Was told to recycle equipment, then to return?

@jdelllano 

Wow, that’s whack.  I too received a letter stating to recycle the equipment. I’m waiting a little bit to let things settle down.  If UPS still accepts the equipment, I’m planning to bring it there, otherwise it will be taken to the appropriate recycling center.  

Never trust the letters saying to recycle they are a TRAP to get you charged.  Hopefully you'll get lucky and do not get charged.  and if you do get charged hopefully you still have the letter and can convince customer retention to take the charge off your bill.  

I've had the same recycling letter show up, it's auto generated by at&t's ancient decrepit system.  Even after the phone agent told me 100% you must return this equipment.  UPS and Fedex both gladly accept it.

The only exception is remote controls which are not inventoried and nobody cares about.  ( I suspect the recycling letters might just be talking about remote controls since they never actually say which piece of equipment should be recycled).  Unlike the return instructions that come with replacement equipment that very carefully detail the equipment.

This obviously is illegal, essentially a bait and switch charge but with at&t they'll never get caught.

If at&t wants to recycle equipment let them pay to do it after they've marked your account, also always save tracking # receipt from ups/fedex to prove you mailed it (I even take time stamped pictures as I'm handing it to them at the store because one time at&t wouldn't remove the charge even though they had SIGNED for the package and I gave them the tracking#).  6 months later they found the equipment lying around the at&t warehouse and finally agreed to remove charge.  

Interestingly on a separate note:  my elderly friend got directtv stream and a week later when I attempted to return the extra unneeded streaming boxes she purchase that she didn't need, but the sales guy at the store wanted to make a commission on so he told her they were required, they refused to take them back.  Since the corporate owned store refused to take them back even though she was in the 14 day return/cancellation period, and customer service told the store over my cellphone to accept the return, and their response was to kick me out of the store. UPS can't accept directv stream returns because they use a different serial number system and directv assumes since the boxes are purchased and not returnable unless you cancel service in 1st 14 days that nobody would ever have a need to return equipment.  So eventually customer service's only solution was to just let her keep the boxes and credit her account $200 for them.  AT&T always showing how legal and competent of company they are

@madmax988 

You bring up a good point.  I had said elsewhere the hardware is of no use otherwise so returning it via UPS effectively recycles the equipment.

Yea the only other piece of equipment other than remote controls they may not care about is WAPs.  I've been by some techs they need to be returned and others said maybe not.  I've sent 1 back via ups before. But the last time I went to FedEx they said it didn't have a serial number so they just included it as extra accessories with wireless stb I was returning.  But since they always ship a wap to go with wireless stb(even if you have another working wireless stb) I wouldn't be surprised if it is considered an accessory. And you'd get charged for wireless stb being incomplete that's why I'd never risk it. 

But they def. Want the gateways since they send them right back out again to new customers whether they work or not.  Unless it's like an ancient model like 3800.

They still send out silver stbs so clearly they don't have a storage issue.  I doubt they've made any of the tv equipment since at least 2017. Just endless "refurbishments"  and if something is so broken they can't even pretend it works they probably are salvaging it for parts lol.  Then again when go from 16 million customers to probably 3-8million of us less you probably end up with a decent amount of stuff that still works...too bad nobody bothers to sort it.

WAPs are not returnable and have not ever been so to my knowledge.

Remote controls are listed as returnable, though I do not know why.

They haven't ordered any new receivers in a long time; they may have a very hard time getting a compatible device manufactured.