The Loyalty Penalty, or Where's MY Frickin' iPhone?!

Saw a story that AT&T are selling refurbished iPhones for $99 with a 2 year contract. Went to the AT&T website and tried to see if we could buy one. Turns out we can't. It shows nothing when you try to upgrade from the phone we have to an Apple phone. Plenty of other choices, like LG's and Motolrolas and Blackberrys. All more expensive than $99.00.

I guess we don't earn the right to upgrade until we hit the next anniversary in May. This despite the fact that we've been using the same old Treo for four years. WE must have replaced my wife's phone after that.

So let me get this straight. We've been AT&T Wireless customers since before there was an AT&T Wireless (At least in its current incarnation - we weren't with that crappy AT&T no one liked). We've been customers since it was Cellular One and then Cingular. Our first phone was a brick. But now someone who is not a customer can get an iPhone and we can't.

I've decided to call this the Loyalty Penalty. So you heard that phrase here first. (I Googled it and no one else has used it in this way). It's the same thing that my daughter said a few years ago: "I been a Citibank customer for five years. Where's MY frickin' iPod?!"

They complain about "churn," well this is why they got churn. Wise up. I'll wait. I don't NEED an iPhone. In fact, I switched my ell phone to Sprint because I could get phone as modem for my laptop with them (and a new Centro for 99 bucks), which is why my son got the Treo. But the Treo doesn't work on 3G.

We also just switched from Comcast to AT&T for home Internet service. It was cheaper, the people were nicer, and it doesn't cut out the way the cable did. And I was smarter than the Comcast tech support bimbo. I had to tell her to change the modem MAC address in her computer so mine would work.

Not that I have any loyalty to AT&T. It's just another frickin' company with toll-free numbers, stupid people, bad service, and erratic pricing. BAit and switch is the watchword of our economy. Look at the mortgage industry. See how well THAT worked out for everyone.