Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Amazon Rebate Pulled
- Thread starter arn
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Re: Re: False Advertising...?
First. No contract was entered into, no agreement was made, no money was exchanged. This lawsuit would be dismissed immediately. It is retarded.
Second. I see you have never bought anything from Amazon.com or the web as often times, you are allowed to pre order a product. OS X shot up to #1 very fast and stayed up there for days. If anyone decided to wait, it's their own damn lazy fault. Amazon doesn't get your money till it ships, you had plenty of time to preorder.
First. No contract was entered into, no agreement was made, no money was exchanged. This lawsuit would be dismissed immediately. It is retarded.
Second. I see you have never bought anything from Amazon.com or the web as often times, you are allowed to pre order a product. OS X shot up to #1 very fast and stayed up there for days. If anyone decided to wait, it's their own damn lazy fault. Amazon doesn't get your money till it ships, you had plenty of time to preorder.
LethalWolfe
macrumors G3
Re: fax me the rebate...
This is going to work how...? Amazon will know that you purchased the software AFTER cut off and it won't honor the coupon.
As to everyone who is mad... maybe you should have pre-order your copy and not sat around twiddling yer thumbs. If you bought it and THEN Amazon tried to say "oh on, we changed the rules" you'd have something to fight about. But companies can alter promotions anytime they want to and its totally legit as long as the people already participating the in promotion are still treated to the "original rules" and not the "new rules."
Lethal
This is going to work how...? Amazon will know that you purchased the software AFTER cut off and it won't honor the coupon.
As to everyone who is mad... maybe you should have pre-order your copy and not sat around twiddling yer thumbs. If you bought it and THEN Amazon tried to say "oh on, we changed the rules" you'd have something to fight about. But companies can alter promotions anytime they want to and its totally legit as long as the people already participating the in promotion are still treated to the "original rules" and not the "new rules."
Lethal
Amazon's response
Hello friends-
I ordered 10.2 on the 29th, and later emailed to find out what the hell was going on. I don't think anyone has posted this yet, so here it is. Below you will find Amazon's email response to my asking what was up with this deal (nothing has been altered except for my name...this was just cut and pasted directly from the email). Also, if you chose free shipping, it is possible that you won't receive the shipment in time to send the rebate coupon in by 10/3 (the last date it can be postmarked).
And now, on to their email response:
Dear ***,
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com regarding this issue.
We recently offered a $50.00 promotional rebate for "Mac OS X 10.2
Jaguar." This item is currently available for pre-order on our web
site. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotional offer, we
are unable to continue offering the rebate at this time.
We will be honoring rebate offers for pre-orders of this product that
were placed on or before 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002.
At this time, we are unable to honor this rebate offer for pre-orders
that were placed after 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002. We apologize for
any inconvenience.
Since your pre-order was placed during the time period that this
promotional offer was posted on our web site, please proceed with
submitting this rebate offer per the instructions located on the
rebate form. Please note, these offers will be limited to one per
household. If you were unable to print this rebate form at the time
of purchase, please contact us; we will send you the necessary link
to print this promotional offer.
Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.
Best regards,
Michele Thiel
Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
Hello friends-
I ordered 10.2 on the 29th, and later emailed to find out what the hell was going on. I don't think anyone has posted this yet, so here it is. Below you will find Amazon's email response to my asking what was up with this deal (nothing has been altered except for my name...this was just cut and pasted directly from the email). Also, if you chose free shipping, it is possible that you won't receive the shipment in time to send the rebate coupon in by 10/3 (the last date it can be postmarked).
And now, on to their email response:
Dear ***,
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com regarding this issue.
We recently offered a $50.00 promotional rebate for "Mac OS X 10.2
Jaguar." This item is currently available for pre-order on our web
site. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotional offer, we
are unable to continue offering the rebate at this time.
We will be honoring rebate offers for pre-orders of this product that
were placed on or before 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002.
At this time, we are unable to honor this rebate offer for pre-orders
that were placed after 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002. We apologize for
any inconvenience.
Since your pre-order was placed during the time period that this
promotional offer was posted on our web site, please proceed with
submitting this rebate offer per the instructions located on the
rebate form. Please note, these offers will be limited to one per
household. If you were unable to print this rebate form at the time
of purchase, please contact us; we will send you the necessary link
to print this promotional offer.
Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.
Best regards,
Michele Thiel
Amazon.com
Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.amazon.com
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Two words
False Advertising. No where on the coupon does it say they reserve the right to refuse. I just checked. So by law, they have to honor it. I am going to call them and raise a big stink about it, because if they say it's good from X date to X date and do not put any small print on the actual coupon, which is illegal in some states... they have to honor it.
😀
False Advertising. No where on the coupon does it say they reserve the right to refuse. I just checked. So by law, they have to honor it. I am going to call them and raise a big stink about it, because if they say it's good from X date to X date and do not put any small print on the actual coupon, which is illegal in some states... they have to honor it.
😀
Amazon Rebate
I got the same canned reply for Amazon that Battman got. I sent a reply, but I doubt anyone will read it.
As far as lawsuits go, I'm pretty sure that one would be a hard one to pull off.
But remember bad press is sometimes worse than a lawsuit. The next time someone you know goes to buy something off Amazon, tell them your story, and advise them to shop someplace else.
Also you can contact the Better Business Bureau, and I would think your state attorney general. I know I had an incident with UPS and contacted the BBB. Very shortly after contacting the BBB, I heard from UPS.
Laws very from state to state, they might be at fault in at least one of the 50, and may have to provide the rebate at least to a limited number of people in certain states. 😕
I really wouldn't care, if apple hadn't shafted me with no upgrade price on 10.2. I just switched to Apple from M$ in April, to get off the software as a service/upgrade cycle. I love my mac, but I will think long and hard before reinvesting in Apple after this. Maybe if my "faith" wasn't shaken so soon after switching, I wouldn't feel the same way. And I won't even go into the mac.com email address. It took me the last 2 months just to get everyone to start emailing me at that email address, ugh. (sorry didn't mean to digress)
Cheers 🙂
I got the same canned reply for Amazon that Battman got. I sent a reply, but I doubt anyone will read it.
As far as lawsuits go, I'm pretty sure that one would be a hard one to pull off.
But remember bad press is sometimes worse than a lawsuit. The next time someone you know goes to buy something off Amazon, tell them your story, and advise them to shop someplace else.
Also you can contact the Better Business Bureau, and I would think your state attorney general. I know I had an incident with UPS and contacted the BBB. Very shortly after contacting the BBB, I heard from UPS.
Laws very from state to state, they might be at fault in at least one of the 50, and may have to provide the rebate at least to a limited number of people in certain states. 😕
I really wouldn't care, if apple hadn't shafted me with no upgrade price on 10.2. I just switched to Apple from M$ in April, to get off the software as a service/upgrade cycle. I love my mac, but I will think long and hard before reinvesting in Apple after this. Maybe if my "faith" wasn't shaken so soon after switching, I wouldn't feel the same way. And I won't even go into the mac.com email address. It took me the last 2 months just to get everyone to start emailing me at that email address, ugh. (sorry didn't mean to digress)
Cheers 🙂
Also, they changed the coupon to not have os x and they also changed the bin number for os x.2 so it doesn't match.
How dirty indeed.
How dirty indeed.
AlphaTech
macrumors 601
Re: Amazon Rebate
You got 10.1.x with your Mac purchase in April, so you are only purchasing one (major?) upgrade (note, it's not really an update).
IF you had purchased a new Mac last year, and then payed full price for the 10.1 update THEN you MIGHT have something to biatch about.
Look at it like this (from the m$ world)... You purchase a pc several months before a new version of windblows comes out (say the computer ships with win2k, with heXPee coming out ~6 months later). Would you biatch if m$ charged ~$130 for the update to heXPee??
You got 10.1.x with your Mac purchase in April, so you are only purchasing one (major?) upgrade (note, it's not really an update).
IF you had purchased a new Mac last year, and then payed full price for the 10.1 update THEN you MIGHT have something to biatch about.
Look at it like this (from the m$ world)... You purchase a pc several months before a new version of windblows comes out (say the computer ships with win2k, with heXPee coming out ~6 months later). Would you biatch if m$ charged ~$130 for the update to heXPee??
:O
Maybe if enough of us emailed them and caused a media blitz... 🙂
Dirty Business at work
This is the email I just sent them. I typed it out real fast so it might not make sense O🙂
============
Mac OS 10.2
Good afternoon. I was going to purchase Mac OS X 10.2 from you and use your
rebate coupon. Today, someone told me that you discontinued the rebate on
the 31st of last month at 7 pm Pacific time.
Not to be rude, but it specifically states on the coupon that to recieve my
rebate, that
1. Purchase any of the above stated products from Amazon.com between
7/25/02 and /09/03/02.
To my surprise, you have released a new coupon without Mac OS X AND changed the bin number of OS X 10.2
This particularly upsets me because I had to wait until this Friday so i
could ensure that I had the funds to purchase this product. It also upsets
me that you released a coupon with no statement of possibility of changes to
increase your sales of a product and then change the quailifications of the
rebate, even though it clearly has no language on the said coupon that you
reserve the right to change qualifications, at your own pleasing. Then, for you to re release the form excluding Mac OS X and change the bin number of the product of the last two characters from 32 to s2. To me,
that comes as false advertising, shows a lack of respect towards your
customers, most importantly, potential customers, and is very dirty, and dishonoring of a company. The company I work for buys many books from you, and many people close to me. But I will make sure they don't buy from a company that does dirty business as to decieving people as you do. Especially with so many companies being revealed to have corrupt ethics, and espeically those corrupt ethics of cheating consumers.
So please respond as soon as possible and inform me of the situation, and I
do hope that this email does not go unanswered, or answered in a way that
would imply insincerity and injustices to consumers as a whole.
All I ask if for you to honor the deal you offered, and to practice
good business.
Finally, this is very dis heartening that it seems another company has tricked the average consumer by releasing
promotion materials without the full desire to fullfil them.
Thank you,
MY NAME HERE
Maybe if enough of us emailed them and caused a media blitz... 🙂
Dirty Business at work
This is the email I just sent them. I typed it out real fast so it might not make sense O🙂
============
Mac OS 10.2
Good afternoon. I was going to purchase Mac OS X 10.2 from you and use your
rebate coupon. Today, someone told me that you discontinued the rebate on
the 31st of last month at 7 pm Pacific time.
Not to be rude, but it specifically states on the coupon that to recieve my
rebate, that
1. Purchase any of the above stated products from Amazon.com between
7/25/02 and /09/03/02.
To my surprise, you have released a new coupon without Mac OS X AND changed the bin number of OS X 10.2
This particularly upsets me because I had to wait until this Friday so i
could ensure that I had the funds to purchase this product. It also upsets
me that you released a coupon with no statement of possibility of changes to
increase your sales of a product and then change the quailifications of the
rebate, even though it clearly has no language on the said coupon that you
reserve the right to change qualifications, at your own pleasing. Then, for you to re release the form excluding Mac OS X and change the bin number of the product of the last two characters from 32 to s2. To me,
that comes as false advertising, shows a lack of respect towards your
customers, most importantly, potential customers, and is very dirty, and dishonoring of a company. The company I work for buys many books from you, and many people close to me. But I will make sure they don't buy from a company that does dirty business as to decieving people as you do. Especially with so many companies being revealed to have corrupt ethics, and espeically those corrupt ethics of cheating consumers.
So please respond as soon as possible and inform me of the situation, and I
do hope that this email does not go unanswered, or answered in a way that
would imply insincerity and injustices to consumers as a whole.
All I ask if for you to honor the deal you offered, and to practice
good business.
Finally, this is very dis heartening that it seems another company has tricked the average consumer by releasing
promotion materials without the full desire to fullfil them.
Thank you,
MY NAME HERE
Royal Pineapple
macrumors 65816
nicelly put, i especally like the part about the other companys being dishonest. i hope that they decide to honor your purchase
I think we all need to start sending in emails just like that or very very similar.
Just to put the pressure on them, and to send copies to CNET, Ziff Davis, CNN and a bunch of other companies.
because we are a smaller market they think they can get away with it.
Re: Re: fax me the rebate...
What I found amusing was that as of the night of Sunday 28th, Jaguar was top of their "Movers And Shakers" list, with sales up 20,000%.
In other words, there's a bunch of people who pre-ordered it the instant they saw the coupon without even checking the coupon dates and who, if they hadn't pulled the coupon, wouldn't have qualified for the rebate anyway.
I personally held off on ordering because of past pre-ordering experience at Amazon - by the middle of the day on the 30th, if you added Jaguar to your cart it showed "Expected To Ship: August 25th" which kinda suggested the demand was so overwhelming they didn't even think fhey could fill all the pre-orders on the day of release. I figured at that rate I'd pre-order it and end up receiving it sometime in early September.
So, for now, it's ordered from Apple, at full price, with their extortionate overnight shipping (which I suppose evens things out for all the free Fedex Ground shipping), and sales tax. Total cost is roughly twice what it would have cost from Amazon with Super Slow Saver Shipping and the now-extinct rebate. Oh well.
What I found amusing was that as of the night of Sunday 28th, Jaguar was top of their "Movers And Shakers" list, with sales up 20,000%.
In other words, there's a bunch of people who pre-ordered it the instant they saw the coupon without even checking the coupon dates and who, if they hadn't pulled the coupon, wouldn't have qualified for the rebate anyway.
I personally held off on ordering because of past pre-ordering experience at Amazon - by the middle of the day on the 30th, if you added Jaguar to your cart it showed "Expected To Ship: August 25th" which kinda suggested the demand was so overwhelming they didn't even think fhey could fill all the pre-orders on the day of release. I figured at that rate I'd pre-order it and end up receiving it sometime in early September.
So, for now, it's ordered from Apple, at full price, with their extortionate overnight shipping (which I suppose evens things out for all the free Fedex Ground shipping), and sales tax. Total cost is roughly twice what it would have cost from Amazon with Super Slow Saver Shipping and the now-extinct rebate. Oh well.
Details on the whole deal
I downloaded the original rebate form before it was pulled. It says "Purchase [the products listed on the rebate form] from Amazon.com between 7/29/02 and 9/3/02"So I thought it wouldn't matter if they're not offering it on their site anymore, they should still honor it. And since they're not responding to emails, and haven't officially stated that the rebate is off, then it should still fly, right?. Wrong. They changed their "ASIN." I know someone mentioned it before, but I'll be more specific. The rebate lists "B00006F732" for Jaguar's ASIN. But if you buy it from Amazon now, it lists with ASIN "B00006F7S2" so that it's no longer valid to use the rebate with it. Sons of bitches. Oh well... it would probably be Christmas before we saw our copies ship anyway, since they got so many orders.
I'm still pissed, though.
I downloaded the original rebate form before it was pulled. It says "Purchase [the products listed on the rebate form] from Amazon.com between 7/29/02 and 9/3/02"So I thought it wouldn't matter if they're not offering it on their site anymore, they should still honor it. And since they're not responding to emails, and haven't officially stated that the rebate is off, then it should still fly, right?. Wrong. They changed their "ASIN." I know someone mentioned it before, but I'll be more specific. The rebate lists "B00006F732" for Jaguar's ASIN. But if you buy it from Amazon now, it lists with ASIN "B00006F7S2" so that it's no longer valid to use the rebate with it. Sons of bitches. Oh well... it would probably be Christmas before we saw our copies ship anyway, since they got so many orders.
I'm still pissed, though.
c'mon- get real
Look-
Cost on Jaguar is somewhere in the $105 dollar range for Tier A resellers ( I am one-, so I see these costs daily) _ Amazon probably thought they could drive site traffic and lose a few dollars on the sales as a trade for people coming to their site- What probably happened is that they sold WAY more than they thought, and they probably didnt convert many of those customers to other sales, so they basically lost more money with each transaction--- It probably got more expensive than they could bear, so they recalled the rebate- Lets put this into a real world perspective we can all relate to. You or I, at our Day jobs, Decide we'll give a free labor promotion for thirty days on labor bills up to 50 dollars. We hope this will give us lots of foot traffic from people who will buy other products and services for us. We figure " Heck, it may lose us a few dollars short term, but gain us additional revenue and clients long term. In the first week of the promotion, not only do we get no additional sales of labor or products, but we actually arent able to service our normal clientelle because the phone is ringing off the hook with cheapskates calling not wanting anything but the free labor promo. After a week of this, although we feel bad about it, the sad truth is, as a business decision, we decide to pull the promo as we CANT AFFORD TO DO IT. And that doesnt take into account a stock based company, whose board of directors and stockholders probably have a coronary at the very thought of losing more money with each sale. Thats just bad business.
Having said that, I for one am glad amazon got burned on this one, and have no sympathy for them on it. As an Apple authorized specialist who has spent many years learning to troubleshoot Macs, repair them, design systems and take wonderful care of my customers over a long term relationship, I thought this rebate was a very LOW way for them to break the MAP pricing we all subscribe to, and cut smaller businesses with better customer service out of the equation. I guarantee you that with the rebate going on, no one who saw it thought of their local mac shop that would take better care of them than Amazon, at a fair price, with an Honest deal. I hope they have to fill 2 million orders at a loss of $55 per order.
Helping you to STICK IT TO THE MAN- Tech 🙂
Look-
Cost on Jaguar is somewhere in the $105 dollar range for Tier A resellers ( I am one-, so I see these costs daily) _ Amazon probably thought they could drive site traffic and lose a few dollars on the sales as a trade for people coming to their site- What probably happened is that they sold WAY more than they thought, and they probably didnt convert many of those customers to other sales, so they basically lost more money with each transaction--- It probably got more expensive than they could bear, so they recalled the rebate- Lets put this into a real world perspective we can all relate to. You or I, at our Day jobs, Decide we'll give a free labor promotion for thirty days on labor bills up to 50 dollars. We hope this will give us lots of foot traffic from people who will buy other products and services for us. We figure " Heck, it may lose us a few dollars short term, but gain us additional revenue and clients long term. In the first week of the promotion, not only do we get no additional sales of labor or products, but we actually arent able to service our normal clientelle because the phone is ringing off the hook with cheapskates calling not wanting anything but the free labor promo. After a week of this, although we feel bad about it, the sad truth is, as a business decision, we decide to pull the promo as we CANT AFFORD TO DO IT. And that doesnt take into account a stock based company, whose board of directors and stockholders probably have a coronary at the very thought of losing more money with each sale. Thats just bad business.
Having said that, I for one am glad amazon got burned on this one, and have no sympathy for them on it. As an Apple authorized specialist who has spent many years learning to troubleshoot Macs, repair them, design systems and take wonderful care of my customers over a long term relationship, I thought this rebate was a very LOW way for them to break the MAP pricing we all subscribe to, and cut smaller businesses with better customer service out of the equation. I guarantee you that with the rebate going on, no one who saw it thought of their local mac shop that would take better care of them than Amazon, at a fair price, with an Honest deal. I hope they have to fill 2 million orders at a loss of $55 per order.
Helping you to STICK IT TO THE MAN- Tech 🙂
Forget about rebates! CompUSA is charging many times over MAP! Check it out:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=295690
CompUSA Price: $82,402.02
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=295690
CompUSA Price: $82,402.02
drastik
macrumors 6502a
Little off subject ,but hey, why not?
I was wondering if Apple certified resellers are bound to honor the Educational and Gov't discounts. We have a wonderfull little Mac shop here in nashville (probably why the only Tennessee Apple Store is in memphis) and they have a good, long standing relationship with apple (resale, repair, the whole deal) and I have a good, long standing relationship with them, so I'd love to buy there. My Gov't disount is too good to pass up, though.
I was wondering if Apple certified resellers are bound to honor the Educational and Gov't discounts. We have a wonderfull little Mac shop here in nashville (probably why the only Tennessee Apple Store is in memphis) and they have a good, long standing relationship with apple (resale, repair, the whole deal) and I have a good, long standing relationship with them, so I'd love to buy there. My Gov't disount is too good to pass up, though.
