How Henry Paulson Made Sprint Be Mean to Me
I recently bought a Blackberry, and it is my first PDA. The sales guy is truly taking about 20 minutes to explain the thing to me, I think in an effort to show how knowledgeable he was. And the guy really was knowledgeable; if I were Don Murphioni, I would ask him to come work for me.
So when all is said and done, and he's truly sold me on how cool this Blackberry will be, he then explains that with the mail-in $100 rebate, you have to use blue or black ink. And that you can't omit any of the questions, or else they'll deny your rebate. He says that Sprint does everything it can to deny that $100 rebate to as many applicants as possible.
Now isn't that crazy, that this guy felt the need to volunteer that? Have other people been told that?
Anyway, assume it's true, and that this guy was really just looking out for me (as opposed to demonstrating his savvy). Then that means Sprint views me as a two year host to be parasitically drained as much as possible that won't be bad enough to make me eat the early-cancellation fee. Is goodwill really so cheap in our culture, that a company like Sprint doesn't find it profitable to treat customers very well, and have (say) a 5-year policy, with a $50 early-cancellation fee?
But I realized that Sprint can't possibly assign much weight to such a long-term contract. That wouldn't be enforced in any court; people would object to the "slavery" etc.
What Paulson has done is absolutely catastrophic to long-term business planning. You thought bankers were incredibly short-sighted during the last few years? Well, imagine how they're going to act now--when they don't even know if the US dollar will be in use five years from now.
Oh, and now on Wall Street as in other areas: It's about who you know, more than anything else. I'm so glad that high school meritocracy has been transferred to the markets where capital flows are routed. Yeah, nothing too important going on there. It's not the "real economy."
(Sorry folks, if you're new. I am being sarcastic in the above paragraph.)
In conclusion, we can see that Henry Paulson made Sprint be mean to me.
(Note: This is adapted from a blog post on Free Advice.)
Comments (3)
Stephan Kinsella
Bob, I am not sure I see anything nefarious in Sprint's making rebates a bit difficult to obtain. It's just a type of price discrimination. People to whom a buck is more dear will spend more time clipping coupons or taking the time to send in the rebate check. Sellers exploit this fact to engage in a degree of (quite rational) price discrimination.
Published: September 25, 2008 12:25 AM
Robert Murphy
Bob, I am not sure I see anything nefarious in Sprint's making rebates a bit difficult to obtain.
Ah, the lawyer sees no problems with it, how surprising. :)
It's not a matter of "taking the time to send in the rebate check." If you take the time to fill it out, but use the wrong color ink, they deny you. Or if you forget to put in your home phone number, they deny you. Etc.
It would be as if a store has coupons in the local newspaper, but old ladies get warned, "If you cut out the coupon, make sure you don't clip any of the edges. If you do, they won't honor the coupon."
You see the difference?
My larger point is that right off the bat, Sprint is setting up an adversarial relationship with me, where it is trying to scr*w me and I have to watch the rules carefully. Same thing with credit card companies.
There is a huge difference in how I feel when dealing with a credit card company versus, say, a department store that I walk into. And I think part of that outcome is driven by the short-term thinking that government policies encourage.
Published: September 25, 2008 7:47 AM
Michael A. Clem
Murphy's right. It's one thing to offer a rebate, and it's another to be so nitpicky about it that you may not get it even if you take the trouble to send it in.
I had so much trouble with a rebate on a phone system, that the store I bought it from (Office Depot) paid me the rebate instead.
The obvious solution is to discount the value of any rebate and consider the out-of-pocket price on its own merits. When people don't buy because of the rebates, then they'll either make them easier to do or will simply stop offering them and find some other way to attract your business.
Published: September 25, 2008 10:45 AM