More and more companies have adopted a new way of raising the bar for customers who want to collect on their rebates: send them debit cards instead of a check. One reader was quite annoyed recently to discover that was what Cingular had done to him, particularly when not all the debit cards worked.
“We recently purchased three new phones in connection with upgraded service from Cingular,” the reader wrote. “We dutifully mailed in all the forms, etc., to claim the rebates. The rebates came, but not in the form of a check, as expected. They came in the form of three Cingular-branded preloaded debit cards, complete with Visa logo.”
The reader received two $50 and one $30 debit card from Cingular in lieu of rebate checks. “The first card worked fine at a restaurant,” the reader wrote. “The second was declined at a Wal-Mart as having an invalid account number. The third was declined for the same reason at a grocery store. The manager of the grocery store was very familiar with this situation -- she has seen it many times. The rebate debit cards routinely don't work, she told us.”
The reader has gone through all the steps he was supposed to take with the rebate debit cards and is certain he did them correctly. “Yes, we activated all cards via phone upon receipt,” he wrote. “Yes, we punched in the correct pin numbers at the store terminals. 'Invalid Account Number!' So what should we do? Hassle endlessly with Cingular to try to get them to make it right? I am not inclined to do that -- something I'm sure they count on so they can keep the rebate money. The expiration date on the cards is 4/06, at which point any remaining balance goes back to Cingular.”
Even if all three cards had worked, the reader still thinks it‘s a crummy way for Cingular or anyone else to pay off its rebates. “If the rebate debit card does work, what about the residual balance if you happen to not use up exactly the entire amount?” the reader wrote. “Our restaurant purchase was $44.13. So do we need to by something we can buy something for exactly $5.87. Actually, if we'd been thinking, we would have left another $5.87 in tip. This is just another case of a rebate scam that just gives the perpetrator -- Cingular -- a bad name.” Read and post comments about this story here.
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