Get Nokia N900 $50 Cash Back Rebate Deal Amazon

by editor

Buy the Nokia N900 cell phone and need to know how to get your $50 Visa cash back Holiday Rebate promotion honored? It's wack: Nokia isn't clarifying how to get its rebate deal, after Nokia's Ovi Store and N900 applications delays cause customer complaints about fulfillment of rebate terms being an impossibility.
 
As wack as wack gets: Nokia offers a sweet deal of $50 cash back offer (or as cash back as it gets these days, in the form of a $50 Prepaid Visa debit card that can be used anywhere that accepts Visa) on its new N900 model cell phone, then seems to renig on the deal. At least some customer complain that it feels like the offer's being yanked. But that's not really true. It may feel like the old bait-and-switch or false advertising, but Nokia Customer Service states it is honoring the customer rebate offered.
 
True, Nokia might be better in clarifying to customers that it does intend to make good on the $50 rebate it offered buyers in November and December. And Nokia's decision to honor the rebate deal may simply be based on customer complaints spreading in online forums. But Nokia certainly can't deny that consumer complaints do hold warrant, seemingly sparked by the manufacturer's lack of preparedness and delays.
 
Of course the amount of defective N900 cell phone models, up to 10% according to online customer complaints, isn't helping Nokia's other problems which include delays of all types. First the manufacturer had delayed customer shipments of the highly-hyped gadget. Then Nokia seems to have delayed proper opening of its Ovi Store to N900 customers who are desperately searching for apps to fill their new phones. After both of those delays, more may follow: N900 applications developers may lose excitement (along with the cell phone's buyers) if the Ovi Store problems don't get sorted out soon. It seems someone, or more than one, seriously blew it. Nokia didn't get its Ovi apps Store ready for N900 buyers, which made the company's rebate form terms impossible to fulfill. That rebate can still be honored, for N900 customers diligent in submitting it.
 
Nokia's rebate form instructions incorrectly instruct cell phone buyers to activate the Nokia Ovi Store account from the N900 cell phone device itself. Unfortunately, activating from the N900phone device is impossible. Nokia N900 customers must instead activate the Ovi Store account from a computer. Activation from a computer is the only way for Nokia N900 customers to get the rebate deal, due to the fact that Nokia's Ovi delays do not allow customers to use the internet table/cell phone device to complete Ovi store account activation.
 
The attached wack url provides the Nokia $50 Holiday Promotion Visa Rebate Form which must be postmarked to Nokia by January 8, 2010 to get the deal.
 
Many buyers searching for the best price on Nokia's new N900 phone (aka internet tablet, or mobile computer), the hottest new mobile gadget that had recently begun shipping before Christmas due to Nokia's own manufacture delays, found the N900 on Amazon. To sweeten the deal and promote holiday sales for the phone, Nokia offered a rebate deal through huge retailers like Amazon: for about six weeks a $50 Visa rebate on Amazon internet tablet purchases made the N900 one of the lowest prices seen by customers.
 
No US cellular network provider (i.e. T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon or Sprint) currently offers the N900 cell phone model at all, let alone at a bargain price or on a deal, so Nokia's rebate promotion seemed an enticing one for customers. But, alas, the holidays and Christmas have passed, and now N900 buyer problems ensue for those trying to fulfill the $50 manufacturer Rebate promised by Nokia for purchases through retailers like Amazon.
 
Here's the deal: if you're a buyer of Nokia's N900 during the advertised promotion period (November 16-December 31), you can still get the Visa Holiday Rebate deal, despite being unable to access the Ovi Store from your new N900 cell phone. All is not lost. Nokia doesn't make it clear, on the Nokia website nor anywhere else online, that there have been rebate instruction changes. The manufacturer's customer service supervisors are the only entity that has actually addressed the issue clearly.
 
Here's how to get your Nokia N900 $50 Visa Holiday Rebate deal honored or fulfilled: your Ovi account must be activated via computer to complete Ovi Store registration for the N900, not by cell phone device like rebate terms specify. Right now, N900 buyers visiting the Ovi Store will find only Nokia's N97 advertised on the Nokia store website. The N900 cell phone model is not listed as an option on the manufacturer's site. Contrary to specific Nokia Rebate terms, telling N900 buyers that they must activate Ovi store accounts from the phone device itself, this will not work.
 
Will Nokia honor its holiday promotion N900 Rebates for the cell phone, when form terms specifically list different buyer requirements? Here's hoping and, according to Nokia Customer Service, the manufacturer will honor N900 purchases for buyers activating Ovi from a computer instead of the phone. If Nokia is depending on customer loyalty, the manufacturer better make good: for customers seeking the best N900 price and therefore factoring in the $50 holiday rebate offer by Nokia, it would seem like false advertising otherwise.
 
Nokia Customer Service, by telephone, confirms that completing Ovi Store N900 activation process by computer will fulfill its Holiday Rebate requirements. The manufacturer, for whatever reason (whether oversight, or the idea that buyers won't take the time to find alternatives to getting the rebate deal fulfilled) has not posted this update at its Ovi Store website: based on online customer feedback and complaints, Nokia's printed rebate terms make it seem an impossibility for customers to actually get the $50 cash back rebate deal.
 
Nokia's giving no written guarantee, aside from Nokia customer service's verbal promose. With 6-8 weeks to fulfill manufacturer holiday promotion rebate requests, N900 customers won't know if that rebate's honored until well after maximum store return timeframes have passed. But not honoring customer rebates would be an ill move on Nokia's behalf: N900 buyers are already complaining about Ovi Store delays for the cell phone and related lack of apps. N900 buyers can only hope that, after being so far behind in the Store and apps to loyal customers, Nokia will be ethical in honoring any rebate problems which the company itself created.
 
Prospects of getting the N900 holiday rebate promotion fulfilled has already been sketchy for many N900 customers, simply due to lack of stock availability of the N900 cell phones and subsequent shipment delays for the cell phone model. Retailers like Amazon promised stock of the newest phone (aka internet tablet) to customers, with last-minute email notification from the company that the phone model wouldn't be arriving before Christmas. Amazon N900 stock ran out before the holiday, even for customers guaranteed pre-Christmas arrival.
 
Amazon claims the N900 shipping delays were due to high volume of customers, supposedly simultaneously ordering the N900 cell phone so quickly that incoming orders incorrectly displayed Amazon stock numbers. According to Amazon, its online ordering system simply didn't keep up with actual company stock. When that occurred and stock ran out, Amazon updated customers in late December (literally days before Christmas) that N900 cell phone deliveries from Amazon would be changed to arrive before January 5, 2010. In fact, any changes to Amazon orders and including addition of more expedited delivery by Amazon customer service representatives, could actually extend delayed delivery dates of the cell phone until end of February 2010. These N900 shipping delays have created huge problems for customers wanting that rebate, and expecting the $50 cash back offered when buying the N900, resulting in customer complaints from buyers expecting the deal.
 
The Nokia customer problem: in order to qualify for the Nokia N900 $50 Holiday Rebate Promotion, the cell phone must have been purchased before December 31, 2009. N900 customers thought they'd fulfilled these terms, whether ordering from Amazon or other retailers, only to be very surprised: when Nokia stock ran out, the rebate promotion ran away. The N900 cell phone's shipping delays meant that eager buyers weren't getting the hottest new phone before Christmas but, maybe equally as bad on the part of Nokia and its retailers, the delayed N900 shipments also meant buyers weren't getting the rebate offer either.
 
For retailers like Amazon, which don't actually charge the customer's credit card until physical shipment of an item, shipment delays mean no billing; and no billing means buyers can easily miss the required purchase time period specified in the Nokia holiday rebate promotion terms. Any billing for the N900 after December 31 means buyers have no chance of getting that rebate honored, even if customers have been trying to buy the N900 for weeks prior and have received order confirmation for the new phone. That's caused customer complaints skyrocket, since ordering customers have no control over Nokia stock, and had been promised units of the phone.
 
The Nokia N900 internet tablet Holiday Rebate offer, so highly advertised by online electronics retailers and stores like Amazon in weeks before Christmas, has resulted in major customer confusion. Even obtaining the Nokia's rebate form and instructions has been iffy: verbal statements from Amazon included that the N900 Rebate form paperwork would be physically included within outgoing cell phone shipments of the N900.
 
Of two N900 cell phone shipments sent only one week apart, and processsed during the eligible Nokia holiday rebate promotion time period, Amazon sent no N900 Rebate forms in either order received. I fact there was no mention of the holiday promotion at all. For customers busy during the holiday season, and not noticing the absence of the Nokia rebate form, that alone can make a customer angry. Nokia's already helped ensure that buyers can easily miss meeting rebate terms due to shortened timeframe alone: Nokia's N900 Rebate is due within days of both the holiday and end of the promotion for buying the phone, requiring postmark by January 8.
 
Nokia N900 $50 Rebate paperwork for purchases of the cell phone device from November 16 through December 31, 2009, can be found here by clicking the attached url link for this wack. To begin with, this 6-week time period for valid rebate offered by Nokia ticked off loyal customers: the mid-November timeframe meant that many customers whom pre-ordered the new N900 directly from Nokia were not eligible. Those pre-ordering buyers paid among the highest price for the new cell phone, around $649, and were repaid for their loyalty by being skipped on any rebate timeframe. After hyping release of the N900 and taking orders it wasn't able to fulfill, sending the phones months late to pre-paying customers, Nokia then offered a substantial discount to later-buying customers through other venues or retailers. Not very nice, Nokia.
 
One of those terms is Nokia's extremely limited time to submit the rebate form itself: the Nokia N900 Rebate must be submited by January 8, 2010 with receipt by the company no later than January 15, 2010. For those not reading the fine print, all rebate submissions for the N900 must be postmarked by January 8 with no exception. Don't be misled or misread the January 15 date, which is essentially irrelevant since no mailings (even with the most severe USPS delays) takes a full week to be received by mail. Postmark cutoff for the N900 rebate is January 8, only about a week after the final purchase cutoff. Ironic, yes, considering the severe delays by Nokia for shipping the N900, delayed even for pre-orders on the cell phone. Additionally be aware that if the N900 is purchased through a major retailer like Amazon, the retailer must bill or actually charge the billing amount for the phone during the rebate valid time period. This means your order date for the N900 cell is irrelevant if the retailer does not complete charge of your credit card until actual phone shipment. For instance, Amazon does not charge the credit card until the date the company is able to ship the unit, so if the notorious delays in Nokia availability mean that the cell phone isn't shipping until after December 31, 2009, the Nokia $50 rebate won't be valid.
 
As of less than a week ago, Nokia N900 availability was so limited and Nokia has done such a poor job of ensuring the cell phone units are available to retailers, that making any change to Amazon N900 phone orders was causing the "internet tablet's" arrival dates changing to February 28, 2010. If the phone isn't shipped to you by December 31, you won't be getting that Nokia rebate.
 
To make matters, and customer service worse, Nokia continues to make things more confusing by including a term that N900 customers buying the phone must Activate a Free [Ovi] account FROM YOUR [N900] DEVICE: for any customer striving to meet rebate requirements diligently, Nokia wording specifies the Ovi activation must be from the actual N900 cell phone device and that the activation must be specifically to "Activate the Ovi Store." This exact, specific wording provides more than a bit of a problem for N900 buyers: it's literally impossible to activate the Ovi Store from the N900 device, specifically because Nokia has not made the Ovi Store device activation possible yet.
 
The hard-to-find, udpated Nokia Notice to N900 cell phone buyers (found at http://www.nokiapromos.com/default_tmp.asp) addresses delay of the Ovi apps Store only: "please activate your Ovi Store account through www.ovistore.com ". The Notice does not inform N900 cell phone buyers that activating an Ovi applications Store account via computer will fulfill Nokia Rebate terms. In fact, the posted (and vague) Notice makes no mention of Nokia's holiday rebate promotion at all, and does not clarify to customers that Nokia is in fact aware that N900 buyers are literally unable to meet written rebate terms.
 
For Nokia N900 buyer fortunate enough to even find the Notice via the Nokia Promotions page of the website, the Ovi Applications Store itself (where N900 users are sent, when trying to activate through the actual cell phone device and in accordance with rebate form instructions), contains absolutely no reference to the Notice. There additionally exists no listed instructions, nor update of any type, found at the Ovi Store in regard to Nokia's advertised Rebate or its N900 phone.
 
That's wack, Nokia. There are customer complaints about how to get this holiday rebate deal honored, and getting the $50 cash back is not clarified to N900 buyers. After five telephone calls to Nokia customer service, and the need to speak to a supervisor, the manufacturer has finally confirmed that an Ovi account can be activated by computer instead of through the N900 cell phone device as rebate terms state.
 
Since the N900 holiday Rebate states it takes up to 8 weeks for Nokia to honor and fulfill, here's hoping the manufacturer will do what is says: honor customer rebates activating an Ovi applications store account from their computer instead of from the cell phone device itself. There have already been numerous customer complaints regarding the defective N900 phone units, an issue Nokia states it still doesn't know where the source of the problems or defect lies. And customer complaints about the Nokia Ovi applications store that still isn't up and running, despite Nokia's huge sales of the N900 prior to and during the holidays. Nokia claims its decision to close its only US stores would result in subsequent focus on cell phone applications, services and its Ovi apps Store.
 
Nokia hasn't yet proven any focus on applications or the Ovi Store to be beneficial to N900 buyers, in the weeks since its December announcement of closing its only mobile phone stores in New York and Chicago. Nokia mobile device customers can only put faith in the idea that the manufacturer won't mar its image through refusing to honor rebate terms which it has made impossible for N900 buyers to fulfill.