Customers like Stacey thought they were doing the responsible thing by pre-ordering the iPhone 4S and having it delivered to their doorsteps, instead of queuing up on release day. But now some customers won’t get their preordered phones for weeks while brick-and-mortar stores have stacks of them, and they can’t even cancel the preorders to go buy one from a local store.

Stacey isn’t the only one we’ve heard from with this problem. She writes:

So, I’m a little peeved that I’ve been walking around with a cracked screen Apple iPhone 3Gs for a month and a half, waiting for the new iPhones to come out. I ordered one for myself and one for my husband, all in the same 20 minute span of time. Well, his came three days ago, but I’ve been told that mine won’t ship for 21-28 days because it’s “first come, first served.”

So, I was thinking that I can cancel my order with AT&T and just go to the Apple store 5 minutes from my house. I talked to 3 reps at AT&T and can’t get a straight story: the first time, I was told it would take 3 days to reinstate my upgrade. This was before I knew the 21 day thing, so I figured I’d just wait it out, assuming incorrectly that my phone wasn’t far behind. The next rep said she could cancel it immediately and reinstate my upgrade immediately, but I wanted to check with Apple to make sure they had them in stock. Well, I’m regretting that I didn’t take her offer. My third phone call resulted in being routed to the internet navigation department (WTF?) and being told that they are not allowed to cancel any iPhone pre-orders and that I will just have to wait for my phone to arrive and mail it back or refuse delivery if I don’t want it.

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