I decided I wanted to upgrade the memory in my PC, so I waited for a good deal to come along and one day I'm on thedailydeals.com and there's a great deal at Fry’s Electronics. I can't remember how much memory it was or who the manufacturer was, but it was a great price plus there was a $20 mail-in rebate.
So, on August 28th at about 9:00 AM I call the store and they transfer me to the memory department. I'm on hold for 15 minutes and I decide to hang up and call back. I call back and the operator tells me she's going to transfer me to the memory department. I say, “No, I just went through that” and she says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back."
Two hours go by and no one calls. So, I call back and the operator says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back." I say, “No, let me talk to the manager.” The operator says the manager is not available right now and she proceeds to tell me how this, take your name and number bullshit is "how Fry's Electronics is designed to work." So I give her my name and number again and this time about 2 hours later a guy from the memory department calls me back. I tell him what I'm looking for and he says they have it.
I get to the store and go to the memory department. You've never seen such a cluster fuck. There are 3 young guys working there and about 30 customers all trying to get one of the 3 to wait on them. You would think they could have taken a clue from the local deli and had a number system or something, but they chose chaos. After about a half hour I get through to one of them and tell him what I need. They write you up a slip of paper and then some other guy actually brings out the memory 10 minutes later and attempts to find you among the hordes of people.
I go up to the checkout and right as they are about to start my transaction their computer system goes down. Now they need to write up a manual ticket for the sale. And of course the guy helping me is some 17 year old kid on his first day on the job as is every other person behind the counter because I don't think they can keep people in these positions for more than a day. After about 15-20 minutes of screwing around the guy finally completes my order.
Now, keep in mind, the $20 rebate has to be postmarked by September 7th and today is August 28th. I ask the cashier kid about this and he says I won't be able to use the manual receipt for the rebate, but he tells me that a computer receipt will be "automatically mailed to me" well before the 7th. Yeah, and I'm going to win the lottery too. The cashier kid next to him overhearing all of this and seeing the skeptical look on my face assures me that if this doesn't work out, all I have to do is come in to the store and "they will have to give me a $20 bill". What is that???? Some unwritten street rule that I've never heard of???? My 12 year old daughter even said to me in the parking lot, “Dad, I don’t think that demanding the $20 bill thing is going to work.”
You know what happens next. September 7th rolls around and by virtue of some incredible glitch, the computer at Fry's Electronics has failed to "automatically" mail me my receipt. At about 1:00 PM that day I call the store and explain the whole scenario to some lady, (you know that's one of the worst parts about these disasters is how you have to repeat the entire series of events to ten different people before it's over), and she says, "we can't even find a record of a sale to you." Then she says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back."
Two days go by and of course no one calls me back. I call the store and talk to a guy named Jason and I have to explain the whole sordid mess to him now. He says he has not dealt with rebates and no one knowledgeable about rebates is available to speak to me right now concerning this. He says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back."
It's 10:00 AM the next day now and guess what.... That's right!... no one has called me back. So I call the store give an abbreviated version of my situation to the operator and she puts me hold for about 5 minutes and comes back and says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back." I say, "No Fuckin Way!" She asks me, "What's the rebate for?" and I say, "memory". She puts me on hold again. She comes back about 10 minutes later and acts like we've never spoken to each other. I have to remind her of my situation and then she says, "Come in to the store and get the form." I tell her, "I've got the form, but it's past the date that it's supposed to be postmarked by." She puts me on hold to take another call. She comes back on the line and says, "Good afternoon Fry's Electronics, may I help you?" Ok, it's time for another one of those out of the body experiences where I ask myself how I am not President of the United States when there are people like this running around loose. Anyway, I remind her of who I am and my situation and believe it or not... she says, "Sir, let me put you on hold for a moment." About 5 minutes later, (by the way 5 minutes is like an eternity when you're on hold), a new person comes on the line and says, "Good afternoon Fry's Electronics, may I help you?" I tell her I'm trying to get a rebate for some memory I purchased there and she hangs up on me. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
So, I immediately call back and the person answers, "Good afternoon Fry's Electronics, may I help you?" I get like a half a word out of my mouth and she puts me on hold. THEN, not 2 seconds later she's back again and says, "Good afternoon Fry's Electronics, may I help you?" I tell her my story and she says, "Stephanie was helping you wasn't she?" I say, "She hung up on me." and she says, "not intentionally" and I say sarcastically, "Oh, of course not." Then she puts me on hold.
Stephanie picks up about 3 minutes later and I have to explain the entire thing again. When I finish she claims, "I know about your situation." I'm thinking to myself..... YEAH, YOU OUGHT TO!!!! I've only explained it to every Fuckin person who works there except for the janitor, who, by the way, would have probably handled it better than any of you people have!!!!!!! Then Stephanie tells me, "Today I will give you a call and let you know the status of that."
Three days go by......... no one contacts me.
I call back at 8:00 AM on September 13th. I get a woman with a barely understandable Jamaican accent. I ask for Stephanie and she tells me she's not in yet. I ask her if someone can help me with a rebate problem I'm having. The lady says, "What's the problem?" For what feels like the 87th time, I explain the whole thing again, fully knowing it's a waste of time. When I finish she says, "What's your address? I'll mail you the rebate form." I say "NOOOOO, I don't need the form." Seeing this is getting nowhere, I just ask her to have somebody call me. Then like a fool, I ask her, "Will somebody call me today?" and she says, "I don't know? did somebody call you today?" I say, "NO, what I mean is can you assure me that someone will call me back today?" She says, "Yeah, sure."
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd of course......... no one called me back.
Next day now, I call the store. I know the number by heart of course by now. I should have put it on speed dial. They answer the phone and immediately put me on hold. When they come back on the line I ask for the manager, Joey, whose name I heard mentioned in one of my earlier 42 phone calls that I've been on with them. They put me on hold forever and then come back and say he's not available. The operator says, "Let me take your name and number and someone will call you back." I say "NO, let me talk to Stephanie."
Stephanie comes on the line and surprisingly I don't have to explain the whole thing from beginning to end again. She says they "need to do further investigation" and my "paperwork was transported", whatever the hell that means. She says she'll need "to contact the home office" and she "will mail me a print screen." It was like she was reading random snippets from some operations manual on bullshit to tell the customer when you are stalling for time. Then she says she's going to mail me a gift card for $20 and she's going to call me today and let me know it's in the mail.
Well, guess what? "Today" came and went and no call from Stephanie.
The next day, September 15th, I call the store and ask for Stephanie. Check out this classic..... she says, "I was just getting ready to call you back." BLOW ME!!!!!! She says, "I need your credit card number to look up the order." I give her the credit card number and she says, "I'll be giving you a call right back."
At what must have been a million to one odds she called back 15 minutes later. She says she's found the receipt and she'll mail it to me with a rebate form. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! SHOOT ME NOW!! SHOOT ME NOW!! How can any living thing be this stupid???????? I tell her, "NO, It is past the September 7th deadline of when it had to be postmarked by, (hoping I won't have to explain what a postmark is to her), and they will no longer accept it." Moving further in to the Twilight Zone she says, "There was no rebate on this product when you purchased it." My head has to be like a nanosecond away from exploding and I say very calmly, "yes there was." She says, "I'll research it and call you back." And she hangs up on me.
I go lie down on my couch and try to devise a way that I can destroy the Fry’s Electronics Corporation without getting caught. After about a half an hour she calls back and says she is going to get approval from the store manager and mail me a $20 gift card tonight.
I know what you're thinking..... but you're wrong!! Three days later in the mail, I received a $20 gift certificate from Fry's Electronics!!!!!!
I don't even want to discuss how much my time was worth, how much money was lost by Fry's Electronics in employee time spent on this disaster, all I know is that in the end justice was served and I got my $20 rebate!! Which, I might embarrassingly add, my wife and I took to Fry's the next weekend and proceeded to spend that $20 plus about $200 more on various items.
So I guess they won in the end. Maybe that explains why I'm not President of the United States?
.jpg&image_width=100%&image_height=100%)
I've managed to save up roughly $67074 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?