Companies come up with some pretty remarkable excuses for denying customers rebates, but H&R Block appears to have come up with a new one for rebates on its TaxCut tax software. One reader reports that he was turned down for failing to send in the rebate paperwork before the software for the 2004 tax year was even available.
"The rebate rip-offs never end," the reader wrote. "I thought that Intuit was bad when I was a consultant and had QuickBooks, but TaxCut has become just as bad. Even though you purchase the product on-line, H&R Block charges full price. To get the $25 rebate on the state software, you have to fill out a form with a pen and put it in the U.S. mail. Then they 'evaluate' it."
H&R Block's evaluation resulted in his being denied the rebate because he had not submitted the form within 30 days of purchasing the software. "Of course I did not submit my rebate within 30 days of purchase," the reader wrote. "I pre-ordered the software on October 8th on Taxcut.com. I didn't even get the e-mail saying the software was ready to download until the end of November, which was already past 30 days. Then, of course, I didn't drop everything and install the software because I really didn't need it yet. So I installed it after New Year's and got the rebate form from the install directory. I sent it in on Jan. 17th. Ha Ha! Too late. I was ripped off $25 -- $25 that should have not been charged in the first place because they could have billed me the correct amount on their website."
The reader tried complaining to the "H&R Block Rebate Processing Center," but to no avail. "Our records indicate your purchase date was 10-08-04 and your postmark date was 1-17-05," the e-mail response he received said. He was therefore not entitled to the rebate, since he hadn't sent it in by November 8th. The fact that the software and the mail-in rebate form it contained weren't yet available at that point was of no consequence to H&R Block's rebate police.
"This whole thing is such a rip-off," the reader wrote. "It's not the $25, it's the whole crooked process that bothers me. You have to find the rebate form on your own -- there is no 'Rebate Help' in the product or in the e-mail you get when the state software is finally ready. Imagine the non-computer literates who never get beyond opening TaxCut from the desktop icon and won't even find the rebate PDF form to print out and mail. The idea that you download software off the TaxCut web site, have to mail in the form and proof of purchase, and it has to be 30 days from when you buy the product or they keep the money is really larceny. It's just especially so when you 'pre-order' eight weeks before you can download the software."
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