Problem Switching Carriers When I Pre-Order

I am on the Apple Upgrade Program. Good news is that I was able to exchange to correct iPhone X when I showed up to Apple Store in person.

I still think it’s terrible that Apple sells iPhones that are not compatible to all US carriers - but I was pleased that Apple sales people did the right thing for me.

If you didn't have to enter a telephone number and last four of SSN you must have purchased a T-Mobile iPhone X. You are correct this will not work with Verizon but I fail to see how it is Apple's fault if you intentionally passed on purchasing a Verizon iPhone and went with T-Mobile instead.

If you do receive a T-Mobile iPhone X you can take it to your nearest Apple Store and get a refund. Then you can place a new order for your wife's iPhone X selecting Verizon. I believe delivery estimate is now mid-December. Or you can get in line on Nov. 2nd to purchase a Verizon iPhone X and return the other one when it comes.

I'm a little confused, the pre-order site had you choose the carrier as the second step of the pre-order process. I just checked and that is the same way it is now. You didn't choose Verizon when you did the pre-order? And I'm not sure if you can take a mail order device and return it to a physical Apple Store. I may be wrong on that, so don't quote it, but I would check if I were you.

Are you on the iPhone Upgrade Program?

Problem is that preorder does not give a choice of which carrier to pick. It is rather an identification of current carrier, which in our case was AT&T. We actually tried to pick Verizon but they wanted us to give them an existing Verizon telephone number.

Everyone had a choice. You should have either ordered it with Verizon instead of on the Apple site, or prearranged it with Verizon. The phone you are getting will not work with Verizon, you can return it to your local Apple Store for credit. It would probably be best after that if you ordered your iPhone at a Verizon corporate store or online with them.

Did you get this information by calling AppleCare? At an Apple Store? Or were you talking to a salesperson? It has been since the iPhone 7 that there is a specific model for Sprint/Verizon so it isn't anything new. You could always call Apple and complain on the employee.

So you already knew that iPhones since iOS 7 were not compatible with Verizon, since you had the first model that was not compatible. I'm sure Verizon could have worked something out with you, did you ask them?

I’ll close this discussion unless someone knows something I don’t. I think it’s worthwhile letting everyone know that Apple still makes phones that are not compatible to all carriers. Don’t believe them if they tell you otherwise.

The poor customer service is a totally separate issue.

I doubt there are many people here that didn't know that. It isn't a "problem" to be fixed, Qualcomm makes the only radio chipset that has CDMA but Apple is in a lawsuit with them. It isn't hard to find out about that suit, and just before the pre-order there were many articles about which phone to get. Since you were switching from AT&T to Verizon it was your responsibility to check with Verizon and see which phone you needed and how to go about ordering it. And why would you call technical support at Apple to find out which phone to buy?

Come on, take some responsibility for your problems. Even if the tech had told you that you needed to buy the Verizon model (which I think any reasonable person could figure out without your alert), you would not have been able to order a phone since you didn't have a Verizon number, as you already stated. So return the AT&T phone and order the Verizon model.

We did exactly what Apple tech told us what to do. They told us we can pick whatever carrier when we receive the iPhone. That turned out not to be the case.

And was no help to get a phone number from Verizon. To do that we would have had to change existing iphone to Verizon, but model of existing iphone 7 was not compatible to Verizon.

I did actually know that the iPhone 7 had different models for each carrier - but my discussion with applcare led me to believe they had fixed that problem.