Before I had a blog, I wrote this article about an incredibly bad experience trying to get a Staples rebate to which I was entitled. Read the article there, then comment here if you wish!
Something better to do
Musings of an indignant mind
![[Digg]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Email]](http://blog.kamens.brookline.ma.us/~jik/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Tip jar
Do you find my blog useful? Enlightening? Entertaining? Uproariously funny? Well, it takes a lot of work, so don't forget to
Thank you for your support!
Something better to do is proudly powered by
WordPress
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
I purchased HP computer cartriges at Staples about one year ago. At the time I didnt realize that the cartriges were defective. I had been printing things and it always came out pink. I finally figured out that these were defective and I called Staples and then I went to the store. When I went to the store I told them that there was never any yellow in any of the staples brand cartriges. The man said I needed my reciept and I told him that I bought them over a year ago and I didn’t have my reciept anymore. They could clearly see that the cartriges were Staples brand considering it was printed on the cartrige and the box but he still refused. My solution which I asked him if I could just exchange them for a different brand cartrige and he still refused.
I can’t believe Staples would do this. I am never shopping there again!
A few years back (~2005), we have purchased a printer cartage with a rebate for a free pack of photo paper. We submitted it “easy”rebates. After fighting them for a few weeks over email, we decided to go to the source (or at least a close to it as you can get) to get our paper. We went into the staples store in which we got the ink cartage. After briefly explaining our story to the store manager, he simply rolled his eyes and said “follow me”. He took us to the isle where the photo paper was and selected five or six different items ranging from $5-$15 each and said “sorry for our rebate issues, you can have these free of charge”. It was nice to see that someone actually cares about there customers. I bet if corporate found out who this was, they would have fired him for that. It’s sad when the location mangers are responsible for the corporate shortcomings.
staples information tells you to use the number on the rebate form but actually requires a separate number on the regular receipt. wonder how many people give up when they can’t make the online rebate work because the instructions are incorrect. I’ve had similar problems getting rebated from scandisk bought at office depot.
Can you say “outsourced”
Easy online rebate my ass, bought a cordless mouse and keyboard boxing week due to the $50 easy rebate, funny how after 6 separate phone calls over the last 2 and a half months including the last one where I spoke to a manager who assured me there would be no more errors and everything was fine only to call today to find out my rebate once again had errored out and now I would have to fax them my packing slip, and when I asked top speak to a manager again there were none available , how convenient ! I will never buy anything from Staples again and will tell everyone I know what a a bunch of crooks they are!
I bought a stapler (Swingline) at Staples only to have it jam on the second staple and every second one after that. I’ve spend hours digging staples out of the guide. When I took the stapler back to Staples at Dorval Drive in Oakville, Ontario on 18 April 2008, I was told they would not replace it because it was more than 30 days since I purchased it.
So I told the sales girl that if Staples doesn’t care more about my satisfaction, then I will take my business elsewhere. She looked at me as though she couldn’t possibly comprehend what service is nor what a customer might spend over a few years time. So, for the price of a $30 stapler, I’m taking my business to Grand & Toy and will give them the thousands of dollars I might otherwise spend at Staples.
I can’t believe how incredibly stupid the people who run Staples are.
6 months later I got my $50 rebate – and I guess I was one of the lucky ones! I can’t believe what people have had to go through, and if it weren’t for the large amount I would have quit trying. After the bogus online “status” reports, meaningless emails and phone messages I sent copies of Parago correspondence to Corporate and got a response. At first, they said the check had been rec’d and after a big hassle they said they would cancel and resend when I said I hadn’t gotten it. But miraculously!!! it was cashed the day before the 30 day waiting period to reissue!!! Then the hassle of trying to get a copy of this check – that’s when I sent copies to corporate. The same day they called me I finally got an email with a copy of the “cashed” check – with phony signature and not our bank. In fact, I went to B of A and they said it shouldn’t have been cashed at all, but they couldn’t tell me exactly where. When I didn’t get calls back from Corporate I left a message saying I would contact the District Attorney – that got me my check.
To anyone who thinks retailers are “stealing” from them,
Jonathan, I think that you should have paid more attention when filling out the online rebate. Maybe this would have prevented you from looking like a complete moron. As a “big box” retail manager, I know that you could have gone into your local store and calmly discussed the situation with the Store or Operations Manager–they would have given you a $10 instant rebate ON THE SPOT! Maybe there wasn’t such a rush to resolve your customer complaint because of how YOU handled the situation.
Consumers do NOT beware….Retail companies are finding any and every way to get your business and keep your business. There are enormous leaps and bounds to improve customer service. At one point, the only focus was on merchandising, nothing else. Now it is a worldwide corporate initiative to focus solely on customer service and improving customer satifaction. Keep in mind that this focus is still in an implementation phase. And why is this? Yes, outsourcing is a factor. Now every company, small and big, can compete on the lowest price. Whats left? Promotion, product, distrubution. Look at Lowes and Home Depot…you can buy ATV’s and basketball hoops from Lowe’s. I bet you didnt know that.(By the way, wanna know why Lowe’s is better? Their payroll is on average 1,500 hours more than Depot per week. Thats around 37 more employees in the store. Why is that? To improve customer service. DUHHHHHH!!!!) Anyway, whats left? Promotion and distribution. Walmart perfected distribution and supply chain management. Now every company is benchmarking this. Distribution is out of the picture. Whats left is promotion. This can be looked at in many ways…Promotion of product, promotion of store layout, etc., and most importantly, promotion of customer service! Fiber optics has made this a very flat world. Your taxes may even have the chance to be outsourced to India!!! There are many professionals there with MBA’s and whats their salary? $13,000-$25,000? most likely.
Ok, I went on a rant….but the most important thing is that retailers that have 1,000+ store, and even the small mom and pop stores, now need the share of your pocket as much as the share of the market. They will do ANYTHING, within reason, to keep their maximized share of the market and keep you as a loyal customer so that they can sell you projects, protection plans, attachments, etc….honestly selling projects and upselling helps the customer too. Would you go to Home Depot and just buy a gallon of paint? They are trained to sell you the project….Why? Let me ask you what the price of gas is per gallon in your area? Here it is $3.70 and projected to be over $4/gallon by Memorial Day. They will sell you the paint brush, paint tape, edgers, paint removers, PRIMER, paint trays, tray liners(best thing to ever buy when painting), and drop cloths. I bet that you didnt know you needed those to make your house look amazing for yourself or for trying to sell it in this crappy market…By the way, interest rates dropped slightly.
My point is this…..We know, I know, that YOU pay our paychecks. The crappy, uneducated employees do not realize this. They give good people like me a bad name. I try my best, as do many, to prescreen employees and train employees to be what you expect. Keep in mind that firing a retail employee is very hard to do. I’ve ran into an instance where I had a horrible employee and my HR mgr couldn’t do anything because his boss in corporate wouldn’t fire the associate (too many laws protecting employees-which are very good, except when it comes to a bad one that pisses off customers and brings down employee morale.) So, what happened is this kid, over 2 years, was put on 3 final notices. For the best interest of the customers, I found a way to no longer employ this associate before he was an even greater liability to the company.
We have to deal with a bunch of moronic, uneducated, starving for attention customers. If you are honest, calm, professional, and patient, we will always take care of you. I’m not a 24 year old manager in charge of $30 million in sales a year and another $12 million in long term and short term assets, have one of the highest comps in the division, and have the highest customers satisfaction stores in the division because I am a moron. I think you should take my advice over some person that doesn’t know how you fill out an online rebate form.
–Yeah, I have incorrect grammar, I incorrectly spell words, I don’t use punctuation in the correct places, I write run on sentences, whatever else. I dont care. I furthered my education in Business and not in being a wannabe middle school English teacher. Criticize me all you want. I know I am right…and I make a whole heck of a lot more money than anyone I graduated college with, and a lot more than a middle school english teacher.
-and for the people that say bog box retailer dont donate—–hows $5,000 to local school to build a playground and $3,500 to the united way, and $500 to a boy scout for one project, which 5 other small stores wouldn’t give him just in 6 months…that doesnt include how much the employees decide on their own to give out of their paychecks. My wife and I give to the United Way and to save abused animals every 2 weeks right out of our pay.. no saying, “not this week.” it’s a guarentee. people need to be a bit more giving. what Jonathan should have done was donate $1 per day to an oranization for every day it took before he got his $10 rebate. it would have proven a much larger point to the public through media than bitching. you sound like stewey from family guy…”where’s my money man? where’s my money?” humanity has been around since the early existence of humans. where did it go?
Wow, what an absurd rant.
You claim to be all about customer service, but you call me a moron and imply that I couldn’t handle the simple task of filling out an online rebate form properly (here’s news for you: I did fill out the form properly).
You claim to be all about customer service, and yet you describe your customers as “moronic, uneducated, starving for attention.” Here’s a clue for you: If that’s the attitude you have about your customers, it shows.
What happened to me was an example of outrageously bad customer service, and yet you claim that it was my fault. How, exactly, does that prove your point that retailers nowadays are all about good customer service?
Apparently to you, customer service means dismissing complaints from customers as “bitching” and insulting customers who complain.
Rebates are a scam. Rebate processing companies earn more money by paying out fewer rebates, and it has been proven that rebate processing companies intentionally “lose” and “mishandle” rebates to reduce their payout rate. Rebate processing companies have absolutely zero incentive to ensure that rebates are processed correctly and mistakes are corrected promptly when brought to their attention. What happened to me was ample proof of that, and to respond to my fight for justice by calling me names and ranting about how much your Lowe’s store loves customer service is just absurd.
i am a staples manager, and i just want to say I hate rebates as much as the next person. however, they are not going away. most of the rebates, even though the check and the form say staples or best buy or another retailer on them do not come from retailer directly. Every customer that has come in with an issue, and i will say thats only about 2% of the rebates that go out the door, i take care of personally through our system. What everyone has to remember is to be patient. rebates no matter if they are sent online or through the mail, take time to process. you are not the only one that has a rebate. there are thousands of rebates being processed at the same time.
and if you do have a rebate, please make copies of everything you send in. i have customers that come to me 12 months later with a reciept, no proof of a rebate and asks where is my rebate. i can’t help you if i don’t have anything to go on. and please do not come in guns blaring at the manager, the manager is not the one that denied your rebate.
I also have to say, i have gotten every rebate from every company i have ever sent. Not sure why some people get rejected and others don’t.
Lousy $10 rebate! It was confirmed back on Feb. 6 (Today is July 26), that I would get it within 4-6 weeks.
Six contacts with them, and still no rebate! I have written the MA Attorney General’s Office with a consumer complaint. They say they can’t act on every complaint, but if they get enough to see a significant pattern, they will take action.
Read that to mean that everybody with one of these nightmare stories about Staples Easy Rebates should write the MA Attorney General with a consumer complaint. You can get the form online.
Parago (the contractor doing Staples Easy Rebates) is located in Texas. I think I’ll write the AG there also! This is more that simple incompetence; it is deliberate deception. I expect they charge Staples for every rebate they claim to have mailed. Somebody is embezzling thousands of dollars. It ought to be investigated as a major criminal activity.
If I am going to take any of you seriously, I am going to need you to spell cartridge correctly, come on people, less complaining and more reading might do some of you well!!!!!!!!!!
The new version of a Staples scam is to send out a debit card that no merchant will honor. I recently received one and finally pitched in the garbage as it was decline by every vendor I presented it to for a purchase. Staples, what a joke.
It’s time someone did something about all of this. Can I ask anyone who has been burned by Staples’ reward or rebate programs, including the ink cartridge reward program email me at elm@wealthdesign.com I would like to hear your problem and see if I might do something about it.
Just to reply to Steve Hill,
The new debit card for rebate procedure works the same as a prepaid debit card does. You have to know the amount that is on the card and the retailer has to enter it as an exact amount. For example… If you walk in to wal-mart with a 25 dollar card and buy 36 dollars worth of items, the walmart cahier would have to input the card as 25 dollars. If ANY amount was used on the card than that amount woould have to be deducted before the amount was entered. This works the same as your checking accounts debit card, where if you had 10 dollars left in te account and a 5 dollar bill, the cashier would have to input 10 dollars for the debit first before entering the 5 dollars cash for a 15 dollar tab. Hope this helps, and this new debit procedure is far superior and is what the majority of consumers asked for from national tests. Not just from Staples.
I haven’t read all the posts, but I do know that I’m also waiting for a rebate from Staples and seem to be getting nowhere. The status of my rebate indicates that a ‘check has been printed and mailed’, yet I requested my rebate in Dec 2008 and it is now 3-20-09 and still no rebate.
I was just about to apply for my rebate on line when I saw this report. No thanks. I’m going to do a mail-in, copying everything first.
This reminds me of the time I ordered a pizza from a major chain and did not look at it before the driver left. It was gray, cold, and no tomato sauce or cheese. It took 5 letters, writing to the president of the company, etc. Finally I received the cost of the pizza, $15 in cash from someone in the field and 5 certificates for pizzas, which I gave away. Customer service may be dead. Ann in St. Paul
Gez how did you get it done so fast, once started the run around usually takes a lot longer.
trying to get a rebate can be hell, why don’t the stores just deduct the value of the rebate from your purchase? It would make life so much easier
They don’t just deduct the rebate at the register, because the entire business model of the rebate scam is predicated on the fact that lots of people who are eligible for rebates never apply for them. And then there are the people who apply for them but don’t notice that they never arrive because the rebate processing companies go out of their way to lose / reject as many rebates as possible for often bogus reasons. And then there are the people who apply for them, notice that they never arrived, try to get the problem rectified, and eventually give up because the rebate processing companies go out of their way to make it difficult to resolve problems (as my story so clearly illustrates).