In general I've poo-pooed the rebate naysayers in this newsgroup, but a
recent experience with "Staples Easy Rebates" has left me with second
thoughts about the whole rebate thing.  In short, I bought a $50
product from Staples on February 28, 2005.  The product was eligible
for a $10 cash rebate, which I submitted correctly through
www.stapleseasyrebates.com later the same day.  Parago, Staples' rebate
processing vendor, is refusing to pay me the $10.  Their claimed
reasons for doing so make no sense and contradict the tracking
information about my submission that is visible to me on
www.stapleseasyrebates.com.  I can't figure out whether their behavior
is massively incompetent or purposefully dishonest, but in either
case, it's simply not acceptable.

I've posted the entire story at
http://www.mit.edu/~jik/staples-story/, which I'm keeping current with
updates as they occur.

Yes, I could do that, but as I told the guy who suggested
that I call them on the phone, that's not really the point.
The way Parago has handled my rebate submission is simply
not acceptable by any definition.  I'm no longer fighting
with them to get my $10, although to be sure I won't give up
until I get it somehow.  I'm fighting with them to shine some
light on their incompetence and/or dishonesty in an effort to
make some progress, however small, toward putting a stop to
it.

Frankly, what they *want* you to do is to find some workaround
like "call on the phone" or "ask the store manager for a gift
card" so that they can keep abusing *most* people into not
getting their rebates and only have to pay off the few who
make a big stink.  If you let them get away with that, you're
part of the problem.

"larry moe 'n curly" <larrymoencu...@my-deja.com> writes:

First of all, I've heard plenty of stories of people getting
stuck on the phone for an hour or more to get one of these
issues resolved.  No thanks.

Second, if I call them, I've got no non-repudiable record of
what transpired.  That's not acceptable, especially given the
tendency of the rebate processors to demand proof of
everything, sometimes repeatedly, as one of their techniques
for avoiding paying out rebates.

Third, this has reached the point where it's no longer only
about the $10, it's about taking a stand and not letting
Staples and Parago get away with treating people like this.
The point is that I was treated badly by e-mail, and that's
got to be stood up to whether or not I would have been
treated better had I called.

Did you try phoning them?  I've had much better luck by phoning than by
e-mailing.  In fact I can't think of a single instance where a rebate
problem of mine was solved through e-mail.

Your summary of my story is inaccurate.  If it were accurate,
I'd be a lot less upset than I am now.

Their Web site claims that they sent me a check which has
cleared.  In contrast, they've asserted in repeated e-mails to
me over several weeks that I the rebate offer to which I
responded has as an option the choice of a gift instead of a
rebate, and that I chose to receive the gift.  So we've got
(a) them claiming that the offer to which I responded had an
option which in fact it did not, (b) them claiming that I
made a choice when submitting my rebate request that not only
didn't I make, but I *couldn't* have made since that choice
did not exist when I submitted the request, (c) them making
claims that are flat-out contradicted by the information that
I can see on their Web site, (d) them making these claims
over and over again despite the fact that I've pointed out to
them over and over again that they're wrong, and (e) them
refusing to even acknowledge, let alone address, my
assertions that their claims are incorrect.

This goes way beyond a simple lost check.  This is monumental
incompetence by a number of different people (since a number
of different people at Parago have responded to my e-mails and
have all made the same mistakes listed above), and/or a
corporate policy which prevents them from doing the
independent thinking and research necessary to verify that the
claims they're making are wrong, and/or intentional dishonesty
to avoid paying me the rebate they owe me.

I admit that the later possibility is unlikely, but I'm a lot
more likely to believe it now than I was before this fiasco.
In any case, even if what's going on does not reflect
intentional dishonesty, it's still completely unacceptable,
and I'm going to do everything I can to fight against it.

Some people look for the best way to solve the problem for
them.  I look for the best way to solve the problem for
everyone else, so other people don't have to experience the
problem I experienced.

No.  I'm not aiming for the results you seem to think I'm
aiming for.

Do you really think I'd be devoting this much time to this if
it were just about the $10?  My time is worth a lot more than
that.

As I've said several times already, what I'm trying to do is
to stop Staples and Parago from putting other people through
what they've put me through.  The treatment I've suffered at
their hands is unacceptable, and I don't think they should be
allowed to continue treating people that way.

Going to the store or calling Parago on the phone to get my
rebate is treating the symptoms, not treating the disease.

Since I've made this particular point several times in several
different ways now, I'm going to stop wasting my time
repeating myself.  To those of you who want to keep
criticizing me for trying to make the world a better place for
other people, hey, knock yourselves out.

If you want to do that, then posting here does no good. File
your complaints with the FTC and others and hope for the best.
What you're describing is rare (I've never heard of a similar
complaint, and I have heard of a lot of them) and you already
know that emailing them is not resolving the problem.

Bill

Yuck, so much rhetoric. First, you should just tell people here
that the initial issue was that they sent you a check and it
claimed to be cashed and you said you never received it. Of
course, you claim they probably never sent it (very unlikely
from my experience) and are trying to rip you off and things
have gotten progressively worse from there.

I would suggest a) call Parago. You claim you want proof so you
don't want to call but what are you getting in all that crap
you've been exchanging with them via email? Certainly no
satisfaction. so it should be obvious that you need to try
another approach (I do not consider your posting here as
qualifying). If that does not work, b) I would just go visit
your local Staples store, as someone else recommended. Hopefully
the manager will see the problems you've had and will give you
the refund, or maybe a gift card for the amount (which, while
not as good as cash at least provides somewhat of a resolution.

You could also try c) contact Staples customer service via email
but I am not sure how much success you'll have there. There is a
Staples Office of the President that is generally good with
problems but I don't know that you can email them. You can
probably find their number via Google, or if not I know it's on
Fatwallet.com.

Bill

I disagree.  Posting here and in other public forums about
the problems I've experienced has three beneficial effects:

1) It puts pressure on Staples and Parago to clean up their
act.  Reputable companies don't like to look bad in public.
Parago may be disreputable (it's not entirely clear to me),
but I certainly would call Staples a reputable company.  They
*will* care about Parago's behavior being widely publicized.
The more people get treated that way by Parago and publicize
it, the more Staples will care.  Silence is the enemy of
reform.

2) Some people decide not to patronize businesses based on
negative information they learn about them.  In my research on
rebate problems, I've found several instances in which people
indicated that they have stopped patronizing a particular
business because of its shady rebate practices.  Staples uses
"Easy Rebates" to attract customers; why shouldn't I do the
opposite and thus give them a financial incentive to clean up
their act?

3) Lots of people in this newsgroup have taken the position
that all the rebate companies are legit and the people who
aren't getting their rebates must be doing something wrong.
Until recently I mostly believed that as well, but my
experience at Parago has convinced me otherwise.  I think it
is necessary and appropriate to provide documented cases
where rebate processors behave inappropriately to rebut the
claims that this never happens.

Already done.

You really have no way of knowing how rare what happened to me
is, since as we've already discussed, most people to whom
this happens either give up, call and get it straightened out
on the phone, or go to the store and get it straightened out
there.

I could easily make the opposite argument and say that if it
happened to me, then given how many millions of rebate
submissions Parago processes, it clearly must be happening to
other people as well.

Finally, even if it's true that the specific thing that went
wrong in my rebate submission is rare, the fact of the matter
is that a reputable company needs to have policies and
procedures in place to be able to handle in an appropriate
fashion whatever rare situations come up.  It's clear that
Parago doesn't have such policies and procedures; in fact, it
appears that their policies and procedures encourage their
employees to behave inappropriately.  This means that even if
the specific lossage that happened to my rebate never happens
to anyone else, other rare lossages will happen to other
rebates, and those will be handled inappropriately just like
mine was.

Bad cell plan that makes you pay for toll-free numbers?

Parago has never taken anything close to an hour, but they're busiest
on Monday mornings.  Middle of the day is usually fastest.

Tape recorder -- legal in most states, even without the other party's
permission or knowledge.  Also Parago's weasel factor rating is much
lower than TCA Fulfillment's and Best Buy's.  You couldn't do worse
than you have been with e-mail.  E-mail usually results in lots of
general answers that don't address my specific case or that ignore what
I've already told them (even if it's quoted back in the reply).

www.bbb.org , www.ftc.gov (complain against Parago, Staples, and the
company behind the rebate product), and www.staples.com (tell the
latter that you've gotten nowhere by talking directly to Parago).

I'm amazed that you've had time to amass all the email at the web site in only
two months.  I think that somehow they made a typo entering SOMETHING which
dropped you into the wrong hopper.  That happened to me once, and the guy on
the other the of the telephone figured out the problem and solved it within
two minutes.  Took another couple of weeks for the check to arrive, but we
can't have everything.

Give the phone call a try.  You've already spent hours on this project, so why
not blow another one on the phone?  If that gives no satisfaction, bundle up
everything you've got, haul it into the Staples store and insist that the
manager (call ahead to find out his name and make sure he's there) pay you the
$10.

--
Cheers,
Bev
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rule 18:  Always tip your hat before striking a lady.