For those who have been emailing me a tweeting and asking me if I got my iPhone i did! But to be brutally honest I probably should have been arrested. It all started when I took a ride down to the Apple Sagemore, NJ store at 12am EST. The drive took me almost an hour and 15 minutes. I left my house I was wearing shorts and a Under Armour T-Shirt and wasn’t really thinking that the night temperature would go down to 58 degrees. When I arrived I was a tad surprised that there were already 19 people in line. The people I met with during the iPhone 3G were a great crew of guys, Tom who worked for a software company as a web programmer and the Jon worked for Comcast.I immediately parked my chair down along with my backpack and fired the laptop up to check and see what everyone else is doing. I called J (our new News Editor) who was standing in line at his local AT&T store in California and Michael over at T4Show who was at his local AT&T store. Their lines weren’t too bad but mine was growing throughout the night.

As the night progressed so did the cold temperatures where I found myself starting to really feel cold. Jon was very nicel and handed out a bunch of his Comcast T-Shirts for everyone to warm up. I have to say thanks to Twitter because it really kept me up to date with all the line statuses and my friends. Once 7am EST came by we were 150 strong and growing! Apple employees came out and did their wacky screaming and video taking asking us questions. The plan was to let 15 people in at a time which I was going to be in the second group. Unfortunately this is where the problem started.

Once I walked into the Apple Store I was greeted by Mark who asked me what iPhone I wanted and if I was a current AT&T customer. I told him I would like a 16GB iPhone and I was a current AT&T customer who receives a corporate discount. Once I said corporate discount he grimaced and said I hate to tell you but there is a very high percentage that you will not get an iPhone here. Huh? He had told me that the person he just helped had the same problem and that they cannot ring up people with a corporate discount on their plan. I told him lets give it a try and we will get through it (positive thinking right?). He typed in my telephone number, last 4 digits of my social security number and zip and hit submit and what do you know? No good.. Cannot process transaction code XXXXX. He looked right at me and said sorry you’ll have to go to an AT&T store and get your iPhone because they are the only one who can process corporate discounts. Now the first thing someone would want to do is strangle the Apple employee right? Well, I could’ve done this but I would have definitely missed any chance I had to get the iPhone so I asked to speak with the manager. The manager immediately walked me over to another station where I met with a apple consultant who was helping that other person who was having the same problem as me. The employee was on the phone with AT&T and was told the corporate discount needs to be pulled off the account for Apple to process the order. So I called 611 on my phone and waited on hold for 30 minutes where the AT&T employee told me they cannot pull corporate discounts whatsoever. Case closed! By now I was about to blow off some steam and looked at the Apple employee and said, “Why am I on the phone with AT&T?” and told him to please get on the phone and handle my issue. No offense but Apple does have a vested interest I walk out with a iPhone right?This is where AT&T fails miserably and Apple shines.

My Apple employee at the Sagemore store sat on hold for 1 hour and 15 minutes waiting to speak with national accounts. Yes I said 1 hour and 15 minutes!!! This Apple employee was probably one of the most patient people I have ever met. He was consistently being asked questions by other Apple employees along with getting hit with a long line of people in the same position as me. By now I was starting to really coming to realize I wasn’t going to get an iPhone and cancel my service with AT&T until the Apple employee’s eyes opened wide! He said to the AT&T representative, “Ok. Just to confirm you are removing the corporate discount?” .. Bingo he did it!!!! They immediately tried to ring up the phone on my account and it WORKED! But not too fast!!

Once I paid for the iPhone I was guided to activations where I saw five customers with a very unpleasant look in their face. The Apple employee walked up to me and said, “Just want you to know we are having problems with activations and that you have the opportunity to activate your iPhone at home”. I was going to do this, but after looking at my Blackjack II I noticed my phone was completely shutoff so I didn’t have a phone until the iPhone was activated. So I waited and waited for another hour and a half to find out I bricked my iPhone during the activation process. By now you can probably say I was about to flip out but thought what good would that do me. So I packed up my iPhone and left the store to see another 180+ people more in line waiting for their iPhones.

In conclusion I have to say Apple by far stepped up to the plate (other than activations going down) and AT&T fails miserably! AT&T someone should be fired for the terrible communication about corporate discounts. Now you have a customer who has to sign back up for his corporate discount and wait another six weeks! This is completely nuts! If it wasn’t for Apple stepping up to the plate AT&T you would have completely lost me as a customer.

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