I am a nut on saving money. When I’m planning to buy something, especially electronics, I shop around like crazy. I go to ridiculous lengths to save money and find a good deal. Like when Google released Froogle. I ate that money-saver up. I loved how you could compare retailers to find the best deal. It saved me from going from website to website and from store to store.
Well the other day I started looking for a good cell phone deal. I followed my usual tactic of checking websites and calling stores until I stumbled across WireFly. WireFly takes the Froogle approach in that, as far as I can tell, they don’t actually sell any products. They are a hub of information. It’s a conglomerate of every major cellular provider’s offers. It’s like walking into a store with phone kiosks from Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, Alltel, Nextel, and U.S. Cellular – all of them competing for your attention.
Once on the site you have the option of searching for phones, basic service plans, family plans, accessories, ring tones or pre-paids. Going through the service plans they have a neat rating system. For each plan under each carrier they show J.D. Powers and Associates rating for the company’s customer service and value.
Browsing through their phones, they have some great deals on smartphones, especially the Blackberries. They have the usual set-up in that to get the good deals on phones you have to sign up for service. No surprise there.
Speaking of buying a new phone, I hate mail-in rebates. WireFly makes it easier with a semi-innovative feature. You can submit and track your phone’s mail-in rebates on their site. No mess with mailing in 16 copies of your various pieces of paperwork. Just submit your rebate online and wait for your check.
I love making decisions easier. I think that WireFly does a good job at doing just that.
Disclosure
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I mailed in a rebate to Wirefly within the designated time frame provided. Two months later I received a letter from them stating that I did not provide a valid email address. This is dookie. Not only did I have my email address clearly printed on my rebate form but it was printed so neatly that Helen Keller could have read it. Further it is the same valid email address that I had when I ordered through Wirefly. They didn’t have any problems taking my money and sending me an order confirmation, but now that it is time for them to send me a rebate my email address is invalid. I would avoid using Wirefly unless you have no interest in receiving a rebate check. I have talked to several other people who have run into this very same problem.
Kevin
That is exactly why I hate mail in rebates. Check out my post about how to beat the system of mail-in rebates