Apple & AT&T screwed up with iPhone 3GS upgrade pricing

I’ve always thought phone (traditional and cellular) and tv (cable and satelite) companies were the scum of the business world. They are well known for adding on bogus fees and charges anywhere they can and trying to lock you into multi-year contracts that cost hundreds of dollars to get out of early, no matter what the case. Whatever happened to providing a good service with good customer support so your customers want to stay around?

I was stunned last year when AT&T wouldn’t let me get an iPhone 3G for my wife at the “discounted” rate. And by discounted rate, I mean the rate that they advertise everywhere with the star and fine print next to. However, even though I had documentation showing I had not used an equipment discount for 2 years, they refused to give me the discount.

But they have taken it to another level this year. The iPhone 3GS is being released on June 19th as you probably have already heard by now. So I went on to the AT&T site to check my upgrade status figuring that surely after 3 years, I’m eligible to get an equipment discount on that line. However, I’m presented with some obscure message about being able to take advantage of “no commitment pricing”. What is exactly is that? You mean the unadvertised over the top retail price.

What the… So even after 3 years now I still have to wait another month before I can get the discount on the iPhone 3GS? I will be calling AT&T about this next week so I’ll update this post if anything changes but I just couldn’t believe that.

But now to the real problem. I bought the iPhone 3G last year for my line with a discount and Apple/AT&T were fine with giving 1st generation iPhone owners a discount because they knew this was the strongest part of the user base. If someone was willing to drop $600 on a phone the first year, you know they are coming back to upgrade.

However, this year is different. If you purchased an iPhone 3G last year when they were released, you won’t be eligible for an upgrade discount until December. Let me see if I understand this correctly. The same people who were camping out and waiting in lines for hours wrapped down the street and around buildings are the same people you are going to make wait until December to get the advertised price on the new version? I can’t believe they didn’t consider this. Would it really hurt either company to drop the term between equipment upgrades down to 12 months?Especially since they are obviously on a 12 month release cylce for the iPhone product.

This is why I don’t think you will see people camping out (maybe in the crazy downtown New York and California areas) and standing in long lines for the iPhone 3GS. I know for sure I won’t be.

Maybe if these companies should spend more time focused on improving their products and services and less time with the lawyers and marketing departments figuring out ways to squeeze more and more money out of their customers.