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This is not an advertisement. This is a how-to!

So here's tip #1. If you can take the risk of dealing with rebates that have many "outs" and potential for non-payment, then going online is the best way to get cheap deals - even deals where the stores end up "paying you" so you "make money" on these phones!

Case in point, in doing some research for a new phone and plan I came across the T-Mobile MDA (basically a smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 5.0 OS). Still a junky camera (only 1.3mp) but with touchscreen, full qwerty keyboard and hacks up the wazoo, it looked like a good upgrade from my current Sprint VM4500 (from Sanyo) that was the best phone in the US at the time (camera, video, etc..).

Onwards! Went to the local T-Mobile store and they'll sell you the phone for $299 (plus tax) if you sign up for a 2 year contract. Ouch.

After looking online, I found what seemed like the best deal - from letstalk.com. The phone would be $100 (plus tax and net after rebates that take a while to get back). Also, they sell 1 year plans! That's the tip of the day!!!

I called the order in and the phone was slated to ship the following day. Right now it's been packed and ready to ship free 2-day UPS/FedEx Air according to the order status page. Let's see...


some email i wrote:

i've been doing quite a bit of online pricing between the letstalk.com,
wirefly.com, ushopwireless.com, etc.. (and i think some of these are just
affiliates of another company since their order processing screens follow
the same form/function) and there are some out there that let you sign up
for a one-year.

case in point, while ushopwireless.com will not only give you the tmobile
mda and "you make" $75, you're required to sign up for a two year contract
and they don't offer the plan(s) that i want (great for you if what they
offer is what you want). and that's where they get you - on the recurring
charges (i'm sure you all knew this, but i thought it'd be good to
reiterate). so while some may be lured into believing that they'll get a
$75 check in 6+ months (and there are so many conditions for reneging),
during that time, they would have overpaid for services they really didn't
want AND get locked into doing so for an additional 18 months. ouch. in my
calculation for services, i would have overpaid $40/month x 24 months =
$960! that's 6.4 meals at tres agaves :/

so, letstalk.com, even with the less-than-stellar resellerratings ratings,
offers a one-year contract for services that i do want and i end up paying
$100 for the phone. fair deal for what i'm looking for. most of the folks
complained about rebates shenanigans and they're probably justified.
rebates are great but are just another sneaky way to offer an empty
promise.

i've been burned more than a few times by processing houses that have
rejected the rebate and offer little to no recourse in resolution
especially when you can't get a live person on the phone. but that's
another spew...

bottom line is this: one-year contracts are available and you either have
to negotiate with the corporate stores/customer service or go your own way
and find an online agent. oh yeah, another thing that the online stores do
is they have offers that expire when in some cases they're not real
expiration dates - ushopwireless says that their (ushopwireless, not
tmobile rebates, etc) offers expire tomorrow, but if you wait until then,
it'll expire the next day... sneaky bastards.