Cannot add 4th line to family plan

[Nichodemus]

I don't know if there is anything that can be done about this, but here goes. Recently my girlfriend's family plan account was transferred to my name & ssn. This account was very old, 7+ years, and was originally an Alltell account, but had a relative's SSN on it instead of hers. AT&T would not allow her to change the SSN to hers and keep the same name on the account, so we transferred it to me.This was about 2 weeks ago (late June).

I was planning to buy a new smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SIII), since my old Droid from Verizon is out of contract. I was going to buy it today from AT&T, by adding a 4th line to the AT&T family plan. This would allow me to close my Verizon account and save us together about $50/month.This is why we needed to change the ownership of the plan.

I go in the store today and after getting started, they tell me that I am not allowed to add a 4th line to this account unless I am willing to pay a $425 deposit (this was after a credit check, and I have very good credit.) They said that I have to wait 3 months after a new account is opened, and basically there was nothing I could do about this.

I called Customer Support, and they basically said the same thing. He wanted to check my credit again, but I declined, as that would have been the third time in several weeks that AT&T has reviewed my credit. It wasn't going to change in the 1 hour since I had been in the store.

As I explained to them, I am in fact, going to buy a new phone very soon, a smartphone, and if I couldn't on AT&T, I would do it on Verizon and if I did buy a new Verizon phone, I would, as the contracts expire, change all my lines over to Verizon. Right now, the only thing making me pause is going into a new contract with Verizon is going to cost us $50 extra a month, and I don't want that.

Any suggestions?

[Nichodemus]

Anybody had a similar situation and got around the deposit?

[ujmnz]

It's been a long time since I looked at the policy, but there was a form that store employees could fill out to request a deposit waiver. From the customers I spoke to, it was rarely approved. I'm not sure if they still allow the deposit waiver though. I would always try to get a waiver (so I can get a sale) by calling credits and activations for the customer to see if it's possible, but they would always tell me no. It's not very likely that you will get around the deposit. 

[AnnB1211]

I had to pay a deposit per line on two lines when I started service and after 3 months I added a line with no deposit. I would just wait.

[Nichodemus]

Not really what I wanted to hear, but thanks. I will ask about the waiver.

Just kind of irritating, because the 3 existing lines have been active for years, and the store knew this and knew why we were putting that account into my name, because the account was with the wrong ssn and we wanted to fix that. We didn't want that to be a problem when we added the 4th line, and yet we ended up preventing ourselves from being able to add the 4th line anyway. Kinda wish the store people had alerted us to that fact at the time. I would have just left the account alone and in her name, and signed up for my own AT&T plan then merged them together after the 3 months was up and I could have 4 lines.