My plan to purchase an iPhone was hatched several weeks ago. I called a nearby Rogers wireless store and put my name on a pre-order list. The girl on the phone said she’d call me by July 11th with more details but I was effectively ninth on the list.

So, launch day arrives and I’ve heard nothing. I called this morning to ask what was happening for those of us that pre-ordered. Apparently there was no waiting list allowed. So instead of calling to inform me so that I could make other plans, they just didn’t call. The guy on the phone told me I would have to come down and take my chances. The store had been open for about an hour and a half and apparently the lineup “wasn’t too bad.” This is exactly what I wanted to avoid but with no other choice, I went down to join the herd of cattle.

There were probably about 20 people lounging around the store when I got in there. The manager came up to me and gave me a little ticket, numbered 25. They were still on number 3 and having problems activating any iPhones. I asked how many phone they had in stock but apparently they couldn’t tell us that. It was “confidential information.” This sounded crazy to me. So I was waiting around on the assumption that they even had enough to get to number 25. The sales reps were running around complaining about crashing computers. One was on hold, trying to activate over the phone for an hour and 45 minutes. Others simply couldn’t even access the database.

The minutes ticked by slowly and turned into hours. The system was clearly not working. People were ordering phones for friends, totally flouting the 1-per person mandate. There was a guy in front of me talking on his old cell-phone trying to relay the price plans to his girlfriend as he tried to activate a phone for her, on top of his own. A man who came in an hour after I did somehow coerced a Rogers rep over and was signing a contract in spite of those of us who had been waiting for hours. It seemed to be the law of the jungle.

Many people who had numbers lower than me just ended up leaving. I was there for about three hours and finally got my turn. They were long since sold out of the 16-gig models so it was 8-gig or nothing. The sales rep then told me that nobody was leaving the store with an iPhone. The system had crashed and they couldn’t do in-store activations. I could sign a contract and they’d put a phone aside and call me once they got it activated but it “probably won’t be today.” Having already stood there for three hours, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and sign the mandatory 3-year contract. So I did. And then walked out without a phone. Who knows when I’ll see it.

Rogers has had months to prepare for this day. This was supposed to be the “most important product launch” in their history. I’ve heard this is happening right across Canada. Some say it was an iTunes crash that’s causing a problem with activation worldwide. But even getting to the activation stage was a nightmare. The fact that Rogers was so ill-prepared is totally baffling. In the end, they got my money. I guess I’m either a die-hard or a sucker. But the amount of customers they must have lost, who weren’t willing to put up with as much as I did, had to be staggering. Overall, just a bad experience on what should have been an exciting day. I actually switched carriers to get an iPhone so this is my first Rogers experience. It has not been a good one… And as I type this, I still have no iPhone.

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