Maybe I'm just getting old, but I think that the EZ Upgrade is a bit of a crock. When the pump was sold to me two years ago, an important feature was the $99 upgrade fee whenever the Vibe was approved for sale in the US. The salesperson was very clear: $99 was the cost, whether it came out the next day, or 3 years and 364 days from the delivery date.
Due to the FDA delays and such, we have the upgrade now.
I call Animas, and find out they want to charge me $799, and when they get my old pump back, in 4-6 weeks they'll return my $700. I ask them if I can use my Flex Spending card to pay it, and the answer is no, because they can't refund it back to the card. How about $99 on Flex Spending, and a $700 hold on my debit card? No. How about you send it to the sales rep, and I pay her $99 for the pump, give my old one to her, and be done with it? No. You must pay the $799, and whenever they get around to it, they'll refund it.
Now, mind you, I just had the pump replaced under warranty, and I returned the defective one the next day after received the replacement pump. 3 weeks later, I get the "you better send us the broken pump or we'll charge you for losing the pump" letter. UPS said they delivered it, and after 20 minutes on the phone with Animas, they found it. Lets just say I'm a little skittish on lending Animas $700 (I think that is their purchase price from their supplier, the rest of the $6300 of the "$7000 pump" is engineering and overhead.
OK, so I raise my concerns to the person on the phone, and I am assured I'll get a call back from someone. The next day, I do, and the guy (he was a sales manager) apologized at least 32 times (which changed my perception, at first sympathetic, then, just pathetic) but said, "well, when we set up the EZ Upgrade, we thought that it would be $99, and it does turn out to be that." My response was, "Why not charge me $7099, and return $7000 when you get my Ping back, or $1,000,099, and return the $1,000,000 when you get the pump back? This is an expectations problem, not a monetary one." He apologized (Hey! that's 33 times!) again, and wished me Merry Christmas.
So, what I am doing is this:
Buying the Vibe for the $799, with the promise of the $700 refund.
Buying my infusion sets from Tandem. (anyone use the Cleo infusion sets?)
I figure that $700 will cost them about $5400 in lost revenue on the infusion sets.
There has to be a cost of deception, and I think I found a way.
Again, sorry for the wall of text. I am just sick of the deception and the feeling of being taken advantage of.