Although I don't blame BB for the shortage of phones, what did bother me about the customer service at BB was how I was strung along. I ordered a 16gb iphone from store 804. I was told I was 12th in line for the 16gb when I dropped by a few days before launch. The evening before launch I had still not received a call from BB so I decided to drop by again. When I asked the mobile manager what was going on he said "sorry, we are calling right now. Our inventory just came in". At that point he checked the "list" (basically he had no list and was just flipping through the preorders and looking at the time stamp) and told me that I would not have a phone on launch. Of course I asked how many phones they got. He said, we got 2x32s and 16x16s. How was a I 12th on the 16gb list and not get one if they got 16??? I'm a pretty laid back guy and since I could tell they never had a list, I decided not to make a fuss about it. I just asked when he thought I would get mine. He said "you are the very next person on the 16gb list" and "we are getting a shipment tomorrow morning" and that I was guaranteed a phone from that shipment. He set up a tentative appt for 1pm the next day and that was that. I walked out the store upset, but was just going to see how this played out.
Next morning I get a call from BB, the mobile rep told me that they were getting a new shipment in a few hours and that I would be called if the phone came in. This was about 9 am and they said the shipment would come in around 10-10:30. Noon comes along and I get no phone call so I decide to call them. The person I spoke with said that they got their shipment but not all of it (which implies they should get the rest of the shipment and that it came in multiple shipments). He said my phone was not "physically in the store" and that it would not be here by 1 but should be in by the afternoon. It sounded pretty guaranteeish to me. Come 3pm, I get a call from the manager again and he says the shipment had not come in yet, but he would call me when it did, either later that afternoon or tomorrow. At this point they continued to give me a lot of hope that this phantom 2nd half of the shipment would show up. Evening comes and goes and no call.
Finally, the next day (the 25th, day after launch) comes and I'm pretty upset with it all. I decide to call apple stores (its about 8 am since apple stores opened at 8 that day) and found one that had phones. I drove 20 minutes, waited in line for 5 mins and was out with a new 32gb in less than 15. Of course I still had not received a call from BB about the shipment which they seemed pretty confident would show up. Around 2-3 in the afternoon I go to BB and cancel my preorder. Listening to the rep talking to another employee, it seemed like a shipment that day was not really going to happen.
I don't know what was going on. I like to believe in people, but to string me along for so long seems like bad customer service. I would rather hear "I don't know when your phone will come" then "your phone is not physically in the store, but we expect it in this afternoon in our next shipment" Maybe they did expect another shipment and never got it, I dont know, but all in all it seemed sort of fishy to me.
Moral of story: Don't preorder apple stuff from BB and just go to the apple store the next day after launch lol.
