My complaint can be best summed up in the email I sent to their CEO (which he will probably never see):

I am attempting to contact you using this email after an extensive, exhausting and thoroughly frustrating attempt at reconciliation through your company's "customer service" department.

I recently had an interaction with your company's customer service, which I found highly unsatisfactory. I recently attempted to purchase a laptop computer with a merchandise bundle from the on-line catalog and utilize a rebate that the website and the phone representative guaranteed. The rebate was actually for the merchandise bundle that came with laptop, meaning I would pay for the items upfront, but get the costs back as rebates.  I purchased it on the last day of the sale and was told that I could have it shipped to my home or pick it up at a store 40 minutes from my home, as all other nearer stores were out of stock. I opted to pick it up from the store, as I needed this week for classes and was told that it would be 100% OK to pick it up the next day.

 I arrived at the store where I was treated quite shabbily by the service reps. Upon arriving, I was told that the laptop was sold out, and that if I didn't want to get a different one (which I most definitely did not, otherwise I would have bought a different one) they could special order the laptop for me, and "release" the other merchandise to me. In order to do that however, she would cancel my previous order, and re-ring the merchandise up, and have me pay for it. This would have been ok, but I was concerned about the rebates, as I was  apprehensive about the date on the receipts. I knew the rebate ended the bay before (when I purchased it) and was afraid that because the date on the receipt would be the day after the rebate, it would be invalid. When I expressed this concern to the associate, she said she "didn't know" and that the store wouldn't print up rebate forms, I had to get them online, and she didn't know if the receipt I would be getting that day would qualify for the rebate. She said that if the rebate didn't work, I could return the merchandise for a refund, which honestly completely negates the point of getting that package in the first place. Furthermore, the time it takes to get a rebate back is 4-6 weeks, so it would take at least 4 weeks for me to know if the rebate "Went through", at which point it would have been too late to return the merchandise anyway.  I was told that aside from this option, my only other option was to simply cancel the order. When I asked to speak to a manager, I was told that there was no manager I could speak to. The associates supervisor at one point came out to help  other customers, and merely repeated that there was nothing else they could do.  I merely sought what I was told I could expect, no more, no less. I paid my money and now I expected services rendered. Such services were not forthcoming. The abrasive representative continually answered the service phone in the middle of our discourse, without so much as excusing herself to do so. Further, my requests to reconcile the situation were met with increasing hostility and indifference.  Due to the store's inability to solve my problem as I had asked, I asked if it were possible to circumvent the situation in order to make things right in accordance to my guarantee, and again I was rebuffed, told callously that they could not and would not do anything above their current effort to assist me. At this point I had spent almost half of an hour discussing the issue, and being treated quite badly and told that aside from "trying" to do the rebate, all I could do was cancel the order. I was NEVER told that I could contact corporate, or that there were alternatives to the rebate issue. I was never once apologized to, nor treated with any respect. Therefore, being not given  any other option, I chose to cancel the order.

It was not until I got home that night and then received my "confirmation email" for the original order, that I discovered that the email itself could operate as a receipt, showing the correct order date, and that the receipt from the register, with the incorrect date would not matter. I was NEVER informed of this at the store, nor over the phone during the original purchase. Had I been notified of this, there would have never been a problem.

So not only was your company erring in your inventory systems, telling me that you had an item you did not, but your employees were rude and uninformed. This is all due to your companies negligence, both with inventory and employee training.

 

Once I realized that I could have gotten the item/rebate without a hassle, I proceeded to call the customer support number I was given by the employee at the store.

My attempts at seeing satisfaction further up the corporate ladder have met repeatedly with frustration and dismissal. At one point, when I finally was able to get a hold of a representative at the corporate office I was explicitly told, almost verbatim that the fact that store did not have the item was "not our fault" (I fail to see how) and also that the fact that the employee did not understand the rebates and therefore told me false information (ultimately causing this issue, which could have easily  been avoided) was also "not the companies fault". Furthermore, I was repeatedly told that there was absolutely nothing they could do because the promotion was over and I had already canceled the order. (Although, what else could I have done, under the circumstances?) While I understand that the company can not honor manufactures rebates past their dates, I also cannot believe that there was absolutely no way to reconcile the situation to me. There a number of different this situation could have been handled to both of our benefit. There is a difference between "cannot" and "will not" and I feel that so far, your company has simply chosen to willfully not help reconcile my issue. I do not understand this sort of thinking. You are a business which is dependent on consumers to continue and therefore make a profit. At what benefit is it to you to nearly go out of your way to make a customer unhappy? I have had nothing, *nothing* but frustration in dealing with this situation. I have been treated rudely over and over by your employees, and in the case of the employee at the store, almost lied to.  My last recourse, I felt, was to seek your help. And even access to that was not easy to obtain. It is my feeling that someone such as yourself would be dissatisfied with the treatment of any potential customer. I seek some sort of solution that will give me the promotion I was originally offered and in fact, paid for. The treatment  I was given at the store is no less than fraud; telling a customer an item is available, receiving payment for the item, and then being completely unable to give the item that was paid for. Again, I would not have minded waiting for the laptop, it was the vast inability to follow through with the promotion I was guaranteed in the first place.

Overall I have experienced nothing but poor business practices from your company, and will not hesitate to file a complaint with both the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General's office, as well as notifying the media outlets of this outrageously bad treatment. It could only benefit your company to help me gain only what I was originally promised.

 

I await your response,