Well I'm back to report on my experience returning an iPhone 4 S to AT&T
I received the 4S on 1-9 returned it on 1-10 after I didn't get an adequate signal. Called AT&T to cancel subscription. They said since I had already mailed it back, postal stamp would be confirmation. 1-13 Received e-mail from AT&T that they had received 4S and would get it processed withing a week.
After numerous calls to them, I got another e-mail. It was an ALERT about my bill being overdue.
More calls, but always with very friendly CS reps who investigated the problem.
During my final call with an AT&T rep I was asked to fax a copy of my Visa statement showing the AT&T charge for the 4S. Since I have paperless billing I just d/l the page with the info, blackened out all other charges and since the page only showed the last 4 digits of my card, I added the whole string put all info about the phone and dates of return etc. sent the fax and hoped for the best. 2 days later my Visa acct showed the credit.
Well, to make a long story short, it took about 6 weeks to get the full refund minus a $35 restocking fee and the return postage since I used their prepaid return label.
My advice, keep records of your calls and what was said and know the return policy so that you won't be stuck with Activation fees, etc. for service you didn't use.
Overall, I must give AT&T at least a B grade for their friendly CS reps who did speak English I could understand and were willing to look into the matter. AT&T must have thousands of calls every day. I never waited more than a few minutes to get a live person on the phone.
So now I'm going to buy an iPad 3 and then wait for the iPhone 5 to find a provider with a strong enough signal at home or install a repeater for a few hundred bucks (least likely choice)