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Cingular Wireless Starts Using Debit Cards in Its Promotions

Posted on: Thursday, 16 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By Pam Dawkins, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Feb. 15--Cingular Wireless customers looking in their mail for a rebate check should instead look for something smaller: a Visa-branded debit card.

The company started using the debit cards in many of its promotions last year, spokeswoman Kate MacKinnon said Tuesday, adding that Minolta, Michelin/Firestone and Motorola, among others, are also using the cards.

"We have found the Cingular Visa Reward card program to be a helpful tool that provides convenience and value to our customers. -- In this increasingly automated world, our customers appreciate the fact that they can spend Visa Reward Cards like cash, but the card saves them a trip to the bank." MacKinnon and a spokeswoman for Visa declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal between the companies, and the Visa spokeswoman didn't have any information on how long Visa has offered the cards.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said his office is looking into Cingular's advertising to ensure that customers know what they're going to get.

"There seems to be no specific prohibition against a rebate in the form of a debit card," he said Tuesday.

Several consumers called his office recently to ask about the debit cards, Blumenthal said.

"There are all kinds of forms of rebates that are used these days," he said. "The whole area of rebates is an increasingly troubling one.

The more complicated it is, the more perilous for the consumer." Blumenthal said he is concerned about companies deducting the rebate amount from the sale price in their promotional materials but not informing consumers they must mail in a form to get the lower price.

On its Web site, Cingular notes the regular price of a phone and the amount of the rebate. Customers who click on a phone to buy it can also print the rebate form, which says the rebate is via a debit card and includes a picture of the card.

While she said she couldn't speak to every occasion, MacKinnon said Cingular store salespeople, who will print the rebate form and help customers fill it out, tell customers about the debit card before the sale is final.

Part of the attraction, MacKinnon said, is the debit card's longer shelf life. Rebate checks, she said, expire 90 days after they are issued or printed; the debit card expires 120 days after the recipient activates it.

Blumenthal has some advice for consumers about rebates: check whether it is beneficial and that you can meet the deadline. Companies as a whole, he said, can make billions of dollars from unclaimed rebates, and some have tight deadlines that customers could miss if they don't send in the form immediately.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

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BLS, T, 4902, KNCAY, MGDDF, BRDCY, MOT,

Source: Connecticut Post

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