Iphone loophole
What AT&T is doing about people who open an account to get iphone, sell it on Ebay for a killing then close their account and pay ETF?
I have friends at both Apple and AT&T that are amazed that AT&T isn’t trying to close that loophole.
I have friends at both Apple and AT&T that are amazed that AT&T isn’t trying to close that loophole.
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I'm not, they are following the rules. They signed up for contract, canceled contract, and paid the required fee. My only guess is that they could make the iPhone ETF higher but they still make their money back.
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if they canceled within the first 30 days? isn't the cancelation fee on the iPhone higher? i think i read that somewhere.
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Well if you 'lost' or 'broke' the equipment you wouldn't have to return and they'd charge you. We have a guy that does that on a monthly basis, activates, 'breaks phone', and cancels. Sells the phone and makes some profit.
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its funny tho because one day their credit will be so affected by the amount of times a credit check is done by the same company... it will be hard to get loans.
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That is actually not a big deal because credit inquiries only stay on your credit report 30-90 days, as opposed to other credit info which stays on for 7 years.
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but everytime your credit is pulled it effects your overall credit score which will lower your score. So when you go look at getting a loan your rate is driven by the credit score. The higher the score the better the rate.
So this will effect there credit since he goes every 30 days.
So this will effect there credit since he goes every 30 days.
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Why would you keep selling to him? That's fraud and hits your commission. We've had people try to do that, and we refuse to do business with them.
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I make it goal with every Iphone customer to figure out if they are unlocking it or not and if I find out I refuse to sell them the phone, ill make them go to an apple store and the closest one is 2 hours away, im not going to waste my time with those customers when I can sell one to a customer that will use it on our network and put money in my pocket.
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oddly enough, the customer I was just talking about was JUST in here trying to upgrade a phone. We don't even offer him exception upgrades anymore. Full retail or nothin'.
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the $400 and $500 prices are not full retail...the actual retail prices will be 6 or 7 from what my store manager has been telling me anyway....I hope hes wrong
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Hombre07 said:
Well if you 'lost' or 'broke' the equipment you wouldn't have to return and they'd charge you. We have a guy that does that on a monthly basis, activates, 'breaks phone', and cancels. Sells the phone and makes some profit.
Bullshit. Insurance requires the phone to be sent in or if it is lost the IMEI is put on a lost-stolen list and can not be activated. Also: activates then cancels? You can't return a phone that is in not like new condition..meaning any defect other than manufacturer's defects make return impossible.
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not true on the lost/stolen list. There is currently no way to track a lost or stolen phone without going market by market and searching for the IMEI nothing has been put in place yet. We check for lost or stolen when someone request subsidy unlock code.
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I call BS on you, there is no lost stolen list. And theres no activation when popping a SIM card in a phone. Who said anything about returning a phone? Did you even read my post? Last line: Sells the phone and makes some profit.
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Food for thought........
If you think about it, why would ATT care? They're still getting their money, if not more..... Say John buys an iPhone at $299. He cancels and is charged the ETF of $175 and sells the phone on ebay for $700. The guy who buys it on ebay still has to activate it with ATT, with a new 2yr agreement, so ATT is still gonna get their $30/month package for 24 months, they got the price of the phone (b/c the money isn't refunded unless the customer returns it) and they got an extra $175 from the ETF that they normally wouldn't get - ATT would actually make more money in the long run.
If you think about it, why would ATT care? They're still getting their money, if not more..... Say John buys an iPhone at $299. He cancels and is charged the ETF of $175 and sells the phone on ebay for $700. The guy who buys it on ebay still has to activate it with ATT, with a new 2yr agreement, so ATT is still gonna get their $30/month package for 24 months, they got the price of the phone (b/c the money isn't refunded unless the customer returns it) and they got an extra $175 from the ETF that they normally wouldn't get - ATT would actually make more money in the long run.
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nope. No contract renewal. Customer owned equipment doesn't require you to resign for another 2 years.
And chances are, the phone will go overseas.
And chances are, the phone will go overseas.
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customer service can't activate iPhones (at least not supposed to) and current policy is that NEW iPhone activations come with 2yr agreement. Now there's ways to get around it but I don't see it happening on a massive scale. Any phones going overseas would have to unlocked first.....
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Actually, you're wrong. The contract is tied into the data plan for the iphone. In order to have an iphone with the iphone data plan you must start a new 2 year agreement. I went through this the other day.
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