iPhone Activation Problems Plaguing Countless New iPhone Owners

I just ask for a supervisor as was suggested above. After waiting, I was politely connected to someone at Apple who was told I have a problem with itunes. WHAT?*?*?*? I politely told her my situation and she transferred me to an AT&T line where I am currently holding. The approximate wait was 15 minutes, I am now at 30 minutes and still holding. Anyone have any new suggestions???

Guess what--they told me someone was working on my account, there was nothing she could do. Wait about 2hrs and call back. I have been working on this 62 plus hours talked to more than a dozen agents and been on hold about 13 hours of the time I have been trying to solve this. I am giving up and taking this ibrick back.

got the email confirmation at 3:22am. finally activated. iTired, it's true, you have to have the latest version of iTunes, so if you have not returned it yet, then update your iTunes.

i know im a little waiter, but after 20 hours, 3 phone calls to ATT and 8 to sprint here is what it took for my phone to come on.
-after 9 hours of pending i got an email saying there is a problem and gave me an activation id and phone number - it was the 3701 number
- i called the number and spoke to a rep who said he doesn't know whats wrong, other then sprint would not port out my number
- i called sprint to see why - after speaking to 7 different people, including a number port rep, all they all did was passed me off to someone else, but in reality they sent me back to the main menu. sprint if famous for the run around, pleased to be away from them finally.
- called att store - talked about returning phone cause i couldn't transport my phone number, guy at store said they had to, call 3701 again.
- called both 3701 and sprint at the same time, both wait times were over 15 mins. got sprint rep #8 first on phone 1 and she would look into it. finally someone in sprint was helping me, while on hold i got through to att person #3 on phone 2- she was very helpful. sprint came back and said that att wasn't putting port information through properly. i tell this to att person who is already redoing my account set up without asking. she said that the ATT store put in the wrong information. Put me in the Phila region when my number and my home are both in the NJ region. - att rep redid everything (about 20 mins) then my phone was working within 5 min.
- in the end - the att store screwed up my info which botched up my wait. att rep 1 - needs to go through more training, att rep 3 was great and is currently my hero, sprint reps 1-7 can get bloody noses, and sprint rep 8 can win in Atlantic City cause she at least tried to help me.

Store - Hamilton, NJ (Hamilton marketplace) - was where it all started for me

so if you are still having trouble, ask the rep to redo your account set up, im sure they will fix it. if they say no, talk to someone else until they figure out most of this chaos is done by poor training and knowleged from the ATT staff.

good luck
the end

dj thanks for the info, my itunes was already updated to the latest version. I still don't know what the problem is--the AT&T store is an hour away. I figurered at this point what is another two hours. I'll still have time to get there by five. Soooo they have until 4pm cst to get this thing going then, i'm outta here! Thanks again for the suggestion I REALLY APPRECAITE IT, even if it didn't work!!!!

60 dollars for no product, no service, no anything....I think I am in the wrong business, don't you? Steve Jobs must be a genius to devise such a legal scheme to take our money!!!!! By the way I am still on hold.

excuse the terrible grammar and spelling please, I am truly tired. Again I hit another wall and they have cancelled my order again. PLEASE tell me what to do, this is so frustrating. I have been told to wait for another cancellation confirmation which I might receive by 5pm tomorrow and then begin the process again.

I have an active phone, except for the fact that sprint won't transfer my number. The phone looks great, I love the functions, I just can't recieve calls, I can make calls. This is a sprint problem and they are getting on my nerves, I have talked to 4 different people in the sprint porting department and they can't seem to get anything done. We will see, but sprint, not att, is really starting to piss me off.

After almost 68 hours my phone is now working. It took a grand total of 9 phone calls (3 cut offs, argh) and two trips to the apple store and one to the AT&T store. I ended up waiting on the phone, cancelling my account, and then going back and starting over. When I started over it immediately went through- instanteously!

CLEARLY there was such a major backlog of Friday people that it is much faster to just kill your account and start over. Good luck to everyone out there.

You can read my hell of the iBrick and AT&T nightmares at:

http://www.zoom-in.com/blog/2007/07/my_brand_new_ibrick

Here is a timeline of my experience with the iPhone so far.

Friday, June 29th 9:05 PM: Purchased 8 GB iPhone at an Apple Store in about 2 minutes. I didn’t even wait for a receipt (they e-mailed it to me).

Friday, June 29th 9:40 PM: Followed all the steps in iTunes to activate my phone. Existing customer, just add $29.99 a month for the iPhone. Got to the Completing Activation page.

Friday, June 29th 10:27 PM: Received e-mail from iTunes stating, “AT&T is now processing your activation”

Friday, June 29th 11:00 PM: Called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. Was told everything was OK, just a high volume of new activations. I asked about having too many lines. Was told that it isn’t a problem because a number was already reserved (“if you got a number than don’t worry about it.”) Wait time 30 min.

Saturday, June 30th 8:30 AM: Called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. Was told that my AAA discount had to be removed from my plan before the iPhone would be activated. I attempted to remove it in iTunes, but I guess it didn’t work. I asked again about having too many lines and was told that that was not the problem and now that she removed the discount things should work. Total time of call 90 min.

Saturday, June 30th 1:18 PM: Received e-mail from iPhone_Activation_Support stating that my current at&t plan was not compatible with the iPhone.

Saturday, June 30th 2:50 PM: Received e-mail from at&t thanking me for my purchase and that they were processing my activation. I also got an order number.

Saturday, June 30th 3:30 PM: Called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. Wanted to make sure that the 1:18 PM e-mail wasn’t a different problem than my AAA discount. Had a very bad Customer Service Rep. After waiting for over an hour, she was rude, told me that I had too many lines (the first person to do so), and transferred me to Apple against my plea. I was extremely unhappy about that transfer (I wonder how many other people she pissed off over the weekend). I called back and was told that everything was fine and that my iPhone activation was working through the system. Total time of call 90 min.

Saturday, June 30th 9:30 PM: Called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. Was told wait for my activation and that nothing was wrong. Total time of call 60 min.

Sunday, July 1st 9:00 AM: After reading some forums about what other people have done, I called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. Was told that there was information missing on my order. After waiting for 1 hour and 40 min with the original at&t rep checking in with my every 2 min per his procedure, I was told by the person (who was suppose to get my missing info) that my family plan already had 5 lines and so the iPhone could not be added to my existing plan. When I inquired about canceling one of my lines, I was told that the department that handled cancellations was not open on Sunday. So after a 2 hour and 30 minute call, all I could do was wait until Monday when he would call me back (at noon my time) to cancel a line and then hope my iPhone would become active.

So after 36 hours and speaking to numerous people at at&t, I have gotten a different story from each person. Some of have sounded very knowledgeable, others have not; some have been very nice, others have not. At this point in time, I have no idea what to think.

Sunday, July 1st 12:30 PM: After more reading, I called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. The at&t rep suggested I cancel my original activation so that I can redo it as an individual account. She passed me to a different department that could cancel my activation. Why no one offered to just change my existing activation from family to individual, I do not know. Total time of call 60 min (mostly on hold).

Sunday, July 1st 1:27 PM: Received e-mail from iPhone_Activation_Support stating that my activation has been cancelled.

Sunday, July 1st 1:40 PM: After many failed attempts to activate my phone, I I called at&t to get help. Was told that I needed to go to a corporate at&t store to get a pre-approved credit check code (the first time that has been mentioned by anyone). I reluctantly drive to an Cingular store to get a credit check code.

Sunday, July 1st 2:53 PM: Received e-mail from iTunes stating, “AT&T is now processing your activation”

Sunday, July 1st 4:50 PM: Called at&t to inquire about the status of activating my iPhone. Was told that my iPhone activation was working through the system.

Sunday, July 1st 8:00 PM: After reading more forums about what other people have done, called at&t to inquire about activating my iPhone. The at&t rep grabbed my original number (and work order) and gave it an individual plan. She then put me in queue to the sync dept link my new number with the iPhone (and iTunes). After a 30 min wait, the new rep activated my phone and asked me to power down and power up and the phone should be working. It didn’t, but he still tried to call me. We got disconnected and he didn’t call back (even though the first thing he did was ask for a number just in case we got cut off). Total time on of call 40 min.

My frustration is magnified now that I’ve been given more advice from at&t at every opportunity. I could have cancelled an account on Saturday, but was not told of the problem until Sunday (in fact, I was told the exact opposite). I was told to cancel my activation, when in fact at&t could have changed my plan (or given me an individual plan). And know I have a cancelled activation that I am relying on and a new activation started this afternoon that I know nothing about.

Sunday, July 1st 9:02 PM: I had to call at&t back to follow-up on activation. Rep tried to call me, but said I needed to make a call first because the voice mail hadn’t been set up yet. If I could make a call, I wouldn’t have spent my weekend sitting in front of my PC calling at&t. Anyway, she transferred me to the activation group (again) and Lisa Hawkins told me that my iPhone is active and I just waiting for the last step (waiting in line to ride the roller coaster). Supposedly, all of my calls are documented in at&t’s system. Total time of call 35 min.

Monday, July 2nd 12:20 AM: I decide to document my conversations. I know that I’ve missed a few calls and my times may not be exact.

Monday, July 2nd 1:45 AM: After reading more posts, I called at&t to check to see if there were any errors in my activation. Transferred to Mark (supervisor) and he double checked the IMEI and ICCID. Had me remove the SIM card to verify it as well. He said that he was showing that my phone was active. I checked on att.com and saw the iPhone number. After a brief hold, he said that once I dock the iPhone it should start working. It didn’t. He told me to call a different department to troubleshoot the problem as he did everything he could. He said that they were closed now and I would have to call them tomorrow. Total time of call 30 min.

Monday, July 2nd 2:15 AM: Called the troubleshooting number just to see if they were open. On hold for 10 min, but they were open (one strike against Mark). Rep found that the SIM card was not working properly. She reset it and had me power off the iPhone and then dock it again. After doing that 5 times, but I was still 400 away from getting my SIM card activated. Total time of call 35 min.

Monday, July 2nd 7:42 AM: Docked my iPhone, but still was not activated. Called at&t troubleshooting number on hold for only 14 min. The rep was completely clueless. She had no idea about the differences of the iPhone. She told me to call 611 to activate the phone. When I told her that I was on the Activate iPhone screen, she said press yes or select. “Don’t you want to activate your phone?” While waiting for tech support, got disconnected. No call back. Called back and was told that the SIM card would not work until I sync’d with iTunes (so what I was up until 2:45 AM the night before was wrong). Was waiting for a supervisor until I had to go to work. I think it was this conversation Total time of call 90 min.

Monday, July 2nd 9:36 AM: Called at&t from work. On hold for over 60 min. Sara said the phone was “completed” but not activated. She activated it and guessed that it would start working the next time I docked the phone. I asked her to call me at noon at home to verify that the phone was working.

Monday, July 2nd 11:45 AM: Docked my iPhone, but still not activation. Sara did not call me until 12:55 PM. She said that according to at&t the phone should be active and that the Activations department couldn’t do anything more and that I had to go to Apple. She said she would call Apple to have them call me.

Monday, July 2nd 1:20 PM: Apple care tried to call my cell. I missed the call. Called my work as I was in the parking lot. And then called my home after I just left there.

Monday, July 2nd 1:30 PM: I called Apple care to see if they could help. They said I needed to leave the phone docked and it could take up to 72 hours. Wendy said she would call me at 6 PM to check up on me. She never did. But Wendy did leave a message for me at home saying that I should call the 3701 number and type in my order number for an update (when I did that after I got the message, it said your iPhone is active and fully functional).

Monday, July 2nd 2:30 PM: I spoke to the Apple Store manager (Paul) and he suggested I meet with a Apple Genius to see if they could help.

By the way, the two at&t people that were suppose to call me today to help with my activation never did.

Monday, July 2nd 8:30 PM: I went to the Apple Store to see if they could help. He plugged in the phone and said all he could really do is swap the phone. He did tell me that the according to Apple, my “at&t activated” phone was not active. We called at&t and got another person who didn’t know what she was talking about. After 30 min on and off hold (at one point she called the 3701 number and told me based on my order number my phone should be working). Then I got sent back to the queue. The guy I spoke to was of no help.

Monday, July 2nd 9:40 PM: Called at&t customer care. After going though the prompts, I was sent to business care. This was a concern as I don’t have a business account. Called another number to avoid the hold, but they couldn’t help with changing my account to an individual (family plan) account. It is now 11:14 PM and I’ve been on hold for 80 min just to try and remove the business icon off my account.

74 hours and counting.

I would like to thank everyone for being so patient with us at AT&T Activations. We have been working day and night to get your iPhones activated for you. Many of us have put in long hours, worked our holiday weekend, and stayed overtime so that we could maintain the high level of service to our customers. For those of you that are still waiting, hang in there, we are still activating, and will continue to do so until they are completed. Again thank you.

My phone works except that I can't make calls, the reason for this is Sprint. I spent 48 hours angry with AT&T and then realized it was not them, even though their tech support people where not that helpful, not telling me the real issue. Anyway, I have called the Sprint port line 4 times with no success, some glitch that they say a tech support person needs to fix to port the number. Any ideas on what I can do?

As a current employee of the 3701, I want to reassure everyone waiting for their iPhones that we are working very hard to the best of our abilities to activate customers as quickly and painlessly as possible. We can only apologize so much, but please know that there are some reps out there that do care to assist you in every human way possible. :) We truly do understand how frustrated many of our customers may be at this time, but we're on your side, and doing all that we can to assist you.

47 hours of the NoPhone(tm).
2 sleepless nights.
17 phone calls to AT&Tingular.
9 hours on hold.
2 many stories.
1 too many apologies.
36 dollars for "activation".

In the end...
1 amazing phone! Thanks Apple.