Expert: Denny Adams - 6/11/2009

Question
Hi...I am going to try to simplify this as best as possible.  I had a family plan with 2 cell phone lines from cellular one.  We recently went to the store bc i lost my cell phone and had to get a new one. we decided to upgrade at that time. so what we did was this: bought one i phone for $199.00 and bought a zenon for $100.00(which was buy one get one free)... so we ended up with 2 zenons.  we added a 3rd line to the account for $9.99 to accomodate that other zenon we now inherited.  So all was good, we had now converted over to att officially and entered a 2 yr contract.  The old cellular one account was no more.  One week later, Apple announces the 50% price cut in iphones.  So we go back to the store and we get a credit to our account for $100 since the price of the iphone was cut in half only 1 week after our purchase. We then return the zenons as well as cancel that 3rd line.  ( we didn't need it anymore since we were returning the zenons.) There was no early termination fee because it had been less than 30 days.  We did however have to pay a $20 per phone restocking fee to return the zenons.  Anyways....returns were complete.  Now to the problem.  I was still with no phone bc the zenons were returned.  I wanted to purchase an iphone as well for $99.  She goes to try to add that iphone to my account and tells me she can't add any phones.  It didn't matter what type...i phone, blackberry....she said that the account was now frozen bc it was old cellular one account and the system was not allowing any overrides.  She said that it's a glitch in the system that ATT is still trying to work out.  So in the mean time, she gave me the att sim card and told me to put it in one of the old cell phones we had laying around at home.  It works but I want the iphone now.  We returned those zenons and paid the $40 restocking fee specifically so I could purchase an iphone.  So my question is...what can I do to "unfreeze" my account, purchase the iphone and be done with this whole mess?

Answer
dawn, lots of troubling things happened here.  but i will move right to your solution.  the rep should have called into att's activations department, they are able to do what it is you want done.  if they tell you no, then ask for the manager to look up the procedures to accomplish your transaction, because there are proper procedures for doing so.  

Denny