said that was simply not true.

Meanwhile, things are getting fouled up really bad because I was porting my two old phones from another carrier. I was getting worried that I would lose my two old number and my current Treo 755p’s would stop working and that is almost what happened.

Anyway, there is a whole lot more but you all get the idea.

Unless Apple adds another carrier, I guess I will never own an IPhone. Dealing with

AT&T is like making a deal with the devil.

And last but not least… All AT&T is good for is to apologizing. They say it so much that they should rename the company to :

Apology Telephone and Trashograph

If people BOYCOTT AT&T and IPHONE SALES DROP, APPLE WILL ADD MORE CARRIERS!

This is where it all goes wrong. I have $299 plus tax in hand. Apple has an iPhone in stock. Why didn’t I walk out of the store with $300 less in pocket and an iPhone richer? Utter disregard for customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and a Byzantine delusion that by rigidly controlling access to your product that somehow you will profit.

The problem, it seems, is that I have a family plan with AT&T and that my mother, who works for a college with a contract with AT&T and receives a discount adds a mysterious ‘IFU’ tag to my account. Now, I cannot buy the phone from Apple, I must buy it from AT&T.

“AT&T is sold out nationwide,” I say.

“We know,” says Apple.

I asked if I could buy the phone and take it to the AT&T kiosk just down the hallway.

“No,” says Apple.

I asked if I could bring an AT&T representative up to the Apple store to work out the kinks and let me somehow purchase the phone.

“No,” says Apple.

I asked if Apple could sell this iPhone to the AT&T kiosk and let AT&T sort out the details.

“No,” says Apple.

Why I can’t purchase the phone, I can’t imagine. This kind of corporate arrogance drives me nuts. My current iPhone is mine. I can do with it what I want. The new iPhone 3G should be mine as well, but apparently Apple doesn’t want my business.

This is all very frustrating, because unlike so many others, I’m playing by the rules. I’m not unlocking my iPhone and switching carriers. Apple’s rules are wrong, don’t get me wrong; but I’m willing to play by them in order to get access to the device. At the point when Apple has changed the rules so much that I can’t even enter the playing field?

I’m buying my iPhone 3G unlocked from China.