Cingular has a unique approach to rebates, at least in my experience: They sent me a Visa Cingular Reward debit card that has $50 of value programmed into it. The card says "Shop 'til you drop!". With $50? I won't drop after spending fifty bucks.
What really jerks me in this case is that Cingular never told me that they were NOT going to send me money. So the company has optimized the system for making it as hard as possible to get the promised rebate.
To "apply" for the promised rebate, you have mail (through the Post Office, of course) the receipt, rebate form and proof of purchase. Then you wait for at least a month (in my case). Then you get an envelope that has the card in it, which you have to authorize by calling in and remembering both the card number and the last four digits of your phone number. Then of course, you have to remember you have the card when you buy something. And if you don't buy something worth $50, you have to keep remembering to keep using that card to get your full rebate.
This is an extraordinary amount of effort to go through for a lousy $50 rebate. I am absolutely certain that the system is designed to reduce the percentage of people who actually make it all the way through, thereby reducing Cingular's cost of providing the rebate in the first place. (This is called "breakage" in the trade, the percentage of people who never bother to claim a rebate.) When I was listening to a Cingular executive crow at a recent trade conference (CTIA) about their dedication to customer service, I was thinking what a Machiavellian attitude to take toward your customers. Instead of admiring Cingular's customer service, I feel loathing toward a company that treats me this way.
Your post really hit home. I buy a lot of computer parts and have sent in a lot of rebate forms over the past year. I nearly switched to Cingular from Sprint for cell service but but the phone rebate process was incredibly complex. Something like having to save monthly statement for 6 months and then send them in with a bunch of paperwork. It wasn't worth my time for the $100 or whatever.
Posted by: Brett Nordquist | April 09, 2006 at 08:13 PM
do they even send u a statement each month for the rebate card?
Posted by: jody | June 18, 2006 at 12:19 PM