Wednesday, November 23, 2005
A new kind of rebate hell
It's no secret that rebates are the biggest scam of the twenty-first century. Companies bank on the fact that the majority of people will forget to send them in. Then they'll disqualify a certain percentage of those that do get sent in, based on any technicality they can find. Then they'll wait months to mail the check, earning interest in your money all the while. Some companies won't send it until you've called and complained at least once, in the hopes that most people who did remember to send in the rebate will end up not realizing that they never received it.
So I was pleasantly surprised today to see that my rebate check from Amazon for my new iBook arrived in the mail today without me even having had to pick up the phone once. Sure, it look (a lot) longer than it was supposed to, but the important part is that it acutally showed up. Except the problem is that it didn't all show up. You see, the entire right side of the envelope is missing, apparently having been ripped clean in half by someone or something, somewhere along the line. As is the entire right side of the check.
Wow. What are the odds? Do you know how many pieces of junk mail I receive per day that I wish someone had ripped in half? This was not the one. I can't ever recall in my life having received an envelope in the mail in which the right half of the envelope was simply missing. I was initially tempted to wonder if this might not be some new sort of rebate scam, where they slice off part of the check before mailing it, in one last cheap attempt to keep you from cashing it and get you to give up on it altogether. But seeing as how the portion of the envelope containing the postage is missing, I'm left to conclude that this happened long after the envelope left Amazon's hands, and in fact apparently after it left the post office. I'd go hunt down the mailman and ask him to locate the other piece for me, but it's not like I'd be able to walk into the bank with a check that I've taped back together.
So I'm left to contact Amazon, except that they farm their rebates out to some rebate company. Which I can't conact, because if they did include a phone number on the check, it's not on the half of the check that I actually received. I contacted Amazon anyway (via email, since the world's largest online retailer apparently doesn't have a phone number), but I expect that they'll just tell me to contact the rebate company they've farmed it out to. And since it's clearly the post office's fault, I doubt the rebate company is going to be in any hurry to send me another check. For all I know they'll probably insist that I pay for a stop payment fee on this half a check I received, before they'll be willing to send me a replacement.
I almost never buy anything that has a rebate involved, and it's for precisely this kind of reason. Months after I've purchased something, I don't want to still be playing games and jumping through hoops trying to get me money, that, by all means, the company should have simply deducted from the price they originally charged me. But this nonsense is likely going to drag into 2006 at this rate. It's not the money, it's the aggravation. I've managed to find my way into a new and unique kind of rebate hell, and it wasn't even because anyone was trying to scam me. It was just sheer (or should I say shear?) one-in-a-million bad luck.
Ah well, that's what I get for trying to save a buck. Next time I buy something like this I'll just go pay standard price at a retail store and be done with it.
In any case, Happy Holidays to everyone. Enjoy your turkey, and I'll see you on the other side of the kickoff of the holiday shopping season.
It's no secret that rebates are the biggest scam of the twenty-first century. Companies bank on the fact that the majority of people will forget to send them in. Then they'll disqualify a certain percentage of those that do get sent in, based on any technicality they can find. Then they'll wait months to mail the check, earning interest in your money all the while. Some companies won't send it until you've called and complained at least once, in the hopes that most people who did remember to send in the rebate will end up not realizing that they never received it.
So I was pleasantly surprised today to see that my rebate check from Amazon for my new iBook arrived in the mail today without me even having had to pick up the phone once. Sure, it look (a lot) longer than it was supposed to, but the important part is that it acutally showed up. Except the problem is that it didn't all show up. You see, the entire right side of the envelope is missing, apparently having been ripped clean in half by someone or something, somewhere along the line. As is the entire right side of the check.
Wow. What are the odds? Do you know how many pieces of junk mail I receive per day that I wish someone had ripped in half? This was not the one. I can't ever recall in my life having received an envelope in the mail in which the right half of the envelope was simply missing. I was initially tempted to wonder if this might not be some new sort of rebate scam, where they slice off part of the check before mailing it, in one last cheap attempt to keep you from cashing it and get you to give up on it altogether. But seeing as how the portion of the envelope containing the postage is missing, I'm left to conclude that this happened long after the envelope left Amazon's hands, and in fact apparently after it left the post office. I'd go hunt down the mailman and ask him to locate the other piece for me, but it's not like I'd be able to walk into the bank with a check that I've taped back together.
So I'm left to contact Amazon, except that they farm their rebates out to some rebate company. Which I can't conact, because if they did include a phone number on the check, it's not on the half of the check that I actually received. I contacted Amazon anyway (via email, since the world's largest online retailer apparently doesn't have a phone number), but I expect that they'll just tell me to contact the rebate company they've farmed it out to. And since it's clearly the post office's fault, I doubt the rebate company is going to be in any hurry to send me another check. For all I know they'll probably insist that I pay for a stop payment fee on this half a check I received, before they'll be willing to send me a replacement.
I almost never buy anything that has a rebate involved, and it's for precisely this kind of reason. Months after I've purchased something, I don't want to still be playing games and jumping through hoops trying to get me money, that, by all means, the company should have simply deducted from the price they originally charged me. But this nonsense is likely going to drag into 2006 at this rate. It's not the money, it's the aggravation. I've managed to find my way into a new and unique kind of rebate hell, and it wasn't even because anyone was trying to scam me. It was just sheer (or should I say shear?) one-in-a-million bad luck.
Ah well, that's what I get for trying to save a buck. Next time I buy something like this I'll just go pay standard price at a retail store and be done with it.
In any case, Happy Holidays to everyone. Enjoy your turkey, and I'll see you on the other side of the kickoff of the holiday shopping season.
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