Bait & Switch

I’m leaving Blackberry land and coming back to my beloved Palm OS. Other than the email push, the Blackberry absolutely sucks as a calendar and contact management program. I actually went back to my relatively older Palm Tungsten C to manage my day-to-day existence. But I have to have my phone and PDA together or else I miss tasks and appointments for some reason.

What pushed me over the edge was a nice deal on a refurbished Treo 650 through Cingular. We were Bell South Wireless customers when Cingular purchased the company, so we’ve been with them for quite a while now. My wife and oldest daughter are on the family plan and I’ve had few complaints.

Until now.

The phone arrived today and, after a couple of hours charging, I was set to begin my wonderful Treo life. The problem was – I couldn’t hear or speak through the phone. I’d call other phones and nothing. So I called Cingular tech support and took it to the retail store. Everyone concluded that the Treo was broken.

Then the fun began.

I should mention that the refurbished phone cost me $139, about $200 cheaper than a brand new phone. Refurbished, according to dictionary.com, means “to make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate.” I called customer service and they agreed to exchange my phone. The initial response of the rep was that they were having problems with the refurbished models, and was I “sure” I wanted another refurbished one? I asked her if it was Cingular’s policy to sell equipment they knew was broken. She said no, and her tone changed a bit.

The lesson to be learned here is to not be in a rush to get a refurbished Treo that works from Cingular. My Blackberry still functions and I can wait. The savings are significant enough for me to play Treo roulette. Just have some room on your credit card because you have to order a brand new phone (refurbished in this case) as part of the exchange and pay for it up front. When the damaged phone arrives at Cingular, theres a credit issued.

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