Tilt refurb saga… Free??
When the ATT Tilt (refurb) fell to $149 I thought the deal was too good to pass up. I jumped on it fearing that the refurbs would disappear from the online site, as they often do, but just a day later they dropped the price to $99 (I hadn’t even gotten mine yet). Needless to say I was a bit miffed at my timing, and called ATT customer service to see what they could do for me. Little did I know this was just the beginning of a 10 day saga that I hoped would have a happy ending. Did it… Continue on for the answer and a link to an even better deal.
I haven’t had many dealings with customer service in my many years with ATT as I am a pretty good customer and haven’t had to change much on my account. I was hoping that this would be a great chance to prove wrong all of the people who knock ATT/Cingular for their customer service woes. I was wrong! I got through to a CSR, told them about my situation and asked them what they could do for me. I was ready to accept a $50 credit on my account and be done with it. What I got was a 15 minute explanation of how online shopping works and how prices on electronics fluctuate wildly ending in the statement “that was the risk you take” in buying electronics. WHAT???
After explaining that I have shopped online before and am very familiar with price fluctuations; I told them I thought that 33% in one day was a bit excessive and asked what my options were. The only thing the CSR could come up with was that I could return the product in an unused state and they would credit my card back for the charges and reinstate my 2 year option. At that point I could purchase any handset I wanted. The catch: the refund would be processed within 7 days, but the reinstatement of my 2 year option could take up to 30 days at which time the refurbished models could be sold out or the price could be back to the normal $199.
I am a working guy and like most $50 is a big deal (especially when it comes out of my side of the budget), but I did like the Tilt and thought it was a good deal at $149. I decided I was going to put the whole thing to bed and just pretend I never heard about the new price. Then Tiltsite posted a new link that had the Tilt listed for free. It was getting out of hand at this point. Less than a week and I am out $150. Grrr!
I decided $150 was worth taking my chances and was going to call customer service and find out how to send back the phone. This time I was fully ready to wait the 30 days or whatever and take my chances that they would still be in stock, and if not well there were some pictures of the new HTC phones coming that I could drool over for a while (Modaco is reporting that the Raphael has a GSM cousin). When I got through to the CSR it was basically the same story except for the lesson on online purchasing and electronics; my only choice was to return it and wait.
Since I felt I had nothing to lose I decided to pull my last card: “I understand you can’t issue me a credit, but is there someone there that can”. That is my version of the Jedi Mind Trick; by stating it that way you are either going to end up with a person that is very likely to give you what you want or you are going to get the meanest shift boss they have. Chances are they aren’t going to give you over to someone else who has no authority to issue a credit (which is normally the case), and you can also get a feeling of whether it is even possible to get it.
I waited on hold for about 5 minutes before the same CSR came back on and told me that there was no one available that could issue me a credit (it worked!!) and asked if I wanted to continue to hold. Hold it was, and about three minutes later the same rep came on the phone and told me there was still no one available but that she had gotten permission to issue me a credit for $150 to my account. She also said she was terribly sorry that I got caught in this situation. Did the Jedi Mind Trick work… probably not. It was more than likely just a busy manager that had too much going on to talk to me and just said to give me what I want. Either way I ended up with a free Tilt, and some of my confidence restored in ATT CSR’s. Besides if they had done this on the first call I would have probably not even worried about making the second one and they would be up $100.
Brian: $150 – ATT: $0
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Man, that was awesome. I am glad you managed to get your $150 back. Now if only their 3G used the proper bands…
You and my wife both are happy about it. The way I see it that means I have more money for accessories
Somehow I don’t think a busy manager is going to make 3G any better though. It is a shame because there are so many good phones we miss out on because of it.
Great story, Brian. Score one for teh Jedi Mind Trick.
Doug
Good read! (And 150 good reasons to make that phonecall
)