AT&T store AT&T The Sales Rep Pre Qualified Me and Ignored Me Because I am Black Jacksonville, Florida

Despite the tone of my last comment, I really don't doubt you were treated poorly.  Sometimes the employees of these stores can treat people differently based on their perceptions of how much money someone is going to spend or how much work they think that customer is going to require. If you had your account trouble worked out and were ready to buy at that point, then they were wrong to sell them out from under you.  In that case, you are well within your right to contact AT&T and complain.

However, I think people are too quick to claim racism when they quite simply dealt with an employee who may have had an overall bad attitude or wasnt paying attention to what they were doing.  I used to be a customer of AT&T and one time got angry about the way I felt I was treated at a store because I felt I didnt look like I was made out of money because I was still in college and needed a simple phone.  I am white, and was in a store full of white and black people. 

However, I chalked it up to them having bad customer service skills and maybe the company has a bad corporate culture.  I really believe AT&T has a bad attitude.  I just think it is a stretch to blame racism.  It could be true, but there are so many other dynamics that go into a customer service experience.  Maybe they were just mad that they had to deal with a special circumstance that you needed help with, or just were careless.  I look at it like this, no matter what color a person is, if their money is green, it is good and that person is a customer to treat fairly.

Overall, try not to go through life letting your race be a source of anger or paranoia.  Be happy who you are and dont be angry.  All people get treated like crap sometimes, I know I have, its not always what you first imagine.

To be quite honest with you, when I first arrived, the sales rep told me that they did not have the phone that i wanted. I asked her to check and she refused, saying that they were sold out. I advised her that i just talked to the store manager and she said that there were still some available. So she went to the back, and came out with the phones that I wanted. The entire time, I was on the phone with ATT customer service. They asked to speak to her to ask her to hold the phones for 5 mins while they updated my account. She refused saying that they could not do it. My transaction was not complete, therefore she had no right to sell the phones that she had just went and got from the back for me. You can say whatever you feel, however, the attitude that i got initially when i walked into the store was not a comforting one. I asked her to get her manager and she took her time. ATT fixed the issue with my account (by the way I have been with them for years) and I have never encountered a situation where I was ignored and overlooked while shopping in a store to make a purchase. Don't get it misunderstood. Racism is still alive and overflowing here in Jacksonville. It doesn't matter to me, if you think that i am playing a race card, because I have experienced more racism here in Florida, than in any other state that I have ever resided in. The fact of the matter is, that until you determine for sure that I am not in a position to purchase, you are dead wrong for selling the last phones that you got for me. She did not even give me the option to buy them at regular price. She simply brushed me off as if I did not exist. 

It took over 15 minutes to get my coffee and this was because I am white. See how stupid this looks? I can play the race card too.

You didn't get your way, and the other people in the store were white, so it must be racism...../ sarc

You go into a store, and are not able to buy the phone you want immediately when you first arrive, another patron who is ready to buy get the phones, I see no problem with that.  How are you more entitled to the phone than they are?  They came into the store to buy a phone, just like you, but the difference is they were ready to complete the transaction before you were.

You will be contacting a lawyer, on what grounds? An allegation you can't prove? It sounds to me like you are projecting your own obsession with race on others around you. Sounds to me like you had to tie the store manager up with getting your own problems with buying the phones that two other people who were ready got them, and why should they not?