Say NO to Wirefly.com!

I had been a customer to Cingular's Pay-as-You-Go phone service for over 3 years when I finally decided to upgrade to a real plan. I was tired of my crappy Motorola Razr V3 and needed a new phone but I think we all know how expensive it can be to purchase a new phone unless you sign a new 2-year-contract with one of the major cell phone providers.

My boyfriend was also in need of a new cell phone, so we decided to get on a family plan so that we would both get new phones at very low price, if not free. A friend or a co-worker had told him about Wirefly.com who offered very low prices on cell phones when you sign a 2-year-contract with any of the major cell phone providers.

Looking through wirefly.com's site, we saw a wide range of some of the newest cell phones at really low prices, some were even being offered as free when you sign up. We decided to stick with Cingular who was currently both of our providers. We looked through the site, picked our phones and then gave wirefly.com a call to phone in our orders since we had a few questions that we wanted answered before our final purchase.

Unfortunately, like the majority of all the call centers in the U.S., wifefly.com's call center was stationed in India. So there we were on the phone with some Indian guy who's English was mediocre at best, trying to ask questions about the certain phone features while the Indian guy insist that all the answers to our questions are "yes, yes" and that we should just give him the credit card number to make our final purchase.

By this point, I no longer want to go through with the purchase. This Indian guy has yet to give us any answers to our questions that I would deem as being knowledgeable. But for whatever reason, my boyfriend decides that it's a good idea. I have one final question that I want to ask them before I can feel somewhat at ease about this purchase.

"Do you offer insurance for the phone directly through the provider?"
The Indian man thinks for a second before responding, "Yes, yes. You want insurance. I give you the insurance."
I ask again just to be certain he understood my question, "So you're saying that you'll get us insurance for the phones directly through Cingular?"
Once again he replies, "Yes, yes. You want insurance. I give you the insurance through the Cinglular".

I figured he had understood, so I give my boyfriend the go ahead on the purchase, and the Indian adds on insurance to our purchase.

A few days later, we receive our phones. My boyfriend had ordered the Blackberry Pearl which he had gotten for free, and I had ordered the Palm Treo 680, which after mail-in rebates would've cost $50 (I paid $120). I never got around to the rebates though since there were 3 different rebates, all with different catches and loopholes just to get some of you're money back.

About a month after we had purchased our phones, my son, who was about 18 months at the time, takes my Palm Treo and throws it in the toilet. When I find it, I was in full panic until I remembered that we had bought insurance. Immediately, I call up Cingular to tell them about my ordeal and to get a new phone ASAP. To my horror, when I call, they tell me that they have no record of me purchasing insurance for either phone!

As I tell the customer service rep about my cell phone purchase the month prior, she informs me that I must have insurance through a third party since there is no way that wirefly.com would be able to offer me insurance through Cingular directly.

That fucking Indian had screwed me and I was heated!

I logged on to wirefly.com's site to look for a contact number. I browse through the site, find the number and call them up. I talk to, of course, another Indian guy. I ask him, "Who provides the cell phone insurance for wirefly.com?"
He doesn't seem to know and so he transfers me to yet another Indian guy who should know. I ask this Indian guy the same question, "Who provides the cell phone insurance for wirefly.com?"
He puts me on hold for about a minute then comes back on the line, "NCOA", he replies.
"That's a third party insurer?", I ask.
"Yes, yes. We offer only third party", he says.
"A sales rep told me last month that he you guys offered insurance directly through the provider when I bought my phone last month", I tell him.
"No, no. That is incorrect" he tells me, "We only offer the insurance through the third party".

I continue to question him about the third part insurance. I find out that NCOA, the third party insurance company, only covers phones worth $300 or less, if you have a phone worth more then $300 they will replace the phone with a cheaper phone, and they only replace phones that have been lost or stolen, which in either case would require you to send them a police report.

At this point, I'm pretty pissed off. I've been lied to about my insurance provider and to make it worse, the insurance provider that I do have doesn't even cover my phone!

Luckily, after about a week, my phone dried out and has been working fine ever since. But the whole moral of this story is DON'T BUY A PHONE THROUGH WIREFLY.COM. They are absolutely horrible. I would never recommend anyone buying their phone or phone insurance for that matter, through this company. Save yourself the drama. You'll never get a hold of anyone who speaks good English and whatever questions you ask they will tell you what you want to hear just so that you'll make the purchase. SAY NO TO WIREFLY.COM!!!