The NEC rebate Story (long)

While I was home for winter break from school I logged on to one of my favorite deal sites and found an awesome price on a 17� NEC LCD monitor. The monitor was retailed at roughly $400. Here is the breakdown of the deal.

Link to original thread on slickdeals

Sale price $319.94
Coupon - 30.00
Easy Rebate - 50.00
NEC rebate - 90.00
—————————-
Final Price $149.94

The purchase went surprisingly well and I was able to make my way home on the slippery roads safely. I sent away the rebates one week later after I had time to properly document my rebate forms, i.e. photocopy everything.

The staples rebate was �easy� and was entered on their website. I received that check about a month later.

Here is where the process gets interesting.

Timeline:

January 14 2005
- I send out the $90 rebate to NEC in El Paso Texas. Being that the rebate was for a large amount I added delivery confirmation.

January 18 2005 9:52 AM
- The Rebate arrives at the archway rebate processing center in El Paso Texas.
-

The wait begins, as I am sure you all know a rebate takes approximately 6-8 weeks to get processed and returned to you. This would put the return date somewhere between March 1st and March 15th 2005. Furthermore I should have been able to check the process of the rebate at nec.archway.com

The message received all the way up through today is:

Sorry, we do not have an order registered with the information you submitted. Please check all spellings and re-enter your information.

Well being the persistent person I am, I began to make inquiries about the status around February 2nd.

The last reply I received was on February 21 as follows,
NEC Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 3:22 PM
To: Josh Smith
Dear Mr. Smith,

Thank you for contacting the NEC Rebate Center.

As your submission was just recently mailed, please allow 2-4 weeks for us
to begin processing.

If you have any other questions, please reply to this email.

Sincerely,
Terry
NEC Rebate Customer Service

This concerned me since it had indeed been 2-4 weeks since they received the rebate.

Beginning in early March I started calling NEC display Solutions of America.

http://www.necus.com/

Through 4 different numbers I left voicemail based on a spoken prompt of position in the company. I.E. I left a message for �president�, �Press dept.�, �Customer Service Etc. I was able to get a response from an individual named Preston. Preston had me fax him all of the information on the rebate.

Here is where that got difficult. I lost the backup in a Hard drive failure the first week of march so using the internet and the help of a great individual I was able to replace the information.

March 18th 2005
So I faxed Preston all of my information today and waited.

I had a phone call with Preston the following week where I was assured I would be contacted as soon as he knew what was going on.

Fast Forward to April 6th 2005.

I had let the rebate try to work its way through again and was holding off on bothering the first helpful person I had encountered. Well at about 10 PM my laptop hard drive died sending me into a state of anger. Well after dealing with gateway CS for about an hour I was in the mood to make some calls and get some results.

The calls begin all left as voice mails.
Call 1 � Preston � Why haven�t you returned my calls? Where is my rebate? Get back to me ASAP
Call 2 � position �presidents assistant� � message - I have a rebate issue that needs handled ASAP.
Call 2 � position public relations dept� � messages � Hello I am doing a story on how NEC does not fulfill their rebates and offers poor customer service please contact me ASAP in order to comment on the story.

This is when I found out that I could dial by Last Name!!!!

Call 4 � Poor Margaret Smith � Hello Margaret, I am Josh Smith I am calling about a rebate and you are the only extension I could find. I have dealt with an individual named Preston and he has stopped returning my calls. Please if anyone in your company cares at all about customers, what customers need or in any form realize that your customers matter please forward this message to them. Contact info story summary yadyada

INSPIRATION STRIKES

Google search President of NEC displays of America

Result: T. J. Trojan

I call up NEC again and dial T R O. To my surprise I am connected to the Voicemail of T.J. Trojan President of NEC of America. I am astounded and leave a message to the gist of Margaret�s message. His voicemail stated he was out of the country and would return calls as possible so I did not expect an astounding result.

Thursday April 7th 2005

I am in Chicago on a trip as I am leaving my hotel to visit The Anti Hunger Federation I receive a call from unavailable on my cell phone. To my surprise it was Mr. T. J. Trojan. He was calling from overseas at 2 AM his time. I was very impressed. Mr. Trojan assured me that he would make a call on my behalf.

5 Minutes later I receive a call from someone in the rebates dept. at NEC who proceeds to take my information yet again.

April 11th 2005 3:30PM

I receive a voicemail from Preston apologizing for being out of the office and saying my rebate check was in front of him in a FedEx envelope being sent to me and that I should have it Wednesday.

April 13 2005
Well Today is Wednesday and it is about 5 PM no FedEx package yet but I believe FedEx has until 7 PM to deliver to non business addresses. I will be posting an update as soon as I get the check.