My brother & I each bought a set of Columbia Telecommunications Group two way radios from Fry's on 6/20/03 for $25 with a $25 rebate. We each mailed our rebates in (we live in different towns) the next day. After 3 months had gone by and we hadn't received our rebates, I began to try to contact them. I never was able to reach them by phone and my emails went unanswered.
After another 3 months, I contacted Fry's where I purchased the radios and they began trying to contact the company.incidentally, Fry's has been very nice about the whole thing and has worked very hard to try to collect these rebates.
After 4 months of calling them, Fry's finally got a promise that our checks would be mailed out the next day. Fry's called me a week later to see if we had received the checks and when we hadn't, they called Columbia again. This went back and forth for another month until finally one day our checks for $25 showed up.
We each deposited them immediately and were grateful for having finally cleared this up. Nope, it wasn't over.
Today, a month after we cashed the checks, we received the checks back from our respective banks marked nonsufficient funds. Not only are we out the $25 rebate now but also the bank fees for returning these checks. I immediately called Fry's and they have requested that I bring the returned checks in to the store along with a statement from the bank showing the fees that were charged and they have promised to forward these to their home office where they will cut us a check for the rebate and the fees.
I don't understand how a company like Columbia that is repeatedly doing this can stay in business without the law doing something to stop this. If anybody wants to file a class action complaint against them with the Feds, I'm in. I will not criticize Fry's though because they have been super about the whole thing.
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