Snacking Binge (Dale and Thomas Popcorn!!!), Citibank PremierPass CS Fun, And Symantec Rebates Are Even More Scammy
Shhhhhhh…
Sorry, no quick-hitters today.
- In the last week or so, I’ve purchased about $100 (MSRP) of snacks online.
(I know, I’m crazy.)
So what did I buy? Four pounds of pistachios, a ton of Boston Baked Beans, some Planters peanuts, and a Dale and Thomas 6-pack sampler.
The stuff at Amazon.com was heavily discounted by a $25 off $59 coupon and a $25 Gift Certificate that I bought from my Chase Amazon card, and I’m already sick of most of that stuff. The Dale and Thomas popcorn, on the other hand…
I got the “Chef Ed’s sampler” pack for $8 after a $20GC and free shipping. In order of which bags I have opened:
- The White Cheddar and Black Peppercorn was pretty disappointing. The popcorn was stale and relatively flavorless.
- The Sweet Georgia Pecan was amazing, though extremely sweet. Think of it as high-class Cracker Jack. Awesome in moderation :P.
- The Country Smokehouse Cheddar was crazy good! If I ever order from these guys again, I’m definitely getting this stuff. It tasted NOTHING like regular cheddar popcorn.
- The Hall of Fame Kettle corn was about as good as fair-quality Kettle corn (not freshly popped stuff, of course). Not bad.
I have yet to open the other two bags.
- Actual conversation between myself and a Citibank customer service representative:
(Background: I purchased about $1,500 worth of stuff on my Citibank PremierPass card last month, and returned about $600 worth of stuff. Unfortunately, the return was processed after my statement date, so I inquired about how much I had to pay in order to avoid finance charges. I was pretty sure that I only had to pay the remaining ~$900, but I was not 100% sure, and was not willing to pay any finance charges, no matter how minute the amount would have been.)
Me: Hi. I am calling to inquire about how much would I have to pay on my card this month to avoid paying any finance charges.
Rep: (after some typing) Sir, you have to pay [the entire closing balance].
Me: OK, well I had a credit for one of my purchases that closed last statement for ~$600. If I paid the difference between the statement balance and that refund, would that be enough to avoid any finance charges?
Rep: Sir, if you want, you can combine those two payments.
Me: (puzzled) OK, I’m not sure if that answers my question. [At this point, I asked again if paying the difference would be enough to avoid the finance charges.]
Rep: Yes sir, you can combine the two payments.
Me: (agitated) BUT WILL I AVOID ANY FINANCE CHARGES IF I DO THIS?
Rep: *click*
Fun, no?
- I’m sure my loyal readers know of my hatred towards Symantec rebates. Well, apparently I now have two more reasons to hate these guys.
1) According to my rebate spreadsheet, I have submitted somewhere in the vicinity of forty Symantec rebates in the past few months. Of those, more than half have been rejected for bogus reasons!
2) Symantec “upgrade” rebates (where you are to include proof of previous ownership of either an older version of the software or a competitor’s software product) are now getting more scammy. As most of you know, most rebates are limit one per person/household. With Parago’s rebates, there were two ways to determine whether or not you have already done a rebate offer: you could check the seven-digit offer ID–in the form of 0x-xxxxx–or you could check the valid promotion dates. An example of the latter situation would be as follows: you bought something last week that came with a $20 upgrader’s rebate, and you knew that that rebate was good from 11/11-11/17. You see the same deal again this week, with a $20 upgrader’s rebate, good from 11/18-11/24, and you know that you’ll qualify for this rebate as well.
This year, Symantec has kept the offer numbers the same, while simply changing the promo dates on a consistent basis! In the past, Symantec would have a single upgrader’s rebate valid for an entire year or so; this year, they have issued several different rebate forms for a given product, all with different dates but the same promo code!
I can’t think of a good reason why a rebate processor would do this…well…except for the purpose of scamming customers, maybe?
Until next time!