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Circuit City changes rebate terms after the fact, rejects submissions
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By MisterBill, Section Live Gripes
Posted on Wed Jan 12, 2005 at 07:25:37 PM PDT
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Circuit City seems to make a practice of changing their rebate terms (such as expiration date) after already starting the promotion.
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Circuit City seems to make a practice of changing their rebate terms (such as expiration date) after already starting the promotion. In the case of their program YA515, here they made two changes. First, they added the lovely little words "(In-Store Only)" to the form, even though some of the items had been listed on their website as available for ordering with the rebate. Then, they shortened the date of the rebate to 12/22, after originally offering it until 12/31. The 12/31 date had been printed on rebate forms for items purchased in the store, and in fact was still shown on the online printable form, although they did change the online submission version to show the 12/22 date, and new purchases did not get rebate forms printed. Now, what is particularly interesting about YA515 is that there are over a dozen different items on it, and it's not unreasonable to expect that a customer would see the additional items available on the form and want to go back to get another one. Plus, the printable form on their website continued to show the 12/31/04 expiration date until January 5th, 2005, almost a full week after the original expiration date had passed, and two weeks after the modified expiration date. By the way, here's what the original rebate form looked like.
Circuit City had started rejecting program YA515 rebate submissions for online purchases, but apparently has gotten enough complaints that they will now approve them if you call and complain, and I believe that new submissions are being approved (I do not believe that the rejected ones are being automatically fixed, however). However, they have refused to acknowledge their mistake in shortening the rebate period and as a result rebates for items purchased on 12/23 and later are now starting to be rejected.
A similar problem exists with program YA510 here, except in that case, one of the two items on the rebate form was actually advertised as free after rebate on December 23rd, when the rebate was no longer valid. I'm sure we have not heard the last of that rebate, either. And lest you think these are isolated cases, I am told that Circuit City has made similar changes to rebate programs in the past.
Rebates are difficult enough for consumers without activity that borders on fraudulent. Sadly, Circuit City doesn't seem to feel that there is anything wrong with what they are doing. It's unfortunate, because on rebates that they don't play games with, they are generally pretty decent, paying quickly and not rejecting many valid submissions.
[editor's note, by Jeff Foster]Fixed formatting |
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