Western Digital at Outpost.com tactics

[smf96822]

Ordered the WD80 gig 7200 HD with intent to invoke 75 dollar rebate. They sent me an OEM drive and later customer service (first call) said basically "tough luck" the rebate is for the retal product. Nice lady glad to have not known.

Second call the guy was courteous, and knowledgable. He said there was some mistake made and said athe correct drive will be sent asap. Could not just mail me the UPC sticker from retail box.


Anyway seems like it may have been a "rebait and switch". Did this happen to anyone else?

 

[MTVsucks]

i think you mean, bait and switch...
but rebate and switch might be a better term for this forum..

 

[smf96822]

No,
I mean precisely "rebait and switch" intentionally.

I guess there is a fair % of people that won't pursue the issu further and just accept full price.

No anyone on this forum though.


Regards

 

[randomlinh]

was it advertised as retail? was the rebate even advertised w/ that product? cause it seems that everything needs to be specified.. cannot assume anything... ie the lexar 128MB.. it didn't specifically say retail.. just showed the picture. ended up being OEM. It seems very much along the lines of ebay...

 

[Bang4DaBuc]

I ordered a retail 120BB Gig 7200 retail for $300 with a $100 rebate and they sent me the 120JB retail for that price. I got the rebate too. A coworker bought the 80 gig retail during the $75 rebate and he got the retail version.

 

[kbee69]

Yes, the hardrive was suppose to be retail. I have a printed order confirmation that says retail kit. Of course it does me no good because they claim to have no record of my order. CSR was trying to blame me for putting in wrong shipping info (like bad zip code), that would cause a order to be bounce out of thier system even when I told him I was looking at it and it was correct. After not accepting his inadeqaute excuses he took my information so a supervisor could call me back, that was almost 24 hours ago and no call.

 

[randomlinh]

well then, that's a different story. just try to calmly talk to the supervisor.. consitantly bug to get in contact.. but do not blow up. that won't help you all too much. showing you're an angry customer, ok.. but don't just explode gl

 

[kzochert]

Sorry, but but how is this a good deal or relevant to good deals?

While I'm posting, nice pun smf96822.

 

[meefmah]

kbee69: If you can't get satisfaction through the vendor, then put the transaction in dispute with your credit card company. If you can, save everthing, packing list, shipping carton, invoice, etc. It's like pulling teeth, but once the credit card company is involved, the vendor will have to deal with them. Remember, when in dispute, documentation will be your friend, assuming you are right and the vendor did something unreasonable.

 

[djlevyii]

Also, most vendors won't dispute the charge back as it costs them money to.

I have yet to have a vendor whose charge I have disputed do anything about it.

I even disputed a Staples charge when they screwed up the rebate. The ad said "Free after Rebate" and they wouldn't honr the rebate so I disputed the entire charge and never heard anything about it other than the credit on my charge card statement.

Keep good records and provide the credit card compnay with a copy of everything.