Mobile Phones & Broadband

[Nokia]

I do understand the situation you're in. It's tough. You mentioned you have another phone. I would recommend porting your number onto some prepaid service so you can at least keep it, then porting back when they do receive the phone.

[Matty]

LOL  I hope there next shipment isnt on July 14th.

On its website later that night, Apple gave July 2 as the delivery date at Apple stores for those who hadn't managed to pre-order by 4:30 that day. Soon afterward, Apple changed the date to July 14.

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=16699&news=Apple+iPhone+4+iOS+Radio+Shack+Gazelle

[grubSTAKER]

I understand you can't know every move Apple is making, and that they aren't an easy company to work with.  However, it seems very unlikely that you don't know the expected inventories for the first few weeks of availability, or when you are likely to get them.  Blogs around the country knew expected store inventories a week before launch.  It seems more likely that Best Buy stores simply wanted to make a quick buck, so they didn't turn people away despite the fact they wouldn't meet the demand promised.  Every time I call my local store, they tell me it will be any day, without letting me know if they have received another shipment since Thursday.  If I don't have the phone before week's end, I will cancel the order and order from Apple, letting everyone know not to pre-order anything from Best Buy (not that many people shop there anymore anyway).

[Nokia]

Unless you buy something else with the iPhone, BB doesn't make any money on the activation.

[grubSTAKER]

Whether they make anything or not isn't the point.  Enough bad press and word-of-mouth will hurt them in the end.  When you have a pre-order list of 50 people, and only 10 people get their phone when promised, you end up with many more angry people than satisfied ones.  The point is that they should have been up-front about expectations.  They were clearly out for the media attention and related revenues.

Nokia's "About Me" information seems suspicious:  Why would anyone assume you work for Best Buy?

[Nokia]

According to the leaked launch guide posted on the internet, employees were told not to guarantee customers would have their phone on launch day. While BB corp. did set expectations, apparently some BB employees did not.

I added that after a lot of people in the CS forums began assuming I worked for BB because of the knowledge I possess.

[Solange82200]

Wow Nokia, now you are sympathetic? I thought you found this situation "hilarious"?

[Nokia]

No, I just find the thread you made hilarious.

[Solange82200]

Yeah, that thread I made was hilarious! Oh wait, I never made a thread. I posted in the first thread I saw about the situation. I personally could care less about the media, but to post something so insensitive in a thread about people who are having a LEGITIMATE problem with BB's customer service seems pointless to me. Do you have nothing better to do? If I weren't upset about not having the phone, I cannot imagine even posting in Best Buy forums, much less randomly commenting nasty things like that. Who are you people? Is life that bad?

[Nokia]

Sure, whatever. I don't really care what I post in that thread, because when Jacob gets on, it's getting deleted.

I find it quite amusing that some people are so emotionally invested in a phone. They're sold out right now. So you either spend hours, days, weeks trying to get it, or you wait a little while until it's widely avaliable. I'm hearing of people waiting in line for ten hours to get it. Sorry, no product is worth ten hours of my life, especially not this one. It's not that big a change from the 3GS.

BTW, RS is not offering their customers any compensation. They simply "extended" their launch day sales. They didn't introduce new sales, as people have been saying. BB didn't have any launch day sales, so they are doing the same thing RS is: not changing their promotions.