I joined Cingular Wireless following an online advertisement by their authorized agent, Inphonic (1010 Wisconsin Avenue NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20007) The advertisement promised free phones, a $600 rebate on two Motorola MPX-220 phones. Although I have met all conditions to receive my rebates, both Cingular and Inphonic refuse to honor the rebate.
The rebate instructions indicated 'entries must be postmarked no earlier than 180 days and no later than 210 days after activation.' I interpreted the instructions as business days. There were no further details neither in the advertisement text, nor in the rebate instructions as to how exactly these 30 days will be counted (i.e., including the day of the activation and the day of postmarking or not, whether business days or calendar days, etc). Moreover, the rebates required 'a wireless bill dated between 150 days and 210 days after activation.' The Cingular bills I am receiving are actually not dated (only dates that appear are billing cycle interval and due date, not the 'billing date'). In my opinion the whole offer was clearly set up to make it nearly impossible for customers to get their rebates (why a company like Cingular would think this a good marketing strategy is beyond me).
My records indicate I postmarked the applications October 6, well within the 180-210 business days window from the activation date (March 7). Inphonic responded after 4 (four!) months (January 30) to inform me that the rebate was denied due to being postmarked too late! According to their reps the application was postmarked 214 days after activation. This is not possible.
Since there were no phone numbers listed on Inphonic's communications, I tried to resolve the issue using Cingular's customer service. After all, I am their customer, not Inphonic's, the ad mentioned prominently their name, not Inphonic's, and they are the ones making the profits from my patronage, not Inphonic.
The first Cingular rep I spoke with was totally unable to help. These people receive training, I believe, in being useless. Her manager, however, promised she will solve the issue within 24h and call me back. Three days later, when nobody called back, I spoke to another helpless Cingular rep, then his manager, etc. After many hours spent with Cingular reps of different degrees of unhelpfulness (which need to be 'educated' separately about the issue, as they do not take notes on their computers), one of them actually seemed to understand the issue and called Inphonic to intervene. The Inphonic rep said he will refer the issue to their Finance Dept which needs to approve it and they will call back in 5 business days. After 7 business days I called Inphonic and was told they had no idea of this request, they don't even have a Finance department and they will not honor the rebate anyway.
At the end of my patience I filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau against both Inphonic and Cingular. Inphonic did not even bother to respond (the company has more than 1,800 complaints and its membership in the BBB has been revoked). Cingular responded, only to offer an insulting $150, and then to deny any relationship with Inphonic' s rebate (see, they only make the profits, otherwise Inphonic provides them with customers on a charitable basis).
I feel cheated and abused by these two companies, but in particular, the much advertised 'high bars' Cingular. To add insult to injury, they claim I have a 2-year contract with them, although the online offer mentioned no such thing (only a six-month period to get the rebates that they never honored). As I have found out, I am not the only one in this situation, a simple Internet browse identified many others treated similarly. Unfortunately, this pattern of abuse is only likely to grow with the recent acquisition of Cingular by SBC/New AT&T.
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