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Calling Verizon or any cell carrier customer service can be a pain. The customer service rep you talk to might be friendly and incompetent, polite and uninformed or my favorite, just plain evil.

But there is one way to get someone very “agreeable” on the phone. The last time I called Verizon (by dialing 611 on my phone) I dealt with their voice recognition and chose “Cancel Service”. When you choose this option you get connected to a special group that is trained to keep you happy and convince you not to cancel service. The great thing is they won’t even ask you if you want to cancel your service, they will just try to make you happy.

It’s a sure shot way to always get excellent customer service!

I use the 5 blade battery powered fusion … and this prophetic 2004 Onion article might be the funniest thing ever written.

Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no.

Specifications Comparison:
Apple iPhone - 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46″ 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
Motorola Q - 4.57 x 2.52 x 0.47″ 116 x 64 x 12mm
Palm Treo - 4.4 x 2.3 x 0.9″ 113 x 59 x 23mm

It is Half as thick as a treo and more compact than the Q.
It will cost $499 with a 2 year Cingular contract.
You will regret buying it. You will regret resisting it.
The iPhone has already won and it is mocking you.

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!

Link to rebate pdf file

I am in Veritas Clustering class at the moment in NYC and writing this post on my new smartphone, the Motorola Q. That’s pretty cool, in a nerdy kind of way.
But you can’t upload photos with the Q ie browser. I’m gonna have to look into that.

The long awaited Motorola Q is coming out now! next week on Verizon(maybe.)  It runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and is currently the thinnest qwerty phone in the world at 11.5mm (the razr is 13.9mm closed.)   The display is 320×240 pixels 65k TFT, which should be decent for web surfing. 

The price will be $500-$700 with a contract and your signature in blood. 

Holy Shit its going to be $200 with a 2 year contract and your soul available May 31st on Verizon's website and June 5th in their stores.  God help you if you don't get one!

I ordered mine this morning by calling Verizon and paid an extra $50 to have a one year contract.  Its not bad as phones go, you can buy movie tickets on it and read email and IM if you download Agile Messenger.  It's got good voice recognition and a very large bright display.  I can recommend it.  But remember, it doesn't have the cool touch screen hence no stylus.  

Links DigitalMag MobileWhack MotorolaQ MotorolaQ_PDF

How about the coolest fucking bluetooth headset ever… The main feature of this little guy is that it picks up your voice through your cheekbones and ear canal, so you can have your conversation at 150MPH with the top down… and still be heard, ya heard? 

 The bastards at Motorola have yet to release this awesome headset.  Why the tease Motorola, set a God damn release date!   Available sooner or later … for $125-$160.

• Motorola Product Link
• Review Link BengalBoy.com