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OnRebate.com should be called ‘Waiting for Godot.com’

By November 29, 2004November 11th, 2020websites

A friend of mine tipped me off about a $19.00 geek purchase that I couldn’t pass up (e.g. a set of retractable cords that can be used with your computer such as USB, Firewire, Cat5 etc.).  I ordered the set from Skymall, even though it was sold by TigerDirect, in order to take advantage of the $10 rebate.  After the product arrived I gathered all the necessary paperwork (which reminded me of April 15th) and sat down to attempt to wrest the $10 rebate back from the manufacturer.

I was directed to OnRebate.com, an online website, to process my claim.  Hey, online = efficiency = great, right?.  I went online and bopped through a few screens that required me to fill out basic information.  Just when I was picking up momentum I hit this screen which seemed innocuous enough (asking me to wait for a confirming E-mail to be sent and then enter the secret code).  When the E-mail didn’t arrive in 5 minutes I started reading the screen more closely.  Note the following language: ” If you have not received the email after an hour*, please  Click Here  to have it resent to you.”

Yeah, I’m going to leave my browser open for an hour to see if my E-mail inbox is graced with a message from OnRebate.com. We all understand how this rebate thing works, but this new system is really amazing.  You’ve really got to admire the genius that figured out a way to make the online process even more frustrating than the snailmail version.

By the way, it’s been over an hour.  I wonder what I should do?


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