Monday, July 31, 2006

The price of ‘free’ in the rebate world

We have been waiting on a cell phone rebate from Inphonic for a whopping 8 months now. We could apply for the rebate only after 6 months of phone service and then have to wait for about 6-8 weeks for the rebate check to arrive. The latest status on the rebate website is that they unfortunately have to ‘reprocess’ the rebate.

We have to get $500 back so the amount is no joke. Somehow as the days go by I feel that my ‘free’ phones came with a big price.

1) I had to wait 6 months, fill in about 6 forms making sure I had the UPC code and all the receipts intact till then.
2) Now I have to wait till somewhere in rebate world some unknown entity approves my rebate and sends me a check.
3)I have no idea if by chance I missed something in my application or it got lost in the mail until it is much too late for changing it.

I know (am hoping) that I will eventually get my money back but this whole rebate thing is based on their hope that the customer will not be willing to go over all the hoops and hurdles to get it. I know there are companies that seem to have a faster, smarter process but it is still not an easy process;reiterating that everything comes with a price.

I agree with Mike

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