I’ve been having problems with my iPhone recently, so I brought it down to my local Apple Store to see if they could help. The mall was full of people who, I assume, were buying gifts for the holidays. Apple was no less crowded than anywhere else and I was afraid I would have trouble getting an appointment. However, I managed to make one for ten minutes from when I arrived and I was speaking with a ‘Genius’ within four minutes. The guy takes my iPhone and does a diagnostic on it. He says that my problems are probably related to a malfunctioning SIM-card and I should go to the AT&T kiosk right in front of the store and ask them to swap out my card.
I stepped out and over to the kiosk and explained what the guy at Apple had just told me. The guy I talked to said something to a woman in the kiosk and she came over and told me that I had been lied to at Apple. She said that Apple should be the one giving me the new SIM card and that AT&T could give me one, but they would have to charge me $25. Now, I know a lot about Apple, and I knew that there were no replacement SIM cards in the Apple Store. The SIM card is the responsibility of the cell phone carrier not the manufacturer. I tried to explain this to the woman at AT&T, but she wouldn’t have any of it (I should point out at this point that she is not the manager of that kiosk, she just worked there). Realizing that this conversation was going no where, I head back into Apple.
I end up talking to they head ‘Genius’, or he might have been the manager of the Apple Store, either way, I’ve talked to him on previous journey’s to the Apple Store, and he actually knows what he’s doing. I explain what the woman at AT&T said and we both leave Apple and come over to the AT&T kiosk. So, now it’s literally Apple vs. AT&T, Policy vs. Policy, who’s will win? Well, the Apple guy starts talking very quickly explaining that they don’t have SIM-cards and that it’s AT&T’s job to replace the SIM-card. The AT&T woman just repeats the argument that she made to me, something about their policy, and that they have to charge for a replacement. The Apple guy basically just says, “No, you don’t, charge us for the SIM-card, and I have to get back to work.” He runs back over to Apple, and a few seconds later the AT&T woman waddles (the best word to use) in the direction of the Apple store.
So, then the real manager of the kiosk, after seeing what just happened, tells me that he will replace my sim card, for free (I should also point out that at no point did I contest the price, I would have paid it if it came to that). Within two minutes I have a new SIM-card, and I’m back at Apple, somewhat awkwardly, waiting to get my sim card swapped out (which I could have done at home, but the manager at AT&T insisted that I swap out my card at Apple). So, I’d say Apple won this round. It was later explained to me that AT&T changed their policy and didn’t inform Apple. The kiosks are not really supposed to swap SIM-cards because they only have enough for all of the phones in the kiosk’s inventory (which is retarded), and so if I take a sim card, they won’t be able to sell one of their phones. However, that response is stupid, because (A) when is an AT&T kiosk going to sell out all of their inventory in 1 day and (B) Why wouldn’t they just have like ten extra cards in case a few are defective?
Anyway, Apple 1, AT&T -25.
