DEAD: ONE MORE REBATE-Last Day! - get dell dimenstion 8250 P4 2.4G for MAYBE $60!!

[GtPrOjEcTX]

Originally posted by: hans007
i got an email, thats how i knew, the deadline to do it was like 2 weeks ago, so you may be in for some arguing with csrs.

hmm, i never did get an email discussing what you're talking about...never sent any Student ID in either...hmm

 

[DoubleHelix747]

3 of my other rebates have already processed and rebatestatus.com is showing checks mailed on 2/19/03. However for the $200 rebate I have the follwoing message -

Promotion: Dimension $100/$200 Rebate
Department: 036668
Status: We have received your submission. We were unable to process your submission for the reasons indicated below.
Unfortunately, your Customer Account Number and Order Number are not valid.
You will receive a letter or postcard explaining this problem. The letter or postcard may have additional instructions on how to correct this problem.

I received the postcard with identical message and no instructions on what to do next.

I don't understand - all rebates were submitted with copy of same packing slip. I have called Dell and they had me going into loops until I gave up... Any suggestions?

 

[ai42]

Hey for those of you who got the rebates how long did it take for the rebates to get to you guys?

I have 2 sets of rebates 2x sent 2/19/03 2x sent 2/24/03. I haven't seen any of them yet.

 

[kaizersozei]

I received my $200 and $170 rebate today. I sent them in at the beginning of Dec.

 

[BlueMysticWarrior]

I got the $200 and $170 too. I get that same invalid number message for the other ones. I called, and they told me that an e-mail would be sent about the whole ID business, but guess what, I have not yet recieved it. Is everyone riding this out? Dell keeps on giving me the whole wait two weeks deal,and I getting tired of it.

 

[abaez]

I sent mine at the end of december and four of them are all shipping except the earlybird which everyone got rejected for.

 

[Madib]

The OFFICIAL DELL STATEMENT on the 8250 Rebates

The following was posted on the Dell Customer Care Forum this morning by Dell-Chandler, the moderator of the forum....


?In late November of 2002, for a short period of time, Dell's Employee Purchase Program and Faculty, Student and Staff divisions offered a series of rebates on the Dimension 8250. Rebates totaling $510 were offered generally to all eligible Faculty, Students and Staff, enabling eligible customers to obtain an amazing deal on a high-end Dell desktop -- with after-rebate prices starting at approximately $300 if customers didn't opt for available memory or hard drive upgrade promotions.

In addition, there were two other rebates -- for $100 each -- which Dell offered only by email to a small group of eligible participants. The emails contained a special, private url to allow these select customers access to the forms and rebate details. Unlike other Dell rebates, Dell engaged in no public advertising or promotion of these rebates, other than the emails sent directly to eligible customers. Unfortunately, the rebate forms for these two rebates were posted on a public website, FatWallet.com, without Dell's authorization or knowledge. As a result, some customers came to the erroneous conclusion that they were eligible for an additional $200 in rebates and gained unauthorized access to the forms via the posting on the web.. .

Dell is committed to treating its rebate customers fairly and appropriately, but we also need to protect ourselves against unauthorized use of our rebates. We strive to provide to all eligible customers who apply the full rebates to which they are entitled. In particular, we are happy to redeem $510 in rebates to eligible Faculty, Student, and Staff customers who purchased the Dimension 8250 fulfilling the rebate criteria during the rebate period. We will not honor, however, rebate applications from ineligible customers stemming from the unauthorized posting on FatWallet.com.

We do regret the confusion and inconvenience that resulted from this unauthorized web posting, and we are taking measures designed to prevent this unfortunate incident from recurring. We also recommend that our customers obtain their information about Dell offers and promotions directly from Dell, rather than from third parties."


Link to Dell forum message

 

[knightc2]

Can they do this? It would seem that no matter where someone found this information, it was indeed still a rebate from DELL. Had somebody purchased a computer they would have done so based on the availability of this (and other) rebates. For DELL to just say sorry no rebate for you seems like a bad, if not illegal, business practice. By the way, I did not get in on this deal so I don't know the extent of the rebate(s) in question, but I would think that DELL would have a difficult time determining legitimate recipients of the rebate and those that found it at F@tw@llet. Anyway, good luck to those that are still waiting on their rebates.

 

[abaez]

Dell's thinking is screwy on this. It looks like they thought that by sending a link to a pdf file (the 36179 earlybird rebate) in an email to a select group of customers that the pdf file is ONLY for them. But since its on their public server anyone outside that select group of email recipients can get that pdf file. They are making the excuse that anyone outside that group got it from somewhere illegal which is funny because it's STILL on their servers for anyone to grab and print out if you know the url. Dell made the mistake of thinking that only the email recipients would be able to use this.

Well I'm getting my other 4 rebates but I think this could swing either way. This is sort of like that hot deal awhile ago with computers4sure where if you clicked on the bunny on the page you would get 20 or 200$ off or something like that, but then someone posted a direct link to finding the bunny and computers4sure had a mess on their hands they didn't mean for it to happen that way but it did.

 

[Kwad Guy]

This actually brings up an interesting point of law. If information exists somewhere on a public website, is that information de facto public information? The rebate forms for the two rebates Dell is claiming were "private" rebates were posted in publicly accessible sections of their website. Does that make them public information?

This could perhaps hinge on the question: Could someone have legitimately happened upon these rebates without the pointers provided by forums like Anandtech and F*twallet? If so, I think it's basically a no-brainer that these rebates would be considered public information and hence Dell would have to abide by the terms of the rebates. On the other hand, if there is no reasonable way that someone surfing the Dell web site would ever have found these rebates, then it is a harder (and more interesting) question. And lest someone argue that "of course, if they are in a publicly accessible part of the web site they are public information", consider the following scenario: A private password protected section of a website. That's not public knowledge, right? But it's conceivable that someone might randomly navigate to that part of the website and then, when prompted for a password, might randomly guess the right password. Now, let's assume said surfer is rather naive, and doesn't understand that a password protected website is not supposed to be public information. Instead, (s)he thinks that the password request is just part of how the website is supposed to work. So this surfer, without malice, has now entered the restricted part of the website by chance. There's not a lot of difference between that and the person who, through happenstance, comes across a rebate that is on a public website, but could not be found or reached through any links on the website.

The interesting legal question may well be mitigated, however, by the fact that Dell CSRs were telling customers during the sale period that all five rebates would apply to their purchase. If anyone can document that the CSRs were telling people that, then I think Dell pretty much loses in court. But does anyone have proof of this? A taped phone coversation or else email during the sale period?


Kwad

 

[Tom]

I'm sure several people recorded their conversations, but it shouldn't really be necessary.

Unless Dell decides to encourage their employees to commit perjury there wouldn't be any question that Dell was telling customers they were eligible for all 5 rebates, both at the time of the sale, and for weeks and weeks after.

 

[TheDiggler]

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail I received DIRECTLY FROM DELL before my system even shipped:

The following are the promotions for which you are entitled:

DIMENSION PROMOTIONS: ( 11/21 - 11/26)

1. Additional $200 mail in rebate on Dimension 8250........11/21-11/26 ( ONLINE ONLY) 2. Choice of free memory upgrade from 256 MB to 512 MB on Dimension 8250 OR Discounted memory greater than 512 MB OR $170 mailIn rebate.......11/21-11/26 3. Choice of free hard drive upgrade from 30 GB to 120 GB on Dimension 8250/4550 OR Discounted hard drives greater than 120 GB on Dim 8250/4550 OR $140 mail in rebate.......11/21-11/26 ( ONLINE ONLY)

In addition, there is the "early bird" rebate and the "holiday" rebate.

 

[abaez]

DIggler thats what we are saying.. did they send you an email about the earlybird rebate? How did you get it? If you got it from here on at or at fw Dell is saying you should not have gotten it it was only for a select group of people.

Read kwads post very insightful.

 

[dAv]

In addition, there were two other rebates -- for $100 each -- which Dell offered only by email to a small group of eligible participants. The emails contained a special, private url to allow these select customers access to the forms and rebate details. Unlike other Dell rebates, Dell engaged in no public advertising or promotion of these rebates, other than the emails sent directly to eligible customers. Unfortunately, the rebate forms for these two rebates were posted on a public website, FatWallet.com, without Dell's authorization or knowledge. As a result, some customers came to the erroneous conclusion that they were eligible for an additional $200 in rebates and gained unauthorized access to the forms via the posting on the web.. .

If this is their argument, why are they paying the holiday rebate and not the early bird?

Also, are they not responsible for their CSR's telling people that these two rebates are valid?
How do they know which customers were told that all five rebates were valid by their own people?
Are they going to go through thousands of recorded conversations to sort that out?

 

[kp1126]

RebateStatus shows that my other $100 rebate just received the same 036179 message.

 

[TheDiggler]

Originally posted by: abaez
DIggler thats what we are saying.. did they send you an email about the earlybird rebate? How did you get it? If you got it from here on at or at fw Dell is saying you should not have gotten it it was only for a select group of people. Read kwads post very insightful.

I read kwad's post. That's why I posted the excerpt from the e-mail Dell sent me. As I said before, that e-mail was sent to me BEFORE MY SYSTEM SHIPPED. It was that e-mail message from Dell which brought to my attention those other two rebates. I managed to locate the rebate forms by searching Dell's web-site, Google, and/or Yahoo. At the time I found all sorts of links (at various places); however, I only used rebate forms linked directly to Dell's web-site.

 

[kp1126]

Not sure if its been asked...but you don't happen to be a part of their "legitimate" group?

 

[ElGuache]

Well, I got two of the rebates and the other two are in their way, but still I think that we should be able to get the other rebate, since it was their mistake and not ours.

 

[Wildcats]

Originally posted by: ElGuache
Well, I got two of the rebates and the other two are in their way, but still I think that we should be able to get the other rebate, since it was their mistake and not ours.

I suggest we wait until we all get the "minimum" $510. Maybe Dell has more bad "surprises" in store for us?? In my case, Dell only appears to have an issue (so far) with # 036179.

The issue here, of course, is the word "eligible". Since the form did not indicate which colleges, etc. were not eligible, it certainly could be expected that many of us would assume we were eligible.

I'd guess that a judge/jury could go either way. Since so many of us DO expect to get ALL of the rebates, it is clear that Dell was NOT clear. In that case, I'd suspect that we'd win the case.

Now, how to file? A Small Claims Court fee is about $45 or so, and the "loser" pays the fee. Meaning that if you lose, you lose $45. If you win, you get your $45 back. Possibly, Dell would "see the light" before it gets that far.

First though, see if all of the "other" rebates arrive. Previously optimistic, I'm now a bit doubtful.....

 

[abaez]

All the other rebates seem to be arriving except the earlybird (For people who didn't have problems with Dell/rebatestatus getting them at least.) I know I've gotten the other 4 and for the earlybird I get the same your institution message. I think I still got a great deal $610 off an $800 computer. Everyone on fw is complaing to the ftc, bbb, etc etc I won't do any of that if I get the $100 rebate I'm happy if I don't I'm still happy. I know that a reporter for the boston globe or something like that is looking into writing a story, hopefully something like that can get Dell's attention.

 

[KingNothing]

Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch
I'm sure several people recorded their conversations, but it shouldn't really be necessary.

Unless Dell decides to encourage their employees to commit perjury there wouldn't be any question that Dell was telling customers they were eligible for all 5 rebates, both at the time of the sale, and for weeks and weeks after.

That's what I told a CSR today after she tried to tell me that I wasn't eligible for one of the rebates. I have the name and badge number of someone at Dell who told me, the day after I bought my 8250, in no uncertain terms, that I would get all 5 rebates totalling $710. The CSR put me on hold to talk to her supervisor, and when she came back on she said I'd be getting a credit direct to my Visa for that one, and checks for the other 4 within a month.

The point is, there's nothing on the rebate forms that says they're only for a select group of people. Plus the fact that Dell has reversed what they were telling their CSRs, and therefore us initially. We have every right to go after those 5 rebates.

 

[daMachine]

From what I've been reading on chubby wallet, most of the customers whose rebate status changed from "processing" within the last week are now being denied both the earlybird and the holiday rebates ($100+$100). And, calling d e l l seems to result in the CSR telling them the order to deny these rebates has come down from the "highest level of management" (or something to that effect).

Doesn't look good for anyone with the holiday and earlybird rebates still in processing.

 

[socooy]

<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I am curious to know if the "Original" Dell emails contained any clause that they could not be passed on to another "eligible" student from another institution.

i.e. My girlfriend gets the email, I don't, we both go to different schools, and she passes it on to me.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o></SPAN>

 

[Midlander]

Frankly, I'm at the end of my rope. Does anyone know the procedure for filing in small claims court? If I do business over the internet, can I file in my local court or do I need to file where Dell is located? Any lawyers out there who know how to go at this?

If I can file locally, I suggest we all begin the process. Dell will not be able to send representatives to that many courts. It will be more economical for them to do what they should have done in the first place--honor the rebates.

 

[DigDug]

I understand the frustration, but I don't see how you all are complaining about a deal you knew was too good to be true.
Chalk it up to greed, if anything - on Dell's part and yours.