Samsung offer for $250 visa gift card on new Galaxy 8 scam?

[DBJH]

Your Verizon ad telling us we can get a $250 visa gift card when we buy a new Galaxy 8 is very effective. I feel for it. The salesperson even made me think it was real by sending in the receipt to SamsungPay for me. What the ad doesn't say, is that you have to pay the full retail price of the phone in order to quality for the gift card. You cant finance the phone, and the ad and salesperson will say nothing about this until you've given them your monsy. So,.... do the math;  Pay $746 for the phone using the 24 month installment plan, or $960 to buy it outright. Financing the phone saves you $214. So if you want the $250 gift card, you have to pay $214 in order to get $250 from Samsung, giving you a net savings of $36 dollars. Nice advertising scam folks!!!! Why cant you be honest and upfront with your advertising. Do you really think you'll earn our loyalty playing these games?

[deloused]

That math is way off. If the phone is financed through the device payment plan then you are paying the full retail price, as shown here- Samsung Galaxy S8 | Specs, Pricing, Reviews | Verizon Wireless

If bought outright the retail cost is $756. Financing the phone saves you $0, as 24 payments of $31.50 is exactly the same as the full retail cost. Both buying outright in one lump sum or completing the purchase by financing the device through the payment program are both acceptable methods to qualify for the promotion.

The gift card promotion does have terms and conditions to qualify for the offer, so looking beyond an ad and reading through those details is always a good idea to understand how it works.

[DBJH]

This is a response to Deloused. The math is right. The Verizon ad is a scam. I am financing the phone, and yes, 24 payments of $31.50 costs me $756, but if I finance the phone, Samsung disqualifies me for the promotion. Read the terms of the promotion - section #3, subsection #e, "loan agreements or leases do not quality and will not be accepted". Installment purchase of the phone is a "loan", and in order to quality for the promotion you have to pay the full retail price of the phone $960. So to get the promotion, you have to pay over $200 more to get $250 back.  Samsung has rejected my submission for the claim 2 times under the terms. Brilliant collusion between Verizon and Samsung. Verizon posts the ad to get sales, gives the money to Samsung, and Samsung gives the money back to the customer under as a "promotion saving them $250".  This should be illegal.

[DBJH]

More information for Deloused, as it appears that even Verizon staff do not understand how this works. Here's the link showing the fake promotion. https://www.verizonwireless.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-note-8/   

This clearly states that the full retail price of the phone is $960 but the design of the add shows the $250 gift card to get people to think they save $250. They don't.  Financing the phone costs $746. So, $960-$746 = $214 MORE that has to be paid UP FRONT to qualify for Samsung's TWO PAGE terms and conditions which states that loan agreements do not quality. Its sad that even Verizon employees do not understand how this really works. Only the senior sales and advertising people really understand how Verizon and Samsung designed the handoff of the money from the customer, to Verizon, to Samsung, and back to the customer as  "Promotion". Making this even more frustrating is the fact that Samsung requires the customer to manipulate the multi page paper bill in order to photo it and send ALL the required information in a single image, within a short timeframe to qualify. They list several items of information that MUST appear in the image; Date, address, price of the phone, etc, so you have to carefully fold up the paper pages of the receipt to get all the data in one image, and if you don't do this properly, they reject the submission WITHOUT telling you which of the conditions you did not meet, and when you try to submit it again, you get a message that you reached the maximum number of submissions permitted for the "promotion", and it takes 3 days to get the rejection. They obviously hired some pretty smart people to design this promotion to make it impossible to get through the process successfully before the "promotion end date". Nice job!!

[deloused]

The retail price is $756 for the Galaxy S8, (its shown right on the link in my first response to your post. You also posted your original question in the Galaxy S8 Forum. The link you posted is for a different phone, the Note 8, which has a different (higher retail price of $960 and higher monthly installment charges of $40/month.)

Check your math again at either device link, the financed price is exactly the same as full retail ($40x34=$960) for the Note 8 or $31.50x24=$756 for the S8. I’m not sure how or why you keep calculating a $200 price difference between financing and full retail cost as the numbers are correct on the link you posted  for the Note 8 just as it is on the one I posted for the S8.

Financing the device does not disqualify a consumer from Samsung Rewards Promos, as it would still be a qualified device purchase as indicated in their terms  and conditions here-  https://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-pay/rewards-terms-and-conditions/

“Earning Points through Purchase of Select Samsung Products- Participant will receive Points based upon the final cost paid at check-out (whether paid in full or approved for Samsung financing) on Qualified Product Purchases.”

The terms and conditions you quoted regarding submitting your purchase information are stating that 1) Samsung wants you to submit your proof of purchase. 2) You need to submit your Equipment Purchase RECEIPT Document as the proof, they won’t accept the Loan Document as the proof they require.

The Receipt Document is pretty small so it would fit in a photo nicely, if you submit other documents related to your purchase such as a Loan Agreement that wouldn’t qualify.

[DBJH]

Thanks for responding again. Appreciate the follow-up. I posted the wrong link in my frustration with this process. I'm sure its not intended to be difficult, but I'm sure finding it that way. Since Verizon/Samsung wont provide any information on why my submissions have been rejected, I assumed it was because of the 24-payment process being considered ineligible for the $250 gift card. There as several requirements that have to be met when making the photo, as you know, you have to piece together the pricing from page #1, and hide the credit card info on page #2, and provide a piece of page #3 showing the store location and date. Its like an origami exercise 🙂   Then the final frustration, the image has to be smaller than 5K AND it needs to be clear. Please note that the Samsung Pay application DOES NOT allow us to take a photo of the origami'ed receipt pages and save the photo to the phone so that we can determine if the image is 5K in size or less. The application requires you to take a photo during the submission process. So, when, 3 days later, we get the rejection, we are left wondering;

Was it:

Missing information?

Too blury

Too Big

Or not purchased in the manner qualifying for the gift card. If Verizon would JUST SAY WHATS WRONG, it would help.

And, you only get one or two chances to submit requests, until you get the message that the maximum number of submittals have been reached. Please understand that this process is horrific and leaves me wondering if its purposely designed to frustrate the customer in just giving up on trying anymore. I will try and call the Samsung Pay support people to see if they will let me try again.  The first submittal was submitted by the Verizon sales person that sold me the phone. If he couldn't make this work, what are my chances???  Understand my frustration???????????????

[rpiehl]

DBJH​ deloused​ Thought I would chime in as I just received my 50k points and redeemed them for $250 in Samsung Rewards Card. I purchased my Galaxy S8 in an official Verizon Store on Sunday (11/12) and uploaded my receipt the same day. To be clear, I did NOT pay full retail price for the phone. I paid off my iPhone 6s and upgraded to the Galaxy S8, under agreement to pay the $31.50/mo. for 24 months ($756 total).

The second page of my Verizon receipt says that this is not considered a lease, but is a retail purchase agreement (hence not being disqualified). After reading this post, I called Samsung Pay (twice) and confirmed with two different reps that as long as the Galaxy is purchased at a Verizon store, it does not matter if you agree to purchase the phone via 24 monthly payments or pay full price.

I received my points today (11/14) after calling the specific promotion phone number (1-888-869-0638) as directed by a Samsung Pay representative last night. I did wait on hold for an absurd 48 minutes, however the rep was able to pull my receipt photo submission and approve it immediately- I also kept her on the line until the points were uploaded - so worth the long hold time.

Just make sure to take your time arranging your receipt to show all of the required info. in one picture and take a good picture.

[kathy65793]

When I went to that page that is what I saw about the 50k and trading that in for the $250.

Enroll in Samsung Rewards & get 50K free Samsung Reward Points redeemable for a $250 Visa Gift Card or available Samsung Pay catalogue items. Must redeem in Samsung Pay app before 9 PDT on 11/22/2017. For more details, go to https://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-pay/

I am so confused myself but from what I read on Verizon site then going to Samsung site I do believe that rpiehl does have it right 

[DBJH]

Thanks for responding. Nice to hear that some people are finding a way to qualify. My Verison salesperson did my original submission, so you'd think it would be right, but it got rejected, with no specific reason why, leaving me guessing. I tried three times to call in to Samsung, staying connected 45 minutes each time, no luck. Still prevented from submitting another receipt, with the app saying I reached the maximum allowed. Ive never seen a process so convoluted and impossible to use. I cant help but get the feeling they don't want many customers to be able to get their $250. Waiting for support window to open again and call,... but i'm really tired of this.

[DBJH]

Thanks. Cant tell how clear the photo is because they don't allow you to see the image saved on your phone. Also cant tell if its under 5K in size. I tried the 3-page origami folding approach with the invoice and failed, and so did my Verizon salesperson, and failed. Perhaps someone in Japan can do it    Every other application I have used to submit receipts allows me to take a photo, save it to the phone, and submit the image after verifying it is clear and readable. I wonder why Samsung wanted to make it so impossible. If someone would answer the phone before November 22, I might find out why they wont accept my receipt.