Rumors of unpopular acquisitions be damned, T-Mobile is going ahead with business as usual. The company that brought the pleasant Carly Foulkes into our lives, otherwise known as the company AT&T wants to absorb in order to avoid updating to a 4G network, is introducing a new program designed to get the attention of those who want to trade their older phone in for something shiny and new.
The T-Mobile Trade-in program allows owners of older phones the opportunity to trade their out-of-style bricks in towards the purchase of a new T-Mobile phone. The program gives up to $300 towards a new phone and it accepts these trade-ins regardless of brand or carrier. The major stipulation is that the phone has to work, including the screen. Phones damaged by liquid-based products are not eligible for trade-ins, either.
T-Mobile even has a site set up — My Trade Ins — allowing potential customers the ability to get an idea of how much their trade-in phone is worth. The post also gives an example of the going exchange rate:
For example you can receive as much as $170 for an Apple iPhone 3GS (32 GB), $155 for an HTC Evo or $110 for a Droid 2.
No word on whether or not Miss Foulkes assists in this process in anyway, but her inclusion would only help the program succeed.
The unavoidable question going forward is, if AT&T is indeed allowed to acquire T-Mobile, will they continue to honor such a plan? Will they simply re-skin the My Trade-Ins site and continue supporting it or will they do away with it altogether. Considering the commitment from AT&T’s upper management to maintaining existing T-Mobile price models for acquired customers, it would hypocritical not to.
But then again, we are talking about a company that supports capping their Internet service provision, so there’s really no telling of what will and won’t be honored if T-Mobile gets swallowed by AT&T. It would also be advisable to keep Carly Foulkes as the spokesperson too. There’s no need letting a talent like that go to waste because of an upheaval in the telecommunications industry.