Help! Rebate Troubles (Long)

[RachelEllen]

I'd love advice from any of you budget experts.

I bought a Treo 700P phone from Amazon/Sprint last August. Here's a link to the site I bought it from. It still contains the exact same information/exact same rebate (aside from the dates of eligability) as when I purchased it.

http://www.amazon.com/palm-Treo-700...1_2/002-8748151-4900049?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

As you can see, the phone is listed as having a discount for the purchase of a Sprint contract as well as a Sprint Rebate. Because the phone, as listed, is so much cheaper than on the Sprint website, I actually called Sprint before buying the phone to confirm this price. Which they did.

You may guess where this is going. Sprint will not honor the rebate. They say this falls under the 'may not be combinable with other offers' clause. Aside from the fact that I don't really consider the discount for the contract an 'offer,' it seems extremely deceptive that Amazon lists this rebate with this phone and even shows the math leading to the final price.

I have just spent an hour on this very phone (losing the connection twice, ironically) with both Sprint and Amazon customer service. I spoke to supervisors at both locations. Sprint says that I am not eligable for the rebate. Period. They do not deny that I used this rebate, sent them the proper materials, etc. They say that this rebate is not combinable in the way Amazon has listed.

Amazon on the other hand says that this is a Sprint rebate. They received the information directly from Sprint. And it is not their problem if Sprint will not honor it.

Any advice. It's really a lot of money!!!

 

[HooKooDooKu]

Only thing that comes to mind is to get Amazon to take the phone back and give you a refund since it appears to be impossible for the terms under which Amazon sold you the phone to be honored.

 

[jkmmah]

No advice to offer. I just wanted to say how familiar this sounds to our situation, though we didn't use Amazon. We used another internet cell discounter when we purchased our family Sprint plan cells. The discounters site listed the phones as free activation after rebate and the phones themselves would be free. When the paperwork was all sent into Sprint they denied being able to do two offers, saying they weren't combinable, which conflicted with the info on the discounters site and everything we had in the rebate paperwork, etc. My husband took all the info to JAG (we're military) and they said there was nothing we could do since we went through one site to get the plan from another provider. Basically it was legit for the discounter to offer anything they wanted to offer and perfectly fine for Sprint to refuse to honor said offer. Grrr. We just sucked it up in the end as a learning lesson.

 

[RachelEllen]

Ugh, this really stinks.

I can't really return the phone, as it is too late to return it to Amazon plus I'm in a two year contract with Sprint.

I'm just hoping Amazon gets flooded with complaints. I bought the phone just as it came out and sent in the rebate right away. This was by far and away the best price on a really popular new phone, so I'm hoping I'm at the leading edge of complainers on this one. Already there are comments up on Amazon about this very issue.

 

[HooKooDooKu]

The only other thing I can think so suggest then is to hound Amazon.com asking them what must be done to make you whole again since it seems to be Amazon's fault for advertizing something they can't fulfill.

From my point of view, Amazon advertized something and you followed the rules as they had them outlined. It's not your fault that Amazon if apparently falsely advertizing this phone. Since the phone company is telling you that what Amazon is doing is wrong, then ask Amazon what their suggestion is that will allow you to fulfill the terms as Amazon spelled them out.

Basically if it's impossible for you get the price at which Amazon advertized it for (regardless of what Sprint it doing), since Amazon advertized it, they should either honor thier advertized price or allow you to cancel the whole thing.

The only other thing I can suggest is that you do what you can to make sure there wasn't anything that you just missed what would have told you Amazon's price couldn't be honored before you had to sign any contract.

Otherwise, the only other thing I can begin to think of is try to file a claim in small-claims court (if possible) or find a lawyer friend to help you go after Amazon (since it's there advertizement that is false) as a class action.

 

[Robmom]

The same thing happened to me in December. I ordered a phone for my DD, only because of the rebate. I followed the directions, and then got an email saying that it wasn't a participating product. I was furious. But I didn't have copies to prove it, so I just had to deal with it. I won't fall for that again!

 

[RachelEllen]

Don't worry about the copies. I do have copies of the offer. And they still don't care.

 

[HooKooDooKu]

Its crap like this is why I loved the recent news article I saw indicating some states are making rebates illegal in their Brick-n-Mortar businesses. They have to either give you the rebate at the register or not advertize a rebate.

I don't know if it's because of laws like this or customer complaints, but I've noticed a lot fewer rebates at Best Buy over the last few months.

 

[svalencia1]

Sadly, this happens all the time and the only thing I can say is that there are many more problems when you buy online. I strongly urge anyone who is considering buying a new phone to go into the store and make the purchase there. Even though the price may be better online in the long run it's not worth it if solely for the fact that most companies won't work on your phone in the store if you bought it online if anything should happen. This is even more true with stores that franchise like Cingular. I think in the Kansas City area there are only 2 corporate stores, anything else is a franchise (yes, even if they look exactly the same). Often the rebates you have to do onine make you stay with the same plan for a certain ammount of time and if you change anything you lose the rebate (this even includes features). Some cell phone sellers that are not affiliated with the actual company but offer what looks to be much lower prices will add all types of features that are free to your phone without telling you, such as roadside assistance that is free for two months. When you realize that you are being charged and remove that feature from your bill then you lose your rebate because you altered your "rate plan". I've been around the cell business way to long to see the types of things that go on.

 

[horseshowmom]

This junk pops up in brick and mortar stores too.

My mother bought an earpiece for my DD's RAZR (bluetooth?). She sent in the documentation, and they denied it because it wasn't connected to my mohter's phone (she had just canceled hers, because I was putting her on my Family Talk plan).

Nothing in the offer said anything about having a phone at all - just send in the receipt and the proof of purchase. Of course, by the time she found all this out, my DD had been using it for quite awhile.

I'm not sure whatever happened. The last I heard about it, she was still fighting with them over it.