Remember that rebate I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the free roll of EEF I never received? Today I had a few minutes to waste, so I called the phone number the rebate processor lists on its Web status page. I listened (twice) to the ubiquitous "This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes" message. I wanted to respond, "Fine. This call may be blogged about, to assist you in assuring quality", but the recording didn't give me a chance. It continued, explaining it "may take up to four weeks for your rebate request to appear in our system." Since the status on the Web shows my rebate request has been "in process" since November, 2011, it's pretty clear that it's in their system.
After listening for a couple of minutes to music never intended for the limited bandwidth of the U.S. telephone system, I spoke with Erika. I explained the issue, answered the half-dozen questions that followed, and was then told to resubmit all of the original rebate information (the form and the information it requires, the UPC bar code from the shipping crate, etc.) via fax.
Fax? Who faxes anymore? I don't have a fax machine, nor do I even have a modem around here so I could fax from a PC. Have these folk not heard of email and PDFs?
But I'll gather the necessary information, complete the form again, type a cover letter, and take this somewhere to be faxed to Erika tomorrow. Sometimes free stuff is not a bargain.
I asked, as I always do, what I should expect to happen next. She said I'd get a call back within five days, and the rebate would then be processed. I asked how long that would take. You guessed it: four to six weeks. I'll keep you posted.
Epson, and the service providers they hire, do some things better than others.
--Jay
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