Amazon Cell Phone Rebate Scam?
So here is what Amazon offers, $150 off, sounds pretty good huh.
Not so fast kid, there are some rules… and they don't quite make sense. You have to keep the phone for 6 months. OK, thats cool. Amazon gets 3-4 months to send you the rebate, that sucks, but OK, you can live with that. But wait, they have this little statement "After meeting retention period qualifications please allow 12 - 15 weeks for processing", so maybe you have to wait 8-9 months to get your rebate.
Here's the kicker, you have about one month to send the rebate request in, or no rebate! Make sense to you? Me neither. Lets explore why.
You have to keep the phone 6 months to get the rebate, but you have to send the rebate request within 1 month of getting the phone. It doesn't make sense, but there's an excellent reason for this clause. Simply stated, a significant percentage of people will not send in the rebate request because they were lead to believe they only had 1 month to do it. They are still entitled to the rebate, but they don't send it in late or demand it. If you asked Amazon, they'd probably say that the one month send in rule allows them to process and keep up with the changing rebates, but that would be bullshit. They have been selling phones for years and know EXACTLY what percentage of people don't send in the rebate on time. That is my guess why they lowered the time, it used to be 2-3 months, now it's 1 month.
They would love for you to buy the phone seeing the great (rebated) price and they would love it even MORE if you forgot to send in the rebate. In fact, they bank on it ;)
But of course, if you call them later and demand the rebate, they roll over like a friendly puppy. I bought a RAZR from them, didn't send in the rebate, called them 11 months after I bought the phone, spoke to a supervisor and demanded the rebate. They sent me a check no questions asked. Why? Because they are, in my opinion, wide open to a class-action lawsuit for millions of dollars and know it. ;)
Technically, they probably aren't doing anything illegal, but in a civil court the 6 month/1 month contractual contradiction would be thrown out and they would have to pay millions back to deceived customers!