When you buy a new phone, you want to be able to pick up the phone from the store and have it start working immediately.

What would you do if the store employee said the phone wasn’t available because it was on hold for pick up, but he didn’t realize it was on hold for YOU to pick up?

That is what happened to the customer in this story, so he called the customer retention line and had them listen to his rudeness and incompetence until they got him in trouble.

Check it out.

AT&T Partner Store – Tried to steal from me, asked me if I wanted to call customer retention and I complied

This happened a couple of days ago in Hollywood, FL.

I traded up my phone for the holidays on AT&T’s website and arranged a pickup in my nearest store.

The receipt I had for the pickup said that the phone was being held until Dec 30th, so I go in on the 29th to pick it up.

Picking up a phone shouldn’t take too long.

I needed to get to work, and I wasn’t going to be available to leave work during business hours, so it had to be then.

I was hoping the whole process would take 15 minutes.

It didn’t.

I get there and the individual, Alan, tells me that my phone wasn’t available because I had waited too long and they had canceled my pickup, even though I had until the next day to do so.

I show him the email that says that, and he shrugs his shoulders and he says that they canceled the order because they counted the day, I placed the order as one of the days towards cancellation, which is obviously stupid.

If they have the phone, why don’t they just give it to him?

Then he offers to sell me the phone that I was trying to pick up because it’s impossible for me to pick up the phone that was being held for me.

I just want my phone so I agree to go through the purchase process, and as it turns out, I will have to pay for the phone again and let AT&T refund the funds for the original order.

Major bull but again, this is all the time I have to pick up my phone.

I asked him for the phone number for someone I can speak with about what is going on and he tells me I need to speak to customer retention and gives me a phone number he pulls off a list.

What horrible customer service.

So, he goes through the process and by then I’m late for work, and he tells me he’s having problems selling me the last unit of the phone I wanted to purchase.

He tries to upsell me.

I tell him that I want the stupid phone I ordered and tells me that he’s having some trouble because the system is not letting him sell that unit.

This is going from bad to worse.

It’s the last unit he has, so he needs to take extra steps to sell it to me.

So, now he goes on his phone and makes some phone calls to try and unlock this unit.

Meanwhile, he leaves me alone long enough to find out that the phone number he gave me was fake.

It led to a non-working extension for AT&T, and it would just stay on hold.

I went on google and discovered this by finding the *actual* customer retention phone number and calling it.

So, now I’m speaking with a customer retention specialist, and I explain to him what is happening over the phone.

The retention specialist confirms that, yes, my phone is available for pickup and has NOT been canceled.

Oh, it’s on hold for HIM!

MEANWHILE on his phone, I can hear Alan speaking with someone at AT&T and the person he’s speaking with says over the speakerphone, “I can’t allow you to sell that phone, it’s being held until tomorrow for customer pickup.”

So, I asked the person on Alan’s phone to repeat that and confirmed that yes, Alan was trying to sell me the phone that I had already purchased and was there to pick up.

Then I ask the Customer Retention person I’m speaking with if he heard the other individual’s comment.

This is turning into quite a mess.

The customer retention rep confirms that he heard what the other AT&T rep has said, and the retention rep asks me to confirm the store number I’m located at and the name of the person I’m speaking with.

At that point, Alan, upon realizing I’m speaking with Customer Retention and Retention heard everything he’s trying to do with *my phone* tells me to leave the store and tells me he’s going to call the police if I don’t. Customer retention rep on the phone hears him kick me out of the store.

At least they seem to take the bad service seriously.

So, I didn’t my phone that day, but I did have it delivered to my house next day UPS, which was nice, and I did get to have a conference call with a regional manager from AT&T, along with a supervisor at customer retention, and a manager for third-party dealer locations, while the customer retention specialist confirms everything I was telling them.

I didn’t get my phone that day, but I did ruin someone else’s, and that was waaaaay more satisfying.

Alan deserves to be fired for incompetence and being rude to boot.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

Commission can make people do crazy things.

Oh, yes. This makes sense.

This person says Alan was padding his stats.

This commenter says Alan did it for the commission.

Here is another AT&T worker who knows what happened.

Alan is working a scam, but this time it backfired.

Hopefully AT&T takes this seriously and puts a stop to it.

Scams never end until someone puts their foot down.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.