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My wife suggested she might like a new phone this Christmas so I jumped in the car and headed towards my AT&T store to look at the model she suggested. On the way there I dialed 611 to get a person who services my phone number and might give me some advice. I found out that AT&T locks customers into contracts and you can't buy a new phone, for the reduced price, until you have owned it 2 years, as this is the length of the contract. AT&T also has a new program called "next" where you can lease the phone for 20 months as a certain price, making it look like you are paying less. I learned all of our 4 "family plan" phones are still 'IN" contract and I would need to buy one at a full price if I wanted to upgrade her. At the end of the call this 611 person (Jennifer if I remember correctly) would give me a break and sell it to me for less and they would mail me the phone and charge my bill.
I told her that I really wanted to look at the phone and see if it was as good as my wife thought so I continued on to the store.
At the AT&T store I met an employee (Jordan if I remember correctly) whom I asked if they had this in stock and the color I wanted. He checked his computer and said he did. Then I told him that I wanted to simply pay full price and not put this on a contract or extend the old contract or do the "next" program. He told me that this wasn't possible from the AT&T store, even thought he had it in stock, as the model was very new and had only been on the market for less than 6 weeks (months?). He said that if I wanted to buy one without contract I needed to go to the Microsoft Store and they could do the deal. I thanked him for the information and left the AT&T store.
On the way to the Microsoft Store I called from my car to see if they had the model and color available that I was shopping for. Instead of getting to the local store I was routed to a call center where I was told they couldn't give me any availability information about products. They said the inventory changed so frequently in the stores that they simply couldn't tell me if it was going to be there by the time I made it to the store. After explaining my encounter at the AT&T store he finally routed me to the local store.
In talking to my local Microsoft Store I got Lee (if I remember correctly) and I asked if they had the model and color I was wanting. I told her I wanted to buy the product outright and put it under the tree. I asked if my wife's old phone SIM chip could be swapped between her old phone and new phone on XMas morning. Lee said she didn't think they could. I asked her to check again as I gave her the model of the old phone and the new one also. She came back a few minutes later and said she did believe they were the same size SIM and I could swap them between phones on Xmas morn. I decided to drive 10 miles to the Microsoft Store the next morning.
Today (the next morning) I was still wondering why the AT&T store guy wouldn't let me simply buy the phone at full price. I called 611 again and got Willie (if I remember correctly). He had never heard of a deal between Microsoft and AT&T where the customer needed to but a new product from Microsoft and not them. He looked at my family plan and contract termination dates on all 4 of my family lines and said he could sell me the product and it could be shipped in 3 to 5 days, directly to my door. He quoted me a price of about $40 higher than the price listed in the AT&T store.
I drove to the Microsoft Store today and looked at the phone and played with it some more. I hung out in the store for about 30 minutes waiting for someone to ask if they could help me. I didn't want to seem aggressive in buying this phone but simply wanted a little "free" help. I left the store with my new mantra of "I'm too old to shop".
In the old days when we used to walk 10 miles to school, barefoot and uphill both ways things were different. I guess at my age, my money isn't good enough to go into a store that has a product and pay cash for it. How would an old guy like me even know how to do email without printing it out first to read it? If I didn't show up to the store using Group On or use my Advantage Plus Points or Amazon Shopping Credits and expected to walk in and pay cash, I must be WAY too old to shop.
Thanks for listening to my Water Cooler Rant. No wonder brick and mortar businesses are on the way out. My conclusion from the above experience is I just too old, dusty, decrepit, archaic or OLD to know how to shop in the modern world.
I sure hope all those mentioned above don't want to know how to use Excel!!
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