New York, New York - Wake up and smell the coffee!
Several sites, including The Consumerist and Boy Genius Report (BGR), are reporting that the iPhone has been pulled from New York City by AT&T. AT&T has had serious network issues in large areas like NYC, and it would appear that they have pulled the phone because of that. However, after a few conversations, AT&T is sending mixed signals.
Did AT&T pull the iPhone out of New York?
The story from BGR and The Consumerist said that if you attempt to purchase an iPhone from AT&T online, and use an NYC zip code, theyre not among the available phones listed. Theres simply no way to order them. Chats with online sales offered various reasons behind the blockade.
One representative, who spoke to The Consumerist, said that the iPhones were missing from the online sales catalogue because, New York is not ready for the iPhone. Moving forward on the information from The Consumerist, BGR talked to an online sales representative and they had no information at all as to why the iPhone was missing.
The Tech Herald spoke to several online sales people. We also checked several New York zip codes, and discovered that Brooklyn, New York City, the Bronx, and Yonkers were all showing blocked iPhone sales. For kicks, we tested East Rochester, and were able to get an order listing there.
When it came to the reasoning for the blocked sales, we were told by two different online sales representatives not that New York wasnt ready, but that Due to increased fraudulent activity, the Apple iPhone may not be available to purchase online in certain ZIP codes.
So we called the sales department next. We were told that due to the risk associated with credit card fraud, some zip codes were being blocked when it came to online sales of the iPhone, as a precautionary measure. After that, it was explained that you can get the iPhone in New York, but you need to go to an AT&T store.
If this is the case, why are they available in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago? Places where credit card fraud is known to happen. If it is a security measure, thats great. Yet, they could be a little clearer on that, and offer solid reasoning. The fraud explaination has only started to be used within the last hour or so.
Most of AT&Ts public relations team is on holiday. We have reached out to them for comment, and if we don't hear anything tonight, we will reach on Monday to follow up. If we get an official statement or more information, we'll update this story.
The Consumerist
BGR
NYC
