The Consumerist, a Gawker Media site I recently put on my radar and am liking more and more, has two pieces where former sales reps from Verizon and Cingular offers tips and pitfalls to avoid when buying hardware and services from these two wireless providers.
From the Verizon piece:
Verizon reps get tons of money from new lines and certain accessories and text packages, take advantage of this. They won’t let a new customer walk out the door. “Play hardball, they will do anything to get the new lines. VZW makes $ off the service, not the phones. Tell them you don’t want to mail in the rebate. There does come a point of diminishing returns. For example, if you walked in and wanted a $39 plan and a free Treo 700, not gonna happen. But I have given away almost every non-PDA phone in the store for the right deal. Also tell them you will buy the accessories, and text package. Trust me here, these are 2 of the biggest metrics for the reps. Return the accessories the next day and call customer care to cancel your text package.”
Read the rest.
From the Cingular piece:
Get the rebate in the store, and at home. “Try to get the rep to give you the rebate in the store, they’ll be likely to do this if you agree to get accessories. You can get go on-line and print out the rebate form from www.cingular.com and send it in anyway.”
Read the rest.
Awesome.
