Only for the customer to be told after they’ve ordered and paid for it under the illusion that it would be delivered within 2-4 days that it would actually take 2 weeks due to their being no stock available.

That and not actually being able to tell customers who ring up the status of their order as they don’t actually show up until the phone has shipped.

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/iPhone-4S-and-iOS-5/bd-p/5

Plenty of angry people in there.

TJ, it’s a question of information. if only 1 person had their phone delayed, for whatever reason, this information needs to be relayed to the consumer. Then theres the fact that ATT knowingly revised their delivery plans without informing the customer, as well as actively placed “holds” on accounts. with this information, the waiting process is easier. without knowing, anticipation builds, feeding your anxieties.

I preordered in store Oct 8th at 9am. i had no problem waiting two weeks for my phone. it is now 20 days. i’m still in “pending” status. I have now grown impatient. I live in NYC. the ATT stores in the entire city are not receiving shipments (at least thats what they tell me). meanwhile, the apple store has a reserve today, pickup tomorrow option. though with the “hold” from ATT, i am unable to persue that option. I tried cancelling my shipment through ATT and removing my Hold. Yet found out part of their policy is to have a 7 to 14 day processing period to remove me from the hold. Do you find this acceptable? is ATT not equipped to hurry this process along to “make the customer happy??”

so still i wait…”order pending”. waiting for a rep to make me a happy customer.

Meanwhile, my local Best Buy has plenty of them in stock. 🙁

“Nope, and my card hasn’t been charged as of this morning. I had a lengthy (and frustrating) discussion with the manager. They were told that due to the high demand of store volume last year for the 4, that AT&T changed their stock allocation to be mostly toward the stores and available on launch day…. those that ordered online before 4pmEST are in the first wave and will get it today, The next few waves go to the retail locations to have stock today. Then lastly, those who ordered in the store or after 4PM are pushed to the end of the line as low priorities. If you ordered on the store fairly early, expect it the week after next, by 10/28. if you ordered at the end of the day, expect it the first week of November. In-store is low priority. I don’t intend to frustrate or incite – just the info I was given and so far it looks accurate from this thread and the state of my order. 32GB Blk.

Jim,

Here’s why: http://isource.com/2011/10/17/the-isource-iphone-4s-review/

Oh – and TJ, you’ll have to remember that at that point, I had no idea when it would ship, and no one at AT&T could tell me when that might be. I was getting different answers from everyone I spoke to. Even if I had known that it would only be an additional week, I had reason to need it that day – for our review. Generally speaking, no, a week delay under normal circumstances isn’t a heartbreaker – but the idea here is that AT&T intentionally diverted stock from paid pre-order customers who were told to expect their purchase on the 14th and instead sold them to anyone who walked in the door that day. If you pre-ordered something and were promised delivery on a given date, didn’t get it, then walked into the store to see them selling lots of that product to people who didn’t pre-order, wouldn’t you feel deceived?

Anyone who thinks these are isolated incidents only needs to visit forums like the U-Talk wireless forum: http://forums.att.com/t5/Apple-iPhone/bd-p/apple

Actually, it wasn’t a few people, and they weren’t mishandled – they were intentionally diverted to in-store sales – apparently facts that I didn’t make quite clear.

Take a look at the AT&T pre-order thread – currently 274 pages; it’s probably most enlightening to start at the end and work backwards.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1244833&page=274

Bottom line, they messed up an online order. Then the local AT&T reps stepped up to the plate and tried to make you a happy customer … which hopefully you are.

I don’t think your odd experience is representative of the overall experience, and a bit unfair to ATT. I have several friends who got the 4S from them and form them via Apple.com and everyone got their phone on launch day as expected.