ATT trade in center says my phone value is $12!

[Illuminated_One]

What I ended up doing to get out from AT&T's thumb (and I know this wasn't the best way to do it), was to get service from another company, get everything changed over (won't be able to port numbers this way, so be prepared) and just tell AT&T to cancel your service and whatever you owe them after everything was all said and done, make monthly payments to pay it off (they will work with you on it). I didn't have too many outrageous fees since I paid most everything off, but I still had about $1200 I needed to pay off in the end, made monthly payments and had that taken care of in a few months.

--OR--

Stop buying services and good from them, wait for everything to get paid off and out of contract and cancel your service. Pay extra, if you can, towards devices to pay them off earlier and give them the axe.

Yea it's too late the second option sadly. I'm locked in with note 20 ultra. I stayed with ATT specifically for this deal. It's incredible they can literally just steal my note 8 and give me 12 dollars for it. With NO PROOF that it doesn't work. And no customer care or support that gives a damn or can do anything.

 

[J Dubbs]

What I ended up doing to get out from AT&T's thumb (and I know this wasn't the best way to do it), was to get service from another company, get everything changed over (won't be able to port numbers this way, so be prepared) and just tell AT&T to cancel your service and whatever you owe them after everything was all said and done, make monthly payments to pay it off (they will work with you on it). I didn't have too many outrageous fees since I paid most everything off, but I still had about $1200 I needed to pay off in the end, made monthly payments and had that taken care of in a few months.

--OR--

Stop buying services and good from them, wait for everything to get paid off and out of contract and cancel your service. Pay extra, if you can, towards devices to pay them off earlier and give them the axe.

AT&T is the only carrier we've ever been with...25 years or so I believe, and I've never had a single issue. In fact I've pushed them HARD over the years for free phones, bill discounts to keep our bill the same for the last 12-13 years I believe, bill credits when we have a service outage, extra data for free... and the list goes on. Never have problems talking to someone either.

You want stress? Try dealing with walmart when they screw an order up. Or Bank of America when you dispute a charge on your card. 3+ hour holds over weeks to get a fraudulent charge fixed.....they were BY FAR the worst company I have ever dealt with. But honestly, ever since the magic of the money saving overseas call centers were discovered, pretty much all customer service has went down the toilet :-[

 

[customshopkv1]

You just have to keep calling till you get that one person who knows what they are doing. I must of talked to 30 Verizon reps when my S20U had "payment" issues. Finally got one guy at the end who confirmed every other rep was full of it and had lied to get me off the phone. Took him a half hour but he fixed it, even called me three days later to confirm the phone was delivered.

 

[VidJunky]

You just have to keep calling till you get that one person who knows what they are doing. I must of talked to 30 Verizon reps when my S20U had "payment" issues. Finally got one guy at the end who confirmed every other rep was full of it and had lied to get me off the phone. Took him a half hour but he fixed it, even called me three days later to confirm the phone was delivered.

Yeah speaking of Big Red, back when all of this lockdown stuff started I needed a new device for a family member and stopped into see what was available. While I was there I inquired about my bill to see if there was anything I could do to reduce it, even a little. I was told that if I signed up for auto pay I could get 10 bucks off. At the time I didn't really want to but later as things wore on I decided 10 bucks is 10 bucks and tried to set it up through the app. It said I was set but I'd have to make that months payment manually. So I did. The following month I went to check on my bill to see if it had come down any and it hadn't. So I called and was told that I had been getting the discount for several months when I signed up for autopay many months before this. I vaguely remember thinking about doing it but didn't actually remember doing it. I thought I must be paying before the auto pay has a chance to deduct the money, so I didn't log-in to pay that month. When I got the message that my bill was ready the next month I logged in to look at it to see if I was finally getting the discount and I owed for two months. So once again I paid it and tried to set it up through the app. When it didn't take it that month I tried going to a store and by this time all of the Corp. stores were closed. So I waited and paid. Recently I went to an open store and was told that it says I'm signed up and getting the discount but my visit was two days after the scheduled payment and they still hadn't taken the money. So I waited a week after the scheduled date and paid my bill. As it stands they say I'm getting the discount but they never take the money and I'm forced to pay manually every month. I'm still not quite sure what to do because my account says it's set up, they showed me on my bill where I'm getting the 10 bucks but I can't seem to get them to actually take the money...

 

[o4liberty]

So glad I left AT&T worse company ever!!

 

[JREwing]

FWIW, I actually tried to take my trade in to a store and the manager there said since I order online, it's best to send it through the mail via a proper channel. According to him, doing it in the store will take longer and it's the same process as they will have to send it in the same way and exposes to potentially more errors. He also said unless you're doing the upgrade in the store, they are not the one to verify if the trade in phone is working or not, that is up to the 3rd party center that they're sending the phone to.

I'm debating whether to go through Samsung next time or AT&T. So you are saying if I do my upgrade in-store, the trade in value is firm? If so, I think I will do everything in-store next time. Not sure I want to chance it sending an expensive phone in for Samsung or anyone to evaluate.

 

[donm527]

I'm debating whether to go through Samsung next time or AT&T. So you are saying if I do my upgrade in-store, the trade in value is firm? If so, I think I will do everything in-store next time. Not sure I want to chance it sending an expensive phone in for Samsung or anyone to evaluate.

In past forum sections... S9/S10 or Note... you'd hear just as many trade-in stories like that with Samsung trade-ins... more... than you have here.

Most likely Samsung and AT&T won't have the same deals available at any given time so in the end you probably go with the best deal and hope for the best.

I haven't bought a phone through AT&T in a long time and the only reason I did this time was... $1000 off! And they weren't asking for a < 12 month old phone to qualify! No brainer for me. Best deal I've seen from AT&T. If they didn't have this, I would have bought it through my corporate connection at corp price.

 

[VidJunky]

Well I did the whole video the whole reset process, photos of the phone's condition and even the way I packaged it for shipment, trying to cover all bases, and got an email saying that it might take up to 7 business days to find out the status of my trade-in. This was the first time I traded in any phone so I wasn't sure what to expect. I expected there to be a return shipping label in the package. I mean every time I've sent an insurance claim return postage is included in the package. I checked my emails and couldn't find anything as far as instructions on what to do or how. For a short time I started to think they didn't want my trade-in, I mean it is an S9, so what's that at least 2 almost 3 years old now? Then I just happened to be checking some emails and found one saying my time was running out and that one included return postage. Anyway, it should be any day now that I find out my status, guess I'll see what happens.

 

[jrodjrxbox]

Blow up ALL there social media accounts they will respond. This happened with me when they charged me a replacement device saying I never returned even though I had a receipt from them saying they got it

 

[BarracudaBob]

FWIW, I actually tried to take my trade in to a store and the manager there said since I order online, it's best to send it through the mail via a proper channel. According to him, doing it in the store will take longer and it's the same process as they will have to send it in the same way and exposes to potentially more errors. He also said unless you're doing the upgrade in the store, they are not the one to verify if the trade in phone is working or not, that is up to the 3rd party center that they're sending the phone to.

I found out the hard way, that it doesn't seem to matter what the store says. I turned in an S8 and an S8+ and they verified both were acceptable. When I contacted AT&T a week or so later to find out when I'll see the credit, they said that the S8 had a cracked screen and couldn't be accepted. I have a receipt for the trade-in that says there were no defects so I'm hoping that will help make our case.