Fry's/Outpost.com Rebate fraud

[ladman]

Rebates are at best inconvenient. I never allow a rebate to determine my purchasing decisions. I have had issues with CompUSA and others in the past with rebates. In fact I took CompUSA to court over it and they settled for the full amount outside of the courtroom. I have since spent $26,000 in computer related equipment and not a dime went to them.

[batrastard]

I have at least 4 rebates outstanding from items purchased at Fry's Electronics -- and was told by whereismyrebate.com that 2 of the manufacturers are now out of business and I'm out of luck.

I'm convinced that Fry's is aware that such occurances happen but just doesn't care -- listing a rebate on their sales signs helps them sell more products. Seems to me that this would constitute fraudulent behavior...

Has anyone actually filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission or CA State Attorney General's Office regarding non-payment of rebates due? Who did you contact and what happened when you did?

[rebHQsux]

Hey,

I almost got ripped off by RebatesHQ, too.

The one 'good' subset of feedback people seemed to have for them was for staples-related purchases. Well, I'm here to contradict 'em.

In late march, I bought a 120gig maxtor drive with a big staples rebate.

My copies (keep 'em all) show an april 3rd sent date. Deadline for the rebate is something like May 10 (don't have them with me).

Went surfin' to verify rebates (I always have a stack of 'pendings' and who sent a rebate gets lost in the shuffle at times) recently and rebatesHQ's website said I'd failed to postmark it in time.

Nowhere on their site could I find an 800 number. However the postcard had one. Their full contact information is:

Resubmissions, Department 03-55632 (no doubt a cookie to my rebate?)
POBox 028516
Miami, FL 33102-8516

phone: 888-241-6208

The phone system is from hell. Most paths deadend. But here's the shortcut:

Press *, then 2 (more than 6 weeks ago), then 2 (track via rebate tracking number on your postcard), then * again. Wait for a message about checking rebates online, then thru a long long pause (4 seconds?). Then you'll get a message saying you're in the queue to talk to a live person.

Long story short, true to a bunch of posts here, they put me on hold for a while, then announced without explanation that a mistake was made and that they'd send me the rebate in 4-6 weeks. All I did was say that I didn't believe that even the US postal service could lose my rebate request for a month before properly postmarking it and submitting it and that I wanted them to send or fax me a copy of the postmarked envelope for confirmation.

Good luck, and thanks for the great feedback here, everyone. Data like this is what gets us a nice class-action lawsuit or some state attorneys-general filing suit.

oh, and my nick says it all: RebatesHQ sucks!

[summars]

Yes, I got scammed by Fry's Electronics #37 in Irving, TX.
They gave me an invaild $50 rebate form for a
Canon PIXMA IP1500 printer.

Canon denied the rebate, and Fry's has ignored all
of my inquiries into the problem.

Fry's could not produce the proper rebate form ,
which leads me to suspect that they are engaging
in fraud (i.e. claim a rebate exists and provide a
counterfiet rebate form).
Also, the rebate form could not be found anywhere
on the web. I believe I'll report it to the BBB and
the Attorney General, since I've heard of many others
having the same problem.

I usually receive my rebates, but I'm always
hearing about people that never receive their
rebates. Thus, I'll be reluctant to participate in
any more purchases involving rebates.....
especially at Fry's Electronics.