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quote:Originally posted by exav8tr
Jim, when I approach a kiosk that says AT&T, I assume that is an AT&T kiosk and fully expect AT&T to stand behind their product. Are you saying I could buy a bunch of Phones and set up my own AT&T kiosk and sell them. I did not know this was the case. How would one know for sure we were dealing directly with AT&T, or any other service provider, for that matter. What about a store front that says Verizon, do I need to determine that is actually Verizon before I buy something and expect Verizon to stand behind it?
Sounds like consumers are being duped.......(OR I'M JUST BEHIND THE TIMES)
I guess I always thought that these kiosks were owned by the service provider, my bad I guess.
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Phil, This certainly is a confusing issue and I would not have known as much except for the fact that I worked in the communications business. You can set up your own Kiosk to sell those phones you bought a bunch of but you can’t put AT&T or Verizon, or whoever on your store with out having an agreement with that company. Some independent stores/kiosk sell just the phones, others sell the phones and the service. All depends on their contract with the carrier. Many of these independent stores and kiosk have no affiliation with a major cell service provider.
I wanted to upgrade my AT&T cell phone and picked a model I liked. Went to a real AT&T phone store and the phone was priced at around $120. Bought the same phone off of Amazon.com for just over $40. Put Sims card from my old phone in the new phone and everything worked well. Saved myself $80. Had it not worked well I would have been in the same situation Dave and Betsy are in except instead of traveling back to the store I would have had to mail it back to Amazon. So as others have said, know who you are dealing with and what the terms of the deal are. I will also add in my humble opinion if you do have service problems the company stores are much more helpful if the product and service are bought from them. Makes sense as they have made many more $’s off of you. Jim