AT&T Store — Local services in Champaign

I wanted a prepaid plan with 5G. I didn't need lots of data so Sabrina had signed me up to the $30/mo plan. You could tell she was new (fine) and after a few minutes, I was signed up. I noticed my phone only had 4G LTE. She told me "Your phone may not me 5G"... I told her my phone (Samsung S21) showed 5G with my previous carrier. Lie #1. On older man (come to find out he's the manager later) tells me that I'll get 5G once I step out of the building and other areas in town. I doubted him but decided to give the benefit of the doubt. Lie #2. Looking up the plan online, that $30 prepaid doesn't have 5G access. I signed up to a different carrier 10 minutes later. It was late so went to get a refund ($20= $15 activation, $5 SIM card) the next day. I went to a different store because I didn't want to deal with the two lying people yesterday. They told me they can't issue a refund because it wasn't there store. Fine. I go back to the original store and a young lady (Renee) asks me what I needed. I told her I was wanting a refund for the charges made. She told me they can't refund prepaid services even though I had it less than an hour (something Sabrina didn't tell me sales were final for prepaid). She could tell I wasn't happy so she'd get a manager... which was the same guy who lied to me yesterday. I didn't want to deal with him so she gave me a hotline number to call. I called the number and 3 persons later it boils down to I couldn't get a refund because the phone number is no longer with AT&T (I know, I switched 10min later!). Even with an Authorization# and transaction# they couldn't give me a refund over the phone and told me I needed to go to the store that I was charged at. I told them that was why I was calling. I don't trust a guy that lied to me (and his assistant) to try and be reasonable with a refund. I was told it can't be done and I never bothered to go back. I've wasted over an hour with AT&T employees and the manager at the N. Prospect store isn't well versed in all the plans because he should have told me that plan doesn't offer 5G, but instead tells me I'll get it out of the store. I'm out of $20. I don't blame Renee....

Going to the store to pick up an online order was a mistake. I should have had it sent to my house. The customer service at this store sucks, on many levels. I walk in to an empty store without customers and without being greeted by an associate sitting right next to the door to check you in. He was too busy on his personal phone. I stood there and was eventually acknowledged. So I gave him the information on the order. As I waited for my order, I wandered around, looking for a case, screen protector, charging brick, and longer charging cable. The associate comes out from the back and hands me the bag. He wanted me to sign for the order and he was going to send me on my way. I couldn't believe he didn't try to sell me an accessory. So I asked about them. Come to find out, they had zero inventory for cases and a minimum amount of screen protectors. After seeing the price tag of $60 for a screen protector, the lack of protective cases, and the customer service I received, I left the store, very unhappy.

After I had transferred my data and factory reset my old phone at home, I returned to the store to drop off my trade-in about a week later. Somehow it didn't factory reset. The associate had me enter my PIN so he could get the IMEI. After he gets the information he needs from my old phone, I ask, "Since I entered my PIN, can I have the phone to do another reset? It still has my personal information on it." The associate was hesitant about giving me the phone. As a former cell phone repair store manager, the creepiness of his actions regarding my old phone, sent red flags after I requested to reset it. It still had my personal data on it and this creep now has my old unlocked phone. I wasn't having it. He did give me the phone to do another factory reset, but the look of disappointment on his face and the hesitancy said everything.

Needless to say, my first impression as being a new AT&T Cellular customer is...

Went in to take advantage of a deal and upgrade/add lines to our plan, was given a lot of promising statements about future bills and how a lot of the billing system was out of their control because they're not a corporate store. Eventually they got a supervisor and were able to do all of the things they said they were and that included a trial sim card to see how their plan compared to the prepaid that I was on before to see if we wanted to merge our lines.

Long story short, virtually everything they told us discount-wise didn't come to fruition and when we called we were told we would need to come in, and when we came in we were told there's no supervisor there on the weekends so nobody could help us. Apparently setting up phone lines and taking your money is something any of them can do but giving your money back when you've been mislead is supervisor only work. Not only were we charged for the trial sim, we were charged the full amount of a phone for a watch sim, and also despite being told we would be able to pay off a phone and receive all of the money back as part of the discount, we were not able to do that with AT&T and when we asked them they had no idea who had told us that (this store).

Lesson learned and so I pass it on to you, never interact with a store if you want to do anything but pay full price for a simple line. If you want to do a transfer from one plan to another, they have no idea what they're doing, if you want to apply a discount, they have no idea what they're talking about, if you want to get a watch, they have no idea how to handle that plan, and if they tell you that they'll let you trial something, expect that to show up on your next bill at full price. Whether they're scammers or just incompetent I'm not sure, but I'd rather wait for my stuff in the mail than ever deal with this...