Ever Buy Cell Phone From Wirefly?

[olds]

Stores charge you tax on the retail price of phones.
IE: phones retails for $500 but you get it for $199 with 2 year contract. They tax you at $500, not $199.

Wirefly sells the phone with a 2 year contract for $99 and doesn't charge you any tax. I don't see how the carrier can charge the tax, the didn't sell the phone.

Who is going to blindside me for Uncle Sam's portion?

 

[lxskllr]

Sounds like you need someone familiar with tax law. Charging tax for actual value of something isn't unprecedented, but it isn't typical, and it strikes me as wrong. Wirefly sounds like they're using the right approach, but I know less than nothing when it comes to tax law, and learning would only piss me off. It would point out all the socialist/fascist aspects of USA policy that I try to ignore out of concern for my mental health.

 

[Brainonska511]

IE: phones retails for $500 but you get it for $199 with 2 year contract. They tax you at $500, not $199.

They're probably treating the discount as a rebate, hence the reason you still pay sales tax on $500.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Stores charge you tax on the retail price of phones.
IE: phones retails for $500 but you get it for $199 with 2 year contract. They tax you at $500, not $199.

Wirefly sells the phone with a 2 year contract for $99 and doesn't charge you any tax. I don't see how the carrier can charge the tax, the didn't sell the phone.

Who is going to blindside me for Uncle Sam's portion?

Probably depends on the state/store. All the phones I've gotten at a $199 subsidized price has tax charged only on the $199. i.e. I paid $216 total for my phone.

 

[Ichinisan]

2 RAZR phones about 10 years ago. They actually screwed-up the whole order and sent me 3 phones on 2 separate accounts. Month after month, AT&T kept sending me 2 bills and the only way I got it straightened out was by agreeing to activate a 3rd line. I got to keep the 3rd RAZR phone.

Also, each phone came with a cheap rechargeable Jabra Bluetooth headset (back when people thought "What is that?"). There was supposed to be a huge rebate on each phone to make it free, but it turns out that there was no rebate and it was just...free.

Back when I got it, "Wirefly" and "Inphonic" were the same thing. They couldn't figure out which name to use on the emails and the paperwork.

 

[ibex333]

Stores charge you tax on the retail price of phones.
IE: phones retails for $500 but you get it for $199 with 2 year contract. They tax you at $500, not $199.

Wirefly sells the phone with a 2 year contract for $99 and doesn't charge you any tax. I don't see how the carrier can charge the tax, the didn't sell the phone.

Who is going to blindside me for Uncle Sam's portion?

I don't know what you're talking about. When I bought from them a few years back, they charged me tax and all...

Problem is, customer service was abysmal. It consisted of Indians who could barely speak any English. When I cancelled my cell phone service and moved to another company, I called Wirefly and notified them. They said I'm ok and don't have to do anything else.


Several months pass, and all of a sudden I start receiving bills for a protection plan for my cell phone from Wirefly, which wasn't supposed to exist anymore! I started calling them to tell them I cancelled everything a while ago, but it was literally IMPOSSIBLE to reach the deppt. which deals with this stuff. All the numbers listed in my bills and their website would result in a dead end, where a machine would ask me for my account name/number which off course I didn't have anymore. Unless I would enter the account properly, the system was designed such that there is no way to get to a live person.

Finally I decided to call their deppt which deals with fraud. There I finally got to a live person, and after having to call them twice after being hung up on, they finally transferred me to yet another number which wasn't listed anywhere, where they finally told me that the account number I was inputting all this time in their electronic system was actually correct. They then finally cancelled all my services and accounts, and I am firmly set to never deal with those maniacs again, no matter how low their prices will be.

It seems they went underground or went bankrupt because I never see any deals from them anymore.