Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
Theory
Today I contunue to stand on my customer advocacy soapbox. My rant-of-the-week is about mail-in rebates. At this point the rebate marketing trend has been around long enough to have touched the lives of nearly every American consumer. The idea is simple, bank on the laziness of the masses to allow you to advertize dramatic price savings which will only be realized by the most vigalent of penny-pinchers. In and of itself, I have no problem with wealth transfer from the lazy (or as some people might put it - the “smart enough to not work their ass off for a dozen hours for a lousy $20″) to the diligent. What I do have a problem with is the dishonest dirty trickery of the whole process. Ambiguous verbiage and long waits are put in place by professionals to strategically minimize the payout from the third-party rebate clearing houses. Today’s discussion will focus on Cingular Wireless.
Cingular
Because Cingular chooses to promote their phones with the post-rebate prices I would like to call them out on this process and hopefully share some tips along the way.
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Posted in Phone, Service | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, January 4th, 2006
Ohh yeah RAZR. After being worn down by horrible coverage from T-Mobile and the draw of sexy phones like the black Motorola Razr V3, I made the switch to Cingular.
One thing that was driving me nuts about this Razr was the Cingular logo on the external LCD whenever you make a call. It reminds me of the obnoxious dealer license plate frames or CARMAX stickers. After a couple hours figuring it out, I got that hacked now and it’s got a purty picture of Stacey.
Posted in Phone, Service | 2 Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2005
Although the blogosphere is bursting with dissenting opinions about just about everything, there seems to be a particular hatred for mobile phone providers. Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint all have their advantages and quirks, but for the most part the decision comes down to who do you hate the least.
I have a particularly strong bond with my hard-earned dollars and don’t separate myself from them easily. Combine this with an affinity for shiny new fancypants phones, dislike of talking on the phone, and disdain for long contracts and it’s not too hard to figure out why I’m on T-Mobile.
The problem of course with T-Mobile is that I’d probably get better coverage with a couple tin cans and a really long string. Since I have no contract at this point, on and off for the past year I’ve been searching for a new provider that could allow me to make and receive calls. Painfully I decided that with a $150 rebate from Amazon, Cingular would be the way to go. I’d get a new Motorola Razr V3 to play with and I’d only be paying around $10 more each month for a network that actually works (or so I hear).
Unfortunately when my phone arrived and I read the documentation on number portability I found that porting a number to Cingular would make me ineligible for the mail-in rebate from Amazon, meaning I’d have to pay $150 and sign up for a 2-year contract at $10 more each month just to be able to have a wireless network that functions. It was tough to do, but after fruitlessly pleading with the Cingular sales folks to give me a deal in order to keep my business, I decided that the phone would go back.
Damnit T-Mobile - you suck major ass, but you suck ass less for me than others. Sure, you have no network time sync… and sure I get notified about voicemail about 4 days after I get one… but you save me money at least and I have no contract.
Posted in Phone, Rant, Service | No Comments »
