This is one of those stories that I  hope can be helpful to the young managers and administrators at the Apple store.  This lady has been putting off making a change which I know will be for the best – but I still had my doubts.  This makes my third trip to the La Cantera Apple store in San Antonio, Texas. to check out the I-phone.  Each time I would leave the store with a doubt – did I really want one of those new pieces of equipment, plus the monthly cost and the worst part are the government taxes they tag on every telephone number you are assigned which in my mind is a duplication.  One number or ten assigned to the same person should only have one tax.  My friend continued to encourage me with each discussion about a phone or when I would pull out my phone which really had all of the tech-savy needs of a person who hates the phone.  

As you see, having worked in the energy business for 42 years and always using the phone no matter what job you were assigned to at the time, when I retired, I told my husband he would be answering the phone if a call came in and this is the course we have followed.  

My cell phone had a camera, text, calls came in, and calls went out.  The only thing I could not access were the internet or my emails when we travel.  So this was the purpose of the new phone.  

We entered the store at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday with a chaos I had not witnessed before.  People and workers were running around like ants.  We were greeted by an on-floor doorman, who was an elderly man.  I thought hot-dog we have someone waiting on us that will understand our needs.  It only seemed a few minutes and he said – I haven’t had lunch and it is my lunch time so I will turn you over to another young man.  

This young man seemed to sense I was uncomfortable and his response was, let’s go over in this area where we can get away from the traffic.  His reply was, it will take about 20 minutes to process the application.  The next question he asked was – what type of phone do you have now?  We had just barely moved when we were flocked from all sides again.  I removed the phone from my purse and gave him the phone and replied, a tracfone.  The people who had invaded our space begin to laugh and replied, “a tracfone.”  You are behind!  My reply was, listen don’t make fun, it worked for me.  

The thing that bothered me was the lack of privacy in disseminating your person information, i.e., drivers license number, social security number, address, email address, birth day, and phone numbers.  The person sitting next to you could hear every bit of information you were giving.  They can’t seem to understand how people’s information is so easily obtained.  We completed the application details and we asked for AT&T as the carrier. That is where we hit a brick wall.  Since we had no account with AT&T, he directed us to the AT&T’s office which was about 15 minutes away to establish an AT&T account which was quick.  They gave us our new number and we returned to the Apple store and the chaos was still going strong.  

The young man started the process again and kept hitting an error message when inputting the new number.  He then told us we would not have that number but a new number would be assigned once the bought number was entered.  After three hours, this young man became ill (this was his first day back after a bout in the hospital).  He said he had a terrible headache.  He looked peaked.  So I suggested maybe he should turn us over to someone else.  Which he did and this young man tried and ran into the same situation with the error alert.  Finally, at 4:30 p.m. my patience just flat ran out.  I told the young man – let’s give up the ghost and forget the whole thing.  Then my husband said “do you want to waste all of this time you have invested to leave with nothing.”  So the next best thing was to insist we talk to the manager of the store.  The big guns came out and tried with no success.  So they called AT&T and with a conference call resolved the problem.  It seems the whole problem was the “Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)” card was incorrect and had to be corrected.  This is a card which holds a user’s particulars, a smart card inserted into a cell phone that holds personal information.  It was a tiny little chip that is no bigger than the end of my little pinkie finger.   I did leave there with my original number purchased at the AT&T store.  The Apple store needs to be more organized and have more respect for “privacy.”  They handle this information all day long and does not mean doodley squat to them; but, to a thief hanging around the store – it means a lot of bucks.

 So Mr. Apple, please respect the privacy of the public and when you start dealing with personal information, please take into consideration that this information is important and sacred.  You should allow some type of space for the “confidential” information part of the application.  The other problem was we were given the phone with no instructions at the Apple store.  So it is now up to me to – sink or swim!  With what I went through, I hope it will be worth it.

kommonsentsjane