OT: Rebates

[Suicide Junkie]

I ask you what should I do? Play the game with BRG and try and get my $40.00 rebate and re0inbursment for my bank charges or dispute the cost of the Asylum FX 5700 entirely on my credit card on the grounds that they defrauded me out of my rebate?

If you do dispute the charge, it would be BestBuy getting hit. You should definitely talk to them so they know what's going on and can pass the buck, so to speak, on to BFG.

[Atrocities]

Thank you SJ, I will call them tomorrow as well.

[Suicide Junkie]

I also highly recommend looking up the name of the company president, and/or the senior managers.

Rather than asking to talk to "your manager", if you ask to talk to "Randy", they'll be a little more willing to play nice
And you can ask their operator to connect you to the boss directly if need be.

They don't need to know you're not actually on a first-name basis with their boss or the president. They just need to give you what they owe you.

[Slynky]

Maybe log a complaint to the SBA? Write a letter to the company president?

[Katchoo]

Send a letter explaining your story/situation to Maximum PC. They have a section called WatchDog that deals with underhanded Tech Companies that like to screw around with customers and such. Nothing like bad publicity to get someones butt in gear.

The E-Mail is "watchdogATmaximumpcDOTcom"

You can pick up a copy of Maximum PC to see the kind of stuff they go after aswell.

[Atrocities]

After Talking with SJ I went to BFGtech.com and sent an email to their customer service. Today at around 2 pm PST they called me at home.

The lady also said she sent me an email and apologized for the problem and could not understand what had happened.

I have not yet recieved the email and doubt whether or not she sent one. I think that she wanted to talk to me and "get a feel" for who I was.

At any event she stated that they would send a new check within 72 hours and would reinburse for the bank charges.

Lets see if they do.

[PvK]

Ya, that stinks.

I have seen a number of sleazy mail-in rebate examples. Their art of finding excuses to not pay the rebate is getting better. Meanwhile, they will no doubt collect and sell your address and other info if they can. I had one where I mailed in the UPC symbol as requested and they rejected it saying I hadn't sent in the UPC symbol. They are not just playing the old game of "most people won't bother to actually do the rebate". Some are trying to expand into "if we drag our heels and offer B.S. reasons for rejection, many more people will not bother to dispute it".

Another borderline example: I bought a monitor from CompUSA (die, CompUSA!) which had a rebate. Wife tosses out the cardboard box the next day, and recycling carts it away ... yep, the rebate requires the UPC on the box. I go back to CompUSA, and they are zero help. Although I prove to them with my receipt that I bought the monitor from them, they refuse to communicate with the company to validate the sale so I can get the rebate. The rebate company rep eventually gets me to do some nonsense where I get CompUSA to sign something saying I did buy the monitor from me, but then later the rebate company denies having said that, and that it would never be accepted.

It's basically customer abuse. Bait and switch. Promise something and then do whatever disservice it takes to minimize the number of actual payouts, while collecting as much information as possible.

I think I've just about reached my limit - no more expecting to actually receive any rebates, and chosing non-mail-in-rebate products over others, even if they're more expensive.

PvK