Page 12      Diablo Blue      April, 2001

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was not a 24 hour number but was available only between 8AM & 5PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME.   So, at my long distance expense I spent considerable time on hold until I could finally talk to a live body.  At first she couldn't tell why my rebate had not been honored and had to talk to a supervisor.  More time on hold.  Finally she came back on the line to say that I had not given an e-mail address.  Now here is a vital bit of information that is essential to writing and mailing a rebate check via good old snail mail.  When I declined to provide an e-mail address for their SPAM use they said they would honor the rebate. 
Foolish me, I thought that they would mail it right away.
3/2/01 - No rebate check received so I accessed their rebate checking web page.  Reading down the page I saw, to my pleasure, that my "Rebate Status" was approved.  Reading several lines further I come to the line labeled "Check Date" expecting to see something like 2/28/01 and that the check was in the mail.  But what do my wondering eyes see but a check date of 03/31/01.  That's right, they weren't going to mail my check for a whole month!!!!!!!   Going back to my grade school skill of reading a calendar, and assuming that it would take a week from their check date until Uncle Sam delivered it to me or a date of 4/7/01. That makes roughly 4 months I will have waited for my rebate.
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.
We all know what their rebate game is.  They are counting on three things. 

1. They count on about ½ of the people who buy rebate merchandise to forget to mail it in.
   
2. They make good money by investing your rebate from the time you buy the merchandise until they finally decide to pay up.
   
3. I have a suspicion that they have no intention of paying the rebate until somebody calls in to complain about not receiving their rebate.  After all, how many people remember 10-12 weeks later that they had a rebate coming.  (Now I, being tight with my money, keep an abeyance file so I know for a fact when a rebate has not been received but I bet I'm in the minority.)
   

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tion driver. When I asked for that printer to print the document, I was able to print out the gazillion copies I had stacked up in my queue! <g>
I have to wonder if other Internet documents have their own printing instructions hard-coded into the documents themselves, so they don't necessarily fit all printers. For example, if it required the paper to come from the upper tray, and your printer used the bottom tray.  If this were true, many of us would take a hammer to our printers and use language we didn't know we could pronounce, without ever knowing why. Wouldn't it be more sensible to ask that a document be printed out with the default settings of any printer?
My challenge goes out to whomever is reading this to submit their own personal mysteries and hiccups. Please send your thoughts to rogg@value.net for inclusion in the next issue of Diablo Blue.
I know that it matters not how proficient you are with a computer, somewhere, sometime, one of these bumps in the road will strike and have you scratching your head. If you are too shy and don't wish to divulge your identity, use a pseudonym. I seem to remember reading an excellent article on home networking written by Ima Clueless and M.C. Essee...