A huge thread on Reddit contains posts from current and former salespeople who work or worked for wireless providers and their authorized retailers. Some of them admit to having lied to customers to get them to add a new line when it wasn’t necessary to take advantage of a special deal on a phone. This practice is called Cramming and it is usually done to improve the metrics of a salesperson or a store, and is allegedly often done at the behest of a store manager.
One employee of an AT&T authorized retailer wrote this on Reddit: “ATT Authorized retail employee here. I [have] been with the company for well over a year and I can wholeheartedly say ATT is in the business of scamming! My manager actively promotes us lying to customers about having to add a “necessary promo” line to “refresh the account” and “activate the new promos” for customers to get their trade in credits for any trade in. Obviously a deceptive tactic but is it considered fraud?”
Cramming is often done by a salesperson at the direction of his manager
The post continues, “He’s forcing us to make these wild claims and reprimanding us if we don’t! Obviously this is to inflate commission (we grew to #1 In the district off this deception tactic ) Do I have a basis to proceed with legal action? I feel unsafe at work because many customers return and want to fight us in our store!! All because of my manager. Could use some help here cause I don’t wanna lose my job but I don’t wanna work in an unsafe environment, plus I refuse to relocate.”
Most, but not all, of the alleged wrongdoing was allegedly committed by a wireless firm’s Authorized Retailers
Other Redditors quickly passed along their stories. “I worked for an authorized retailer almost 8 years ago and they made us do this to get our numbers or we were fired. I also left.” Another post said, “They will fire you for not meeting sales quotas is what they will do… so there is a grey area and loophole. I watched a Manager in my district bounce store to store cause he would ‘slam’ customers’ accounts then leave in 3-4 months to avoid the customers.”
Other illegal acts were mentioned in these posts including the practice of SIM swapping. Usually, this scam requires someone on the inside who is able to order a new SIM card for an existing subscriber but have it mailed to the criminal’s address. When the scammer puts the SIM into his phone, he requests new passwords for financial apps and because he has the customer’s “new SIM” in his phone, he receives the codes needed to verify identity allowing him to change the passwords.
Check out this post: “The AR (Authorized Retailer) I worked for I found out that the District manager was in on fraud with my store manager. They were doing Sim swaps and getting people access to others’ phones entirely. The week I got hired we had 4 guys from secret service come in to do an investigation. It was wild. We went through about 4 store managers in the 3 months I worked there crazy experience.”
Not all of the posts were about alleged fraud at Authorized Retailers as some came from those working in a corporate-run store. In addition to Cramming and SIM Swaps, some salespeople say that they were pressured to add services, like insurance coverage, that the customer didn’t ask for.
“I was personally fired after being threatened in the back where the phones are stored that if I didn’t conform to pressuring people to put water clean out protection on their devices along with selling cleaning cloths I would be fired. I reported it to HR and I was let go the next day after them claiming, when I wasn’t there, that I miss quoted three people, on again a day I wasn’t there. This was Verizon however but I am fully supporting the idea to stick it to AR stores because I feel their committing fraud and scamming people every day.”
Check your wireless bills for services, phones, and lines that you didn’t order
The AT&T authorized retailer salesman whose post kicked off the thread and this article also explained the mindset of the managers at these stores. He wrote, “Yeah I actually have been scolded in the past for being ‘too helpful’ (I swear to God). We get a lot of elderly People coming in with annoying yet simple tech questions, and we’re told to NOT fix their issue on their phone but to agree with it being “broken” and selling them a new one. I was also told we aren’t ‘tech support’ we just ‘sell phones and service’.”
The truth is that salespeople who want to “clean up” the business face getting fired if they bring complaints to higher-ups. The U.S. Government’s USA.Gov website suggests that “If you have issues with your phone company’s products, services, or billing, begin by contacting the phone company directly.” If that doesn’t resolve the issue, click on this link to find the consumer protection office in your state to contact. Or you can contact the FCC by clicking on this link.
You should go over your wireless bills and check for phones, lines, and services that you didn’t order. If you see something that you don’t remember requesting, call the carrier’s corporate office immediately.
