Right after Christmas, Consumer World promoted a deal on a SensorGel pillow at Macy’s as “Bargain of the Week.” It was $20, but there was a $20 full price rebate.
In January, MrConsumer’s own rebate submission was denied by the rebate fulfillment house indicating that no receipt was received. Of course I had included it. Calling them quickly revealed that indeed they had my receipt in their records, and the rebate was approved.
Then in February, some consumers contacted me saying that their rebate was denied because they purchased the pillow online rather than in the store. Here is what one consumer was told when he engaged the rebate folks in a chat session:
After complaints like this starting coming in, we checked the fine print of the offer on the rebate form.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Clearly, right on the rebate form itself, both online and in-store purchases were permitted for this rebate.
Since it appeared that many purchasers may have had their rebates wrongfully denied, we contacted Macy’s PR folks, asking them to investigate, and if they discovered that customers were indeed owed money, that they honor those submissions. After multiple contacts, Macy’s did not reply to our inquiries.
So, MrConsumer had to use some back-channel methods to get Macy’s to do the right thing. He contacted the former CEO of Parago, the rebate fulfillment house that Macy’s uses, to ask her help. This remarkable woman dropped everything eight years ago to address a similar problem with a Norton rebate. She did the same again by contacting the new CEO at Blackhawk Network, the new owner of the fulfillment house.
A week later, a representative of Blackhawk called to say that after discussion with Macy’s and a review of all the denied rebates, they are making good for some 150 customers! And they are also going to more accurately state on the rebate form when an offer is restricted to in-store or online sales only.
