“Non-Returned Device Fee” for a device(s) that were returned months ago.

When you bring your package to the post office to mail, they give you a receipt, or they ask you if you would like a receipt. Without this receipt you have no proof you checked in those packages. Also checking the tracking after assures you that the packages have entered the postal system. You need this proof. If you didn't save it and you didn't look up tracking after your package was mailed, you have no proof those packages entered the postal system. While I believe you, at&t does not work that way. They need to see actual evidence that the phones were checked in.

Since I trust absolutely nobody including the postal system, and had a cousin who stole from the postal system, I obsessively keep absolutely every counter receipt for FedEx, UPS, and the post office. I have slips going back to last June.   Find yours if you got one.  

Otherwise, You're better off just paying the fee (which is not a fee it is the remainder of your installments, or the early upgrade credit you got for turning in your iPhone 12) and chalking it up to a very expensive education.  Document everything. And keep that documentation for an extended period of time.

A lesson indeed. Not sure why AT&T even selected USPS as a carrier for returning these devices. 

Why not?  No different than any other shipper, but more accessible.  

All you need is proof that you mailed your device and you're off the hook.

I have to drive 20 minutes out of my way to get to a UPS Store and considerably further to go to FedEx. It's less than 5 minutes to get to my local Postal office.

I did two trade-ins directly with Google who use the exact same method. I of course saved my postal receipts even though one trade-in was done in July and the other in October.

always take a PICTURE of the shipping label for ANY return.  It does not matter if its a 5 dollar item.

Im going through the exact same thing now. I wonder if anything has been done on your end? I’ve been fighting with them daily. 

@Cbonin0122 

Assuming you have read the thread, did you save proof of shipping? If you do not have proof of shipping and the only information AT&T has is, 'label created', then you are responsible for lost package.

I should have addressed the original posters comment, "sent back the (2) old Iphone 12 pro max via USPS drop-box (provided by ATT)."

    No.

AT&T provides you with a prepaid shipping label for the postal service. It is our job to make sure that the package is checked in by the postal service. If it is never checked in, then we did not do our due diligence and make sure that it was checked in and is trackable.  This means you should not use the USPS drop box. Take your package inside, hand it over the counter, and get a counter receipt. Once you have that counter receipt you are off the hook.

  Dropping it in an outside mailbox is not secured, those boxes have been broken into and mail stolen.  Some people have even put these packages in their mailbox put the flag up, and left it to the mail delivery person to make sure that their package was checked in 🤯. 

Let’s just call it what it really is at this point. A complete scam where they “lose your device” so they can charge you a fee because their third party is complete crap. 
I had the receipt. Unfortunately it was lost in a car accident a few weeks after returning the to post office. I’m done with AT&T and sincerely hope a (Edited per community guidelines) is filed against them and their third party company. 

@Cbonin0122 

No that does not make it a scam.  Literally millions of people have taken advantage of these trade-in deals with Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile and successfully are getting their credits because they crossed all their t's and dotted all their i's.  

   Based on the limited information provided by the original poster and yourself there's no reason to believe that AT&T ever got your phone.  It may never have gotten to the post office, it may never have gone from the post office to Pitney Bowes, and never been delivered by Pitney Bowes back to AT&T in Texas. If none of those things happen that is not a scam. It's possibly theft, as possibly just lost. But neither of those things are the mechanism of a scam.

I took pictures of my receipts. Those pictures are backed up. Even if I lost the receipt, if my phone was lost stolen or destroyed, my backups are not. And they can be recovered. I also took screenshots of the tracking information as soon as it hit the post office and Pitney Bowes. Those screenshots are also backed up.

Good for you, congratulations. For those hundreds or millions of people who did have their tracking information and still got charged a fee, even though it was delivered, that shows right there it’s a scam.  They are making bank on the ones who either lost their shipping information or trusted AT&T and used a dropbox. The burden of “proof” should not be on the consumer using an AT&T generated label. There’s a pricey flaw in the system. 

And I say trusted AT&T because they generated the label and gave instructions, that I’m not being told I shouldn’t have listened to. 😂