Canon rebate scam— Caveat Emptor with a modern twist
My rebate postcard from Canon, claiming missing items
I quoted the awful experience of an acquaintance of mine with Canon rebates in my Feb 11 blog entry. About six weeks ago, I submitted my own rebate form for three Canon items, including an EOS 5D. The rebate totaled $700, and I pre-qualified all the items online. I took a picture of the entire rebate submission, well aware of the difficulties reported by many people on the web.
Today I received a postcard from Canon (shown above) claiming that the receipt and warranty card were not included in my rebate submission! That’s rather odd, since they’re in the picture I took just before I stuffed them into the envelope! There is no mention of which of the 3 item(s) did not have the required receipts/cards. And I’m given until May 3 to produce them (again).
That is the way the scam works—it’s a percentage game—some postcards will be lost, it won’t be worth the hassle for some people, some people will have sent in the originals without a record, etc. No matter what, the rebate company makes extra money—my $700 could pay the wages of a claims representative (phone bouncer) for several days.
When I phoned, I was told that I must send in the “missing” items. I asked why I had to send them in again, since I had sent them in once already. I asked them to fax me their records of what they claimed I had sent in. I was told they didn’t do that. I asked how they could claim that I hadn’t sent the items in if they had no records. I was told again I must send in the “missing” items.
Finally, the bouncer (aka “claims representative”) asked if I wanted to speak to a supervisor. I said yes, and within a few minutes a new voice came on the line and said my claim was approved.
Incredulous, I asked how that could be, since I had just been told 2 minutes prior that items were missing from my rebate submission and that I would be required to send them in again. I was told that it was an “internal error in our systems”.
Quite interesting--an internal error. Their systems magically worked once I called to complain and asked to speak to a supervisor. As a software engineer, I’d be pleased as punch if system bugs just magically fixed themselves this way.
If I had time on my hands, I’d file a class action lawsuit against Canon, which bears the real responsibility in this matter.
