Nokia exaggerates discounts on its latest Lumia 925 and Lumia 625 buyback offers

        Nokia has extended the buyback scheme it had started with the Lumia 520 and Lumia 620, and has now included the Lumia 925 and Lumia 625. The company claims to now offer up to Rs 10,000 discount on the Lumia 925 and up to Rs 7,000 discount on the Lumia 625 when customers trade in their old smartphones. Under the scheme, the Lumia 925 is available for Rs 28,529 and the Lumia 625 for Rs 14,919. In reality however, the discounts are much lower.


      As per the scheme, the said discounts are exaggerated and are given on the phone’s MRP, which is much more than the MOP of these phones. For instance, Nokia mentions the MRP of the Lumia 925 to be Rs 38,529 while in India the phone was actually launched at an MOP of Rs 33,499. Similarly, the Lumia 625 was launched at Rs 19,999 and is already available for about Rs 16,000 at popular online retail stores. So the effective discount for exchanging an old smartphone against a new Lumia 925 or Lumia 625 phone would be Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,000 respectively instead of Rs 10,000 and Rs 7,000 as highlighted by the company.

       This is not for the first time that a mobile vendor is misleading a customer, as we had earlier reported about how they exaggerate the discount under buyback schemes by quoting the MRP rather than the price at which its phones actually retail in the market.

       Apple started the trend by offering a buyback scheme with a minimum of Rs 7,000 off on the iPhone 4. It worked for Apple with its sales increasing by up to 400 percent. Apple had an advantage that its phones sell on MRP and rarely get a price drop. However, that isn’t the case with other brands and there is hardly any discount extended by the brand. One can get a much better valuation for one’s older smartphone by selling it separately than falling for these gimmicks.