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BEWARE! INPHONICS, WIREFLY, Online Cellphone purchases!

Jwrussell

April '05 BoM
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Just wanted to give everyone a headsup. Do NOT purchase a cellphone from Wirefly or any INPHONICS subsidiary. You know the kind, "Buy x popular phone with a new 2 year plan and get it free with rebates."

The rebate fulfillment company INPHONICS, AKA CELLPHONEREBATES.COM appears to be about the most crooked company in existence. I started trying to follow up on my rebates recently and ran into several suspicous roadblocks. The last and most suspicious was that when I called the phone number listed on the cellphonerebates.com website that listed my rebates and their status (all processed for payment and have been for almost 2 months now) I was awarded with a nice recording explaining that they had wait times of 15 minutes or more, were very busy, recommended you call back at another time and then promptly hung up on you. Nice, huh?

I did some searching and found another phone number straight to inphonics. Spoke to someone there and supposedly two of my rebates went into the mail today and the other two are being processed and should go out asap. Inphonics is being sued by their local AG in a consumer protection suit so that probably explains why the girl also kindly processed the one rebate they had previously denied without me even asking.

We'll see if her promises turn out to be true.

Always makes me wonder when I run into this shit, who would actually work for a place like this? How morally corrupt do you have to be to get up every morning and go into work every day KNOWING it is your job to do your utmost to screw your fellow man?
 

Kingston

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Inphonics also handles sub-contract work for lots of cell phone companies direct purchases. I know Sprint often uses them when you buy phones from them.
 

Kingston

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Jwrussell said:
Always makes me wonder when I run into this shit, who would actually work for a place like this? How morally corrupt do you have to be to get up every morning and go into work every day KNOWING it is your job to do your utmost to screw your fellow man?
Screwing your fellow man has been a part of many business for centuries.
Hell, the entire legal profession is based on it! :grin:

Just kidding! Don't sue me!
:innocent:
 

Fresh50

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Sorry to hear that. I bought 2 phones from http://www.letstalk.com got the phones and two Bluetooth headsets for free no rebates. Then I got an additional $50 mail-in rebate per phone and $20 rebate per headset. So basically $140 in my pocket. We closed our account in my name w/ T-Mobile and opened one with them in my wife’s name to get the "New Customer" deal.

A good place to start is http://www.myrateplan.com they will help you find the best plan and phone for you.

My phone and headset:


Samsung t629


Motorola HS815
 

Electric Sheep

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Always makes me wonder when I run into this shit, who would actually work for a place like this? How morally corrupt do you have to be to get up every morning and go into work every day KNOWING it is your job to do your utmost to screw your fellow man?
When I was much younger and fresh out of college, I worked for a very morally questionable organization. We did some evil stuff, often skirting the law. Heck on my first day, I was handed a pager, a phone card, and the number to the bail bondsman...you know, "just in case". Typically, the end result of my day's work resulted in poor/lower-class people losing their jobs.

It sucked. They paid me stupid-crazy money, but I didn't even make it 6 months before being eaten alive with guilt. I had to quit.
 
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I went thru wirefly, got my first rebate within a month, submitted the second, moved and forgot about it, got it just about a month ago, over a year later, but it was needed when I DID get it...lol!
 

N2Advnture

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I made this mistake about 2 years ago when I bought my last phone. There was $250 in rebates.

The "terms" for fulfilling the rebate were ambiguous and after several months of trying to figure out exactly what was required to fulfill the rebate (seems like they kept changing it), they finally said sorry the time for the rebate had expired.

So...I wrote EVERYONE. Va DA Office, BBB, everyone...I think it was the DA's office who contacted them but I got all $250 shortly afterwards.

DO NOT BUY FROM WIREFLY

If you do a search you will see how HUGE this scam is and I have no idea how they haven't been sued, fined & shut down yet.

~M
 

Jwrussell

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If memory serves, I believe there IS a lawsuit in process right now.

At any rate, I received the first of two rebate checks Friday. I'm still waiting on one, possibly two, we'll see. They still definately owe me a $150 check and the person I talked to 1/3 told me that she was going to go ahead and release the $50 rebate for processing as well (they denied it because they said it was received after the time limit originally). So, we'll see. Nothing would make me happier than to NOT have to call them back yet again to get these last checks.
 

caudio51

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I usually don't have any issues with rebates until recently.

I bought a DVD burner on black friday ($40-$30 rebate=$10 Sony DVD Burner). Awesome deal. I do everything by the book and they say they never received the invoice. So I call a few times and it took over 20 minutes to get someone on the phone. She then says they can pull the paper work but if the invoice is not there then I cannot resubmitt. Now whos's to say she just doesn't say it is there and then I am shit out of luck. So I was pretty much forced to just mail in the paperwork again. I did that on Wednesday so we will see if I get it. Luckily it is only 30 bucks but I am entitled to that. Bastards

Oh this was through tigerdirect(who I will not be using again) and onrebate.com
 

Jwrussell

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Most rebate places are scams from what I can tell. If the rebate isn't throgh the manufacturer of the product, be very, very careful.

Oh, and a search for Onrebate brings up tons of complaints as well.
 

caudio51

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Yea, I found that out after I did some digging.

Supposedly it is run by tigerdirect.com, so TD has those LOW prices after rebate because they know they are not paying out the rebate!
 

caudio51

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Oh and I've done a ton of rebates before, but the manufacturer is the only way to go
 
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