Don't count on rebates from Wirefly

To all that are considering buying a "free" cell phone from Wirefly.com
or Inphonic.com or any other name they go by:

I bought my two "free" Motorola razr phones from Wirefly.com about 8
months ago. There were 4 $100 rebates that I had to wait 6 months to
send in. Had to sign up for a 2 year agreement with Cingular.

After sending in my rebates on time with all correct documentation (I
followed instructions to a tee), I proceeded to check the website every
week or so to see if they received them. The website kept saying info
not found. After this I decided to send an email inquiry. It turns out
that the address on the rebate forms has changed since I bought the
phone and that I was supposed to send the rebates to a different
address. This is a total scam! Re-sent the rebates by fax, by mail.
More runaround from them.

I believe this is a pretty common business practice for them. They
figure that out of 100 people who buy from them:

60 will forget all about the rebate and miss the timeframe to postmark
them
35 will send rebate in like me and go away finally after not hearing
anything.
5 will call cingular and complain

This is how they make money is by screwing us over. Please take my
advice and don't buy from these scammers. You will never receive your
rebate.

Thanks for listening and I hope this helps someone avoid unnecessary
pain.

---

› See More: Don't count on rebates from Wirefly

So you thought you were getting a better deal on-line instead of coming
into a store and dealing with a real human face to face. I have
customers who come into our store and want me to match that deal every
day. I tell them I cannot but you will get my personal service as part
of paying for the phone. Some decide that they will buy online at
Wirefly or other online retailers and I wish them good luck. The smart
ones usually end up buying from me at the price I advertise in the
store.

I will be happy to print out this post and show it to those customers
who think they will be getting a better deal elsewhere. Thanks for the
sales info!

Wirelessjuan wrote:
> So you thought you were getting a better deal on-line instead of coming
> into a store and dealing with a real human face to face. I have
> customers who come into our store and want me to match that deal every
> day. I tell them I cannot but you will get my personal service as part
> of paying for the phone. Some decide that they will buy online at
> Wirefly or other online retailers and I wish them good luck. The smart
> ones usually end up buying from me at the price I advertise in the
> store.
>
> I will be happy to print out this post and show it to those customers
> who think they will be getting a better deal elsewhere. Thanks for the
> sales info!
>


You're most welcome... there's still a few of us out here that know that
personal service is not free, but willing to suffer a couple of bucks to
get what we need. Buying a cell phone is as personal as buying pants -
best done in person.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Alex,
It sounds like your order got caught in a problem we had on the
transition date when we switched rebate processors last summer (our
former provider couldn't keep up, and we moved processing to CPG which
handles rebates for Dell and others). This transition was designed to
improve our customers' experience but unfortunately it seems that this
did not work out well for you. Rest assured, we do pay rebate claims.
Did you resubmit? If you let me know your order number, I can have
this investigated.

Christine_from_ootp wrote:
> Alex,
> It sounds like your order got caught in a problem we had on the
> transition date when we switched rebate processors last summer (our
> former provider couldn't keep up, and we moved processing to CPG which
> handles rebates for Dell and others). This transition was designed to
> improve our customers' experience but unfortunately it seems that this
> did not work out well for you. Rest assured, we do pay rebate claims.
> Did you resubmit? If you let me know your order number, I can have
> this investigated.


I'm in a similiar situation with Inphonic and www.cellphonerebates.com.
I submitted the rebate in early November 2005. I did not receive
notice of disapproval (missing information) until Dec 3, 2005 (two days
after the rebate eligibility period passed). I corrected and
resubmitted the information. I checked the web site on Sunday (Jan
8th) and it indicated that both were disapproved due to not being
within the correct time frame.

If this does not get resolved, I will be submtting a claim to the
Better Business Bureau. Although I don't expect anything out of it. I
wish I would have checked their reputation before my wife ordered the
phones. All indications are that the company sucks!

[email protected] writes:

> I wish I would have checked their reputation before my wife ordered
> the phones.

What about LetsTalk¹? Does anyone have any experience with them to
share, particularly with regard to rebates?


Footnotes:
¹ http://www.letstalk.com

--
Steven E. Harris

That's so sad. Have you ever heard about all the Dell rebate snafus?
Pretty poor track record. Many examples have been discussed at
dpreview.com, relative to buying Canon cameras from Dell.

--

"Christine_from_ootp" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> Alex,
> It sounds like your order got caught in a problem we had on the
> transition date when we switched rebate processors last summer (our
> former provider couldn't keep up, and we moved processing to CPG which
> handles rebates for Dell and others). This transition was designed to
> improve our customers' experience but unfortunately it seems that this
> did not work out well for you. Rest assured, we do pay rebate claims.
> Did you resubmit? If you let me know your order number, I can have
> this investigated.
>

FWIW, my daughter bought a replacement Samsung phone from a T-Mobile
store. This phone had a $30 rebate from T-Mobile. All rebate
materials were submitted on time. After checking the rebate status a
couple of months later, the rebate was listed as denied. I called
T-Mobile and they said there was an error in processing, so they would
resubmit the rebate for us. A couple of more months go by, and the
rebate shows up as being denied again. I called T-Mobile again, and
they resubmitted the rebate again. We finally got the rebate - about
6-months later. So even buying from a store is no guarantee that the
rebate process will go smoothly. It is the rebate fulfillment company
that you end up dealing with, which AFAIK is the same regardless who
you buy from, if it is a Cingular rebate. If the rebate was from
Wirefly itself (or another store), then that is a different story.

I did receive 4 - $100 dollar rebates for Sony-Ericsson T-616's on AWS, two
years ago from letstalk.com. And so did my buddy that I turned on to the
deal. We both have 950 National minutes/ free M2M/free incoming messages,
for $39.95 ($51 with taxes) and 3 extra lines for $10 per ($15 with taxes).
Is there a reason to migrate to the orange side?

Ben


"Steven E. Harris" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [email protected] writes:
>
>> I wish I would have checked their reputation before my wife ordered
>> the phones.
>
> What about LetsTalk¹? Does anyone have any experience with them to
> share, particularly with regard to rebates?
>
>
> Footnotes:
> ¹ http://www.letstalk.com
>
> --
> Steven E. Harris