|
Sprint and Verizon are both going to allow open access, although I don't recall the particular timeframe atm.
I can guarantee you were at an authorized reseller. Although if they were listing the "retail price" and "contract price" separately I am not sure why they wouldn't sell it to you.
If it was a mall kiosk they may not have enough storage to keep up with demand and only sell to people activating service. Buying a phone outright from them earns them no profit, whereas people activating service probably earns them $250 from T-mobile. If they run out of a popular model of phone that could impact their bottom line.
Go to a corporate store and you should be golden.. I just checked T-mobile's website and it separates company-owned stores and authorized resellers on the store locator.
|