[johnprague]

My contract comes up next month so I spoke to ATT about my upgrade. They went to iPhone or Android but when I said I wanted to move up from my 3g Torch to a new Bold 9900 they got very negative. "Issues" included freezing, apps not functioning properly and of course, RIM will probably be out of business this time next year, then what?

This happened in a AT&T store and on the phone when I called about something else and the girl noticed that it was about time for my upgrade.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[RoseBud68]

You don't visit this forum that often do you.

[dieseldude]

I have ATT and never had that issue in my local store. I have heard of that happening from friends on att and other carriers.

[howarmat]

well i would agree that getting a 9900 now when BB10 is coming soon isnt your best choice. It depends on if you want/need something now i guess.

[_MissV_]

Recently, had a somewhat similar experience. I asked about my upgrade and how much it would cost if I was to do an early upgrade for the BB10, but all they would tell me is when I'd be available for an early iphone upgrade.

They couldn't understand that I am not interested about upgrading to the iphone and even acted like they didn't know what the BB10 was.

[calicocat2010]

Yeah, I have an upgrade ready with a new 2 year contract and I can get any phone I want, but I'm waiting for BB10.

[steven4u2nv]

Recently, had a somewhat similar experience. I asked about my upgrade and how much it would cost if I was to do an early upgrade for the BB10, but all they would tell me is when I'd be available for an early iphone upgrade.

They couldn't understand that I am not interested about upgrading to the iphone and even acted like they didn't know what the BB10 was.

You shouldn't be surprised by this. Most of the workers are working on commission. If the manager says "you will get a bonus if you sell 12 Iphones and 12 GSIII..." then that is what they will push. Also at this moment carriers don't care about 1 year old BB devices or BB10 so most of the staff is uneducated on the subject. They care about the phones they know they can sell quickly.

[SuperionMaximus]

Don't assume by the opinions of the staff that are employed in AT&T stores that generally are the very last in the company to know anything about anything that AT&T is negative on BB 10. AT&T has already stated they will be on board for BB 10 and are going to be launching devices next year. Mind you, AT&T is generally slow to get BlackBerrys so it might not be until summer before they get around to dropping the L-Series, but the phones will come.

[sk8er_tor]

I experienced something similar in a TELUS store. Funny thing was that while I was there, one customer came in and praised his BB while two others came in for repair and they had an iPhone and Android. Go figure.

[TheScionicMan]

Although it's in a technical field, selling phones isn't exactly deep in technology. If you know enough about tech to be a good, well-informed phone salesman, you can probably get a much better job in the technology field. I don't mean any offense by this and I'm sure that there are some very technical people that do that job and do it well, but I don't think it is the norm. Same goes for selling electronics at any big-box store. I don't go into Fry's expecting to get a multi-point breakdown of the newest OS release, but they are very good at selling a device which will run the latest OS...

[TheScionicMan]

People are quick to make up their minds without doing much research. My boss told me today that his boss said when he mentioned he was getting an estimate for a PolyCom videoconf system "Why would you look at Polycom? They're going out of business?"

We both wondered what she was basing that on, since I hadn't seen anything and am a pretty avid tech news watcher. We googled it and it turns out that Polycom's quarterly revenue didn't hit the street's estimates... They only made 5.6% profit when the anal-ysts expected more... on like 500 billion...

He pretty sure we won't even look at their system now because she's got this idea in her head. Ruling out the #1 maker over a misinterpreted headline...

[hurds]

I'd switch to T-mobile. I switched from AT&T and I'm glad I did. Monthly bill is way less and I have unlimited data and texting so I don't have to worry about going over anymore.

[Masahiro]

You shouldn't be surprised by this. Most of the workers are working on commission. If the manager says "you will get a bonus if you sell 12 Iphones and 12 GSIII..." then that is what they will push.

I'm a little surprised in the sense that I'd figure carriers would be more likely to push Android than iPhone due to the high subsidizing costs (more than any other phone).

[texazzpete]

OP, I beg of you, wait just a few months more for BB10. You'll thank me later. The time when it'd make sense to purchase a soon-to-be-obsolete BBOS7 device has passed. Keep using your Torch for just a few more months....

C'mon, you're almost there!