Missing trade in devices and fake promotions

Not fake promotions as they are advertised on the website.  

1.  No ad says free.  They may say $0 over 36 months.  Or $xx a month over 36 months.  All ads say the device requires a service plan.  Att does *not* give away a device without quid pro quo.  At&T does *not* sell watches or tablets or phones that are Bluetooth/ Wi-Fi only. They are a cellular service provider. Any devices they sell is to enable and facilitate the sale of cellular service, which is their product. 

2.  Having six out of seven devices go missing is statistically impossible. And yet I totally believe you. Do you have the tracking receipts given to you by the post office for each of the seven packages?  Those receipts are proof of shipment.

    Yes?  File a better Business bureau complaint online. The better Business bureau complaint is forwarded to AT&T upper management and someone will contact you and you can show them your receipts as proof that you kept up your end of the trade-in offer. 

    No?  All I can say is oops. It's important to have some kind of receipt as proof of shipment. If AT&T has no record on their end, you now have no record on yours. As I always say, document, document, document, everything. 

3.  When you signed up for new phones, and for Apple watches, information was presented to you, both a customer agreement and a sales slip. The information on the sales slip would have had the sales tax on all 10 devices including the new Apple watches, and the new phone numbers related to those Apple watches, and the installments related to all.  

    Did you read the sale slip before you signed the bottom?  

    Did you understand that all of these promotions are via Bill credits, and that you would be paying for service on 10 phone numbers, not just the six for the phones but also the four for the four watches?  Which is why there were four new phone numbers on your sales slip?  

The solution on the watches is to pay them off, cancel all four lines, and sell the watches. You can sell them on swappa. If you have all the original packaging, it will look real nice and you'll get a good price on resale. 

They are no longer returnable 

Or you can pay them off, cancel the service and just keep them as Bluetooth devices which would require they be with the phones in order to work properly.  

There is no such thing as free. 

I’ve received free devices before from AT&T while doing an upgrade. These were presented as “free” and I’ve the voicemail note of the employee who called me saying these watches are free with the upgrades I’m doing. 

yes, I’ve the tracking number for them and I’ve provided it to AT&T and we tried tracking it down but since it’s been more than 90 days I wasn’t able to track them but AT&T rep said that their trade in department should be able to look into it further. 

thank you for suggesting to sell them and I might just do that or gift them. However, I want to highlight the problem of calling it free when they are not free. I was even told further that I would be able to cancel the lines on the 4 watches once I receive them but you’re right I have to pay them off to even do that. 

@Rferoz 

No... At&T does not give away free tablets or watches. AT&T does not give away free phones. Everything has a catch. Prior to 10 years ago, free or deeply discounted devices like $0.99 for last year's iPhone. iPhone we're under a 2-year contract with an early termination fee. 

So were tablets. 

That business model has been replaced with less expensive service, but more expensive devices. Devices are never given away free. Just because the installment and the bill credit zeros out does not make it free. Canceling service accelerates the installments and voids the bill credits.  

Cannot say it more emphatically, there is no such thing as free. This is the current business model of all cellular service providers in order to sell more of their product, which is the service.  The devices are a lost leader in order to do that. 

Good luck with finding the rest of your phones. Should definitely not have waited this long. You also could have tracked every single phone from the day after it was dropped off at the post office, through The courier, newgistics, all the way to Tennessee

I did two trade-ins, July and October of 2022. I tracked both trade-ins through the system to make sure they got what they were supposed to go. And I think I still have the receipts, although it's well past time that I have to keep them 

Did you do the trade in the store or over the phone? You should have a receipt with the trade-in confirmation. If you were supposed to have 7 different boxes with trade-in labels, and I hope you didn't put all 7 in 1 box. So you are supposed to have 7 different trade-in confirmation IDs. You can either call the ATT trade-in dept and ask if a profile was ever created for all 7. If yes, get all the info so customer care can create a case for you. For most wearables promos, you get a credit every month towards the installments, but you have to pay for the data monthly for the watches. I know retail can be a bit misleading sometimes because it’s sales, and they have to make their commission, which is never a reason to lie to or misinform a customer. If the reps are not forthcoming, then demand for a supervisor so they can do the work the reps are too lazy to do.

First of all we appreciate you being our loyal customer @Rferoz. We understand your situation and want to help, let's guide you in the right direction to get the help you need, please follow the below mentioned steps: 

The Community Forums are a public support option where other users, and AT&T, will try and assist with high level support needs.   This means we won’t be able to look into account specific concerns.  To get the help you need for your unique issue, please review our  contact us page : https://www.att.com/support/contact-us/ and choose the best option to reach out to us.  You can call, chat, or reach out via social media and we can review your specific issue and provide you support.  If you feel your issue isn’t account specific, and can be answered generally, please let us know and we’ll be happy to help.

Thank you for visiting AT&T Community Forums. 

CrystalS, AT&T Community Forums Specialist.