Apple and AT&T are reporting over 1,000,000 phones sold over
the opeing weekend but what they are not talking about are the
countless number of disgruntled customers that used AT&T's
direct fulfillment plan. Users that were not able to purchase a
phone from an AT&T store were offered this direct fulfillment
plan. Under this plan you are able to order your 3G IPhone so it
will be directly shipped to the store. Customers are told that this
is the fastest way to get the device as they will be filling these
orders before restocking the stores regular inventory. It however
appears that the direct fulfillment process has a few problems.
After reviewing the AT&T support forums on their website i came
across 200+ pages of people that used the direct fulfillment plan.
According to posters on this forum AT&T is giving conflicting
information and is not shipping the ordered phones on a first come
first come basis. I.e customers that ordered their phone on July 11
the day the 3G IPhone was released are still waiting for their
phone while customers that ordered on later days already have the
device in hand. It seems that it is not only the wait that is
frustrating future 3G IPhone owners but the lack of informations or
responses to this situation by Apple or AT&T
In response to assignment:
iPhone iReports