Sprint gets rid of mail-in rebates starting on March 27 for an unspecified period of time

Vlad Bobleanta  By on 24 Mar 11

One of the things that’s oh-so-common in the US mobile market, and is almost unheard of elsewhere, is the mail-in rebate. This is a genius (from the seller’s perspective) trick that allows the carriers to post smaller prices for devices when advertising than those you’ll actually have to pay in-store, while hoping you’ll forget to mail that rebate form in order to get a small portion of your money back. However well this may be going for the carriers, understandably, people don’t seem to like it very much (just like two-year service agreements).

So Sprint has decided to try and do away with the infamous mail-in rebate completely, not just for one device, but for all. This will happen starting on March 27, according to BGR, and as of now Sprint isn’t willing to commit to saying that they are giving up on rebates forever. Most likely is that they’ll analyze the impact this will have on their business, and then decide whether to bring back the rebate from the dead at a later date or not.

The wording used is “Sprint will temporarily replace mail-in rebates in most channels, including our company-owned retail stores, with instant savings”. And that “temporarily” has also been defined as “an unspecified period of time”. So if you’re after a Sprint phone or smartphone, but dreaded the idea of having to mail in that rebate form to actually get to the advertised price, you’re in luck. And you’d better move fast and order all the devices you need from Sprint starting this Sunday.

Hopefully Sprint will see the light and keep mail-in rebates off their offers forever. And, in what’s even more wishful thinking, let’s hope that other carriers will follow suit.

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