In February of I bought from CompUSA a refurbished Hewlett Packard Printer, model HP7550, on the basis that it had a $70 rebate. I also purchased the extended warranty plan good for 2 years.
I had a number of rebates/purchases going at the time, and was meticulous with each one as always. I always read the fine print, include the UPC codes, the rebate receipts, and rebate forms/coupons.
Late in March, I rec'd a letter from CompUSA stating that the rebate was rejected because I hadn't sent in my UPC code off the box. The letter said to return the letter with the missing item (s) by April 7th.
Fact is, this is a downright lie, or at the very least, gross incompetence on their end for losing the UPC code.
One only has to use reason to realize that it would be extremely difficult to *not* send in the UPC code, as the heavy cardboard is by far the thickest thing in the envelope. It would be immediately noticable upon mailing that it was missing, more so than any other item.
I regardless, I quite distinctly remember mailing it in, just as I remember cutting the box and preparing everything else.
That's $70, after all, not chump change.
The real rub is, of course, the fact that I cannot send in the UPC code as requested because I already did! I no longer have it to send in, they do. Not only that, but I kept that huge box around for weeks before I finally decided it was safe to put out, so I no longer have the box, either. I usually do try to hold on to things like that for warranty's sake but I'm running out of space for that kind of thing in my small house.
To dispute this, I called the 888 number and very sternly, but without offensive language, told them that I had in fact mailed the UPC code to them, and they are mistaken. The rep said she would put in a request to have the envelope pulled from the warehouse to double check.
Having no other option but thinking that was unlikely to yield results, I agreed to call back in the 2 weeks they said they needed. (!) (which I thought was a ridiculous amount of time) For reasons I stated above, you can't miss the UPC code, so I doubted that they'd "find" anything.
I ended up giving them 3 weeks, (no call or mail from them), and when I finally called back, the girl I spoke to said nothing was in the computer about a pull, nobody knew anything about it, but she would put it in, but it takes 5 to 10 business days...
Yeahhhh, I see where this is going.
I'm going to call again tomorrow to see how that worked out, (they've had their time) but I'm fairly certain that somehow that order got lost in the wind too.
Naturally, the other point of irony is that I have a receipt, I have proof that I purchased the printer and the date that I did, yet it look likes they have no intention of honoring the rebate.
Don't fall for rebates from COmpUSA!
Why would a store need to use rebates anyway? Why not just put it on sale? Mfg rebates are one thing, but store rebates simply don't make sense, unless, of course, the whole point is to get you in the store and find a reason to make you pay the full price.
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