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I think you may get a bill from Amazon on the phone since Amazon's price is conditional upon signed contract with AT&T.
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Amazon's full price for the phone without the service contract is $399.99. Worse case is you may have to pay total of $399.99.
No...this is a common misconception...
To get that $169 price the only thing you have to satisfy is you have to buy the phone with a service plan...ie one of the monlthy plans....you are free to cancel the plan after you get the phone...Amazon just requires that when you make the actual purchase you must have a service plan in the cart.
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Amazon's rebate form says in order to get the $120 rebate from them, you need to submit a copy of the 1st month's phone bill showing activation to you address. This means your choice is either: pay the $169.99 for the phone and cancel the ATT new service for use on your own carrier after unlocking, or: go through the rebate by waiting for the bill from ATT and get $120 back from Amazon so phone net cost is $49.99 as you will not be able to get the rebate from ATT for the balance of $49.99 since service is canceled.
For me, I just ordered the phone and will try canceling the service(as I'm already an ATT customer), submitting after I get the 1st(final) bill from ATT, and see what Amazon will do. Guess the worst case scenario is paying $169.99 for the phone.
Both of the rebates (the $50 and $120) require a service contract...Amazon proves you have service by getting a copy of your first month's bill...The only way I know of to get the $120 rebate and still be able to cancel is if your monthly bill comes before the 30 days is up (if you wait till after 30 days you'll pay the early termination fee)....and even then you have to send it in for processing which means by the time they get to processing your rebate you may have cancelled within those 30 days...
Basically it's damn near impossible to get any rebate if you are going to switch to another carrier...