AT&T Community Forums

Missing Smartphone trad-in promo credits

I've called customer support about 5 times since 12/23 to see why I stopped receiving owed credits on 1 of the 5 phones we traded in. We had switched from Verizon after being persuaded by an ATT kiosk sales person at Costco, and everything was fine and as advertised for the first several months. Each time I've called ATT support I've spent 45 to 60 minutes on the phone while the support person researches the issue, verifies my claim, provides some new insights, contacts the "back office" and thinks they've fixed the problem there, arranged for the missing credits (to varying degrees), gives me a case # and says someone will be reaching out to me in a few days assure the problem has been permanently corrected. I've been told the "warehouse" at some point mis-classified the phone in question as an Android generic and not eligible for the credit but after providing them the IMEI # they verify it was an iPlus7 Pro and that it was eligible at the time. They also said the warehouse verified the phones operability and good condition when they accepted the phone initially. One agent said she thought the problem getting the credits for the remaining months to automatically occur moving forward was because the promo was no longer going on. So, I've now received credits for months 1 through 9 so far, but am still missing credits 10 through 15 with no assurance that credits 16 through 36 will happen. On the last call, after the agent checked several times with her supervisor and the "back office", she said the phone was "recycled" and there was nothing more that she could do. She gave me the phone # for the "trade-in team" and said I might try calling them to get this straightened out, but I'm tired of making calls and being unable to connect with someonee that can help.

I have done everything correctly. The phone was in great shape and eligible. The problem clearly lies with ATT, so I am hoping someone with some authority can read this, look into it and help. I am otherwise very satisfied with the service and want to believe ATT management will do the right thing here. Thank you

Responses

formerlyknownas

ACE - Sage

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118.4K Messages

28 days ago

1. AT&T doesn't do anything with your phone other than ship it to Assurant Mobile which is a refurbish and recycle business. They don't keep it. They don't have it. AT&T has no use for your old phones

2. Usually when you switch you're eligible for some sort of new phone promo for free when you do the in-home expert switch. I don't know if there's a minimum phone requirement, but if there is an iPhone 7 would not have qualified. The oldest phone that qualifies for full credits against a new phone is no more than 3 years old. So an iPhone 15 required an iPhone 12 or newer.

If you didn't have a newer phone to offer, they would have set you up with one of the no trade-in deals, probably for an iPhone 14 for free.

3. iPlus7 Pro

iPhone 7 came in two models the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 plus. There's no such thing as an iPhone 7 plus pro. This phone is too old to be eligible for a trade-in deal. Any deal you would have been offered would have been a no trade in offer because you were switching from another service provider.

You can file a better Business bureau complaint online. Better Business bureau complaints are sent to AT&T upper Management and someone will contact you.

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Nuquest

Observer

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3 Messages

28 days ago

Thanks. The phone I traded in was actually a OnePlus 7 Pro, an Android phone. It wasn't an iPhone.

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formerlyknownas

ACE - Sage

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118.4K Messages

28 days ago

Okay so tremendous typo, thank you for clarifying.

OnePlus 7 pro would have been worth $350 credit which is $9 and change per month.

If the phone was blacklisted, or user locked, it's value would have been zero and therefore no credit. Is it possible it was not factory reset? That's the usual cause for phones being disallowed after the fact. Is because they turned up as either blacklisted or user locked at the recycler. At which time Assurant places a zero value on the phone and AT&T would stop giving credits

You can try the better Business bureau complaint but there's no guarantee

(edited)

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ATTHelp

Community Support

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232.9K Messages

28 days ago

Hi @Nuquest,

Thanks for reaching out to us, we're right here to clear things up for you.

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, 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 contacting AT&T Community Forums.
Veronica, AT&T Community Specialist.

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Nuquest

Observer

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3 Messages

28 days ago

Thank you Veronica. I've tried calling but as indicated in my initial post it always ends up the same and I have no faith I will ever be able to get through to an upper-level person with the understanding and ability to fix the issue. I've also tried Chat but it just takes so much time and was similarly time-consuming, frustrating and in the end, not helpful. I thought this was the 3rd option you mentioned, reaching out to social media. If there is a different way, I will gladly try it. I was just hoping I could get this escalated somehow this way and not have to go the BBB or formal dispute route when it is so clear to me that this was just some sort of ATT clerical, bureaucratic or processing mistake crossing a couple different departments such that the first line call center person cant fix it

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