Alienware Rebate Scam, costs customers $500!!! Rebate Ripoff Miami Florida

Rather than rewrite it, I will include the email I sent to the head of their customer relations department. As I told her I would, seeing as I stick to my comitments. To bad they do not, for I'd have my $500 rebate and they'd still have a customer.

This went on for some time, ultimately they kept putting me off so I have no other recourse except to publish here.

Here is the email I sent;

To Subject Sent
jaclyn_gonzalez@alienware .com Concern about rebates. Wed 4/27/2005 3:01 PM

QUOTE
Hello Jaclyn Gonzalez,

I am writing you a letter because, my further research into the company that "supports" me as a computer user shows, you are the Public Relations Specialist for Alienware. I think you will be best able to understand why I feel frustrated and the need to escalate my unhappiness one last time before I have to share with my friends and my customers the dissatisfaction I have had with my dealing about my rebate. I know your time is precious, but so is my satisfaction as a customer and my time (of which a great deal has already been spent trying to resolve my rebate issue.)

I had been a regular visitor to your website (a lurker even,) always looking at the PC's I really loved but just could not justify purchasing. They were always just out of my reach from a price perspective. Then in January I received an email that your company was offering $500 dollar rebates on one of the PC's I was greatly interested in. Your records and invoicing will show that I purchased a beautiful looking silver desktop. I did have to cut out some of the amenities I would have loved, even with the rebate, but mind you as a single father I have to watch the spending even on a not so frugal purchase such as this.

Patiently, and excitedly, my son and I waited on the PC. We watched it's progress on your web site, each step in the process up to delivery. When it was listed as shipped, we were more than ready to tear it open. Sure enough, we received it about 3 days later and were totally excited. We brought it upstairs to the room we had our old PC in and decided the room did not look good enough for our Alienware PC. So we spent the next day reorganzing and even rebuilding the desk it would sit on. Boy oh boy were we set!

I am a computer technician and eventually managed them at a brokerage firm for many years, taking care of their trading systems and end user PC's. Needless to say I know my way around a PC. So when we set up the computer and it did not fully power on, I told my son "do not worry, something just got jarred in shipping." So I call your support line knowing it best to work with them regardless of what my gut instincts were telling me. It was terribly late at night, but I got a perky and ready to roar support person who walked me through predetermined steps to identify the problem.

Sure enough, a few steps in he asks me to pop the cover off and we find a few cables must have been jarred loose in shipping and were preventing a cooling fan from cycling. Safety measures intended to keep the PC from overheating worked perfectly to prevent the PC from powering up all the way. However once the cable placement was fixed, and in their rightful location the PC powered up fine. I was cooking now, and my son thought we had the coolest computer on the block. Quite frankly, he was right.

As you recall from above, there was the rebate issue. It had to be mailed in, it was nto automated like some of the ones now days. Not only online purchases that come with automated rebates, but even ones in store now at Best Buy and Computer City. No, not all of them, just a lot. Thus I was not concerned when Alienware asked me to provide a good deal of information to get my rebate sent to me. I collected everything I was told I needed, including a copy of the invoice (key info) and brought it to work as I do not have a copier at home. I have done this a few times in the past, work let me make copies of the items needed so I could keep them for my records or send them in to you. It all depended on who needed what copy. (I can dig up my copies and originals if need be, they are somewhere here in my computer room.)

So I mail all this stuff in to your company and begin to wait even more patiently for my rebate. I the mean time, a few life changes take place. I decided to start my own Home and Small Office IT Consulting and Repair business. I have been studying the ropes, getting to know the Minnesota Small Business Association and the like. Also, taking some nice spring days off since I have worked basically non-stop since I was 15 (I am almost 37, just a few more days left at 36 hehe.)

Anyways, as I did my paper work related to this business endeavor and my taxes, I noted I still had not received 2 of the rebates I had submitted throughout the last few months. I realized I better follow out on this. I call NSP/Center Point Energy and find out they sent me a check according to their records. They needed a couple of days to look into things. In those days they verified I had the work done, I had submitted the proper papers, and that they cut a check. So they stopped payment on the check, since they seen it was rather old and not yet cashed, and sent me a new one. The delay is of concern to me, and I still have not received the new check either (but it has only been a couple weeks, these things seem to take time. I just hope this one is not lost at the spot the other one was.)

I shared the information about Center Point Energy, because when I went to deal with your company, things went awfully different. I started with email, to which I received a reply that my rebate was rejected because I did not include an invoice. I was very troubled by that for two reasons. The first, I recall making the copies up at my employer's office putting it with the rest of the paperwork (which you all did receive) and mailing it that day all as one bundle. Then second, you all have access to electric copies of my invoice that are easily referenced to verify I actually did buy this PC during the rebate period. So, troubled by this email, but thinking it is just protocol and no one is intentially putting me off, I call the customer service number listed and used option 3.

I get told by them they will send my concern to the rebate department for review. I am fine with this, even offer to resend my copies b get told it is too late the rebate has expired. However, I initiated my rebate well in advance of the expiration so what is the problem if I assist where I feel an over sight by your company was made. Paper work gets mixed up, and certainly in the volumes I am sure you all receive. (One of the other reasons I would recommend making your rebate process automated.) So at this point I am told to check back in a couple days.

A couple of days goes by, I check back, get told a few more days, and this dance repeats itself for two weeks (maybe a little longer, I think the first call was made April 8th, and today is April 27th.) Finally today, I get a rather bold (even made the comment that maybe someone at the USPS has it out for me????) customer support person who tells me they will not be honoring the rebate I rightfully deserve (being a paying customer who purchased this computer via the rebate deal offered on your web site.) I am bound and determined to have this fixed, as it simply is not right to blame your customer for not sending paperwork that he put together and sent himself.

Luckily, I was not put off any longer (so I thought) and was connected to Allan Morales, who is the supervisor of rebates. Allan carefully explained that they will not honor this rebate for a variety of reasons. One, I did not include a copy of my invoice (false), two, the rebate period has expired (but not before I intiated the rebate which I point out, to which he followed up with "then you should have contacted us sooner.") How is this acceptable by your company? I asked him how many folks does this happen to? He stated maybe 1 in 100. I now ask, what does Alienware gain by disenchanting 1 out of 100 customers? At $500 per customer rebate saving one rebate out of 100 in exchange for a very unhappy customer seems rather unreasonable from a financial and more importantly a customer relations stand point.

I told Allan that I would have to share this with my friends and customers. I also pointed out my business does not lead to many sales for Alienware (small offices tend to cut corners and do not buy Alienware PC's very often, but occassionally they ask about their home PCs for themselves or their kids. If gamers, you know who I would suggest... Alienware.) However, as much as I like the PC, and can not argue since that first night it has been a champ, the customer satisfaction and over all VALUE of the purchase, simply does not justify it if this is how customers entitled to and depending on a rebate are ultimately treated.

This letter is my last hope that Alienware can fix this. I am not out to smear the Alienware name, if you all can not properly send me my rightful rebate I will simply just have to tell my story to all my gaming friends (primarily the Everquest and Sony Communities) and those who inquire about PCs in my professional interactions. I will admit to them (probably us this exact letter and simply post it) that the Alienware PC is in fact a nice PC. But at the price and with the way customers are treated on rebates, it would be advised they do their homework and maybe simply bring their business elsewhere. This includes me, as unless I find someone reasonable enough at your company to see this is simply not how you treat a paying customer who sent in his rebate forms and information, I will no longer buy an Alienware PC.

I hope that you all take this letter as a chance to correct the way I have been dealt with, and even lead to some changes in how your rebate process works.

Thank you for your time(possible the last time),
Tony

Tony
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
U.S.A.

Click here to read The *EDitorial: The Marketing Rebate Rip Off ...Manufactures invent reasons why not to pay the consumer