Received $300 free gas offer in return for attending a time-sucking vacation time share pitch in Orlando. This was back in June when gas was going up each night, and hey, every couple should try the time-share grinder at least once... It really bonds you together in rage and frustration!
So the deal turns out to be a complex affair involving printing out and mailing tiny certificates requesting $25 gift cards for every $100 worth of gas you purchase. You have to send in 4% first, too, as some sort of application fee (that should have been my first clue). The gas has to be from the same seller each month, and you can't send in your redemption coupons too early or too late. Assuming you have time to follow the rules, you then wait either either 28 or 54 days for your $25 card to show up. Then you get to see if the card really works to buy additional gasoline, as advertised. So far, it's all fantasy, since I am still waiting for a redemtion from gas I purchased in August.
Anyway, next step is to send a nastygram to the principal of Tidewater Marketing Crystal Clark, demanding my $25 from August, and my original $5 back. I want to spend that $5 for lunch at my local Backyard Burger, before it too, goes out of business. Clark has a deplorable record with the Better Business Bureau, (for whatever good they do) and it looks like there is an active investigation with the Florida Attorney General's office here http://myfloridalegal.com/lit_ec. Nsf/investigations/413FC15DB9CFC85385257488004EDACB.
Oh well... Great learning experience, and my education cost only $5 (I'm not counting my time!). I'm interested in a class-action lawsuit, if any other readers care to investigate the possibility with me. I suppose Ms. Clark and the other principals at Tidewater Marketing have a number of assets they have obtained fraudulently that might be seized and auctioned off to redistrubute the wealth, as our President-elect might say.
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