Free iPad scam

I wish I would’ve thought to do a simple google search for “free iPad Xfinity” while I was chatting with an Xfinity agent last August who persuaded me to accept this offer. I would’ve seen the countless reports of other people getting duped in the same way, but didn’t think to do that because up until that point I had no issues with Xfinity and found no reason to not trust them. Now I’ve been battling with Xfinity for 7 months over this and have not come to a resolution.

I had originally chatted in to support for an unrelated billing issue with my home internet service. That was resolved and all was well, but just before I was about to exit the chat the agent offered me a free iPad with a free mobile data plan, completely out of the blue and unprompted. I asked what the catch was and if it was actually free multiple times to confirm, because again, it seemed too good to be true. He told me aside from a $10 activation “tax” it was completely free. So, like an idiot, I accepted it and the iPad was delivered within a couple of days.

I didn’t think much about it after that for a month or so when my wife asked me what this extra charge for $56 was from Xfinity. I had no idea what she was talking about, so logged into my Xfinity account, and sure enough, I found that I now had a Xfinity mobile plan costing me $20/month, and a payment plan set up for a $500 iPad. I chatted back in and ended up speaking with a live agent. That agent told me I was responsible for the remaining balance, which was completely unacceptable to me, so I asked to speak to a manager. The manger basically said the same thing, so I escalated further to his supervisor. Luckily, this person heard me out and then went through and read through the initial chat I had where I was offered the iPad — he admitted that it was Xfinity’s mistake and that the agent shouldn’t have offered me the free iPad. He told me I could keep the iPad and that he would cancel the remaining balance.

After that, the charges for the iPad and the data plan stopped for two months, and I figured everything was sorted out. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and the charges resumed in December. 

So, I called Xfinity back and spoke with an agent who told me the only way I could get refunded and not pay for the iPad was to return it. That was not acceptable to me because the previous supervisor already told me I could keep it, and I was going to hold them accountable for that. I asked that agent to at the very least cancel the data plan so that I wasn’t getting charged for it, which they did. I also asked to speak with a supervisor and she told me someone would be calling me back later in the day. No one ever called me. 

I tried one more time to sort this out with support, but it was the same story as before and they told me I was responsible for the iPad balance. At that point I decided to file a Better Business Bureau report as well as an FCC report. 

A few days later Curtis from the executive resolutions team called me. I explained the whole situation and he didn’t really say anything other than that after reviewing my account, I was responsible for the remaining iPad balance. I asked to speak to his manager and although he protested and said it wasn’t possible, I kept at it until he said that someone else “might” get in touch with me but couldn’t guarantee it. 

Later that day, Tiffany from the executive escalation team called me and I had to explain the whole situation to her again. It was a better experience talking with Tiffany and she was the first person who I talked to that actually seemed like she cared about my situation and empathized with me over my feeling that I got tricked into buying this iPad. So that was nice, but she was still not able to offer an acceptable solution. 

Tiffany told me that they could apply some credits to my account to bring the remaining balance down to around $150, which was better, but still didn’t do anything about the money I had already paid towards the balance. But the bigger issue for me was that $150 is NOT A FREE IPAD. 

Had I not been previously told by Xfinity that I could keep the iPad, I probably just would’ve accepted Tiffany’s offer and moved on with my life. But now that I have invested so much time into this I decided to keep fighting it and rejected her offer. At this point, I know I am in the right and will keep pushing, which is part of the reason why I am posting this on the forums.

Xfinity responded to the BBB complaint saying that the addressed the issue with me. I am in the process of rejecting that response and writing an explanation. 

I am extremely disappointed with how Xfinity has handled this for me and it really feels like they do not care about their customers, and are not willing to accept the fact that some of their employees have made very deceitful offers, and will do everything possible to not take responsibility for their mistakes. 

I will try to update this post if anything productive happens, but mostly wanted to share my story to help others avoid getting tricked and hustled into buying a “free” iPad.