Page 2      Diablo Blue    May, 2002

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At front and center of the "Hall of Shame" stage for this month are the Targus rebate people.

Back in January 2002 I purchased a Targus Universal Auto/Air Power Adapter from Comp USA which came with a rebate coupon worth $20.00.

The rebate coupon along with a copy of the Comp USA sales receipt, and the SKU number  cut out of the package.  The rebate was promised in 6-8 weeks.

As usual with most of these rebate coupons 8 weeks came and went. 

Next I got an e-mail from the "Targus Rebate Resolution" people saying that the "Receipt does not show a valid product purchase" Since the receipt clearly showed "TARG UNIV AIR/AUTO" and the proper SKU number I replied to the e-mail.

In about three weeks I got another e-mail saying  the same thing as the first message.  This time I called their phone number at my expense. Nothing I could say would convince "Evelyn, employee #104" that my receipt did include the proper information.  Request denied.

With fire in my eye I went to the Comp USA store where I had purchased merchandise.  The exchange/return clerk didn't have the foggiest notion what was wrong so I asked to see his supervisor.  After some 10-15 minutes a person came over and identified themselves as being the supervisor so I once again went through the whole sad story.  He examined the paper work and couldn't see any reason for the request to not be denied so he authorized paying me my $20.00.

Time and effort involved:

1. Filling in coupon, copying paper work, and mailing.   20 minutes .

Mailed 1/22/02

2. 3/6/02 - 1st denial received.  Study and resubmit. 10 minutes.

Mailed:  3/7/02

3. 4/2/02 - 2nd denial received  Study, fuming, calling Targus at my expense (12 minutes on hold) 30 minutes. 4. Special trip to Comp USA on 4/4/02.  About 1 hour in the COMP USA store waiting to get served and waiting for the supervisor. 5. Paid rebate.

Time: 2 hours minimum

Wear and tear on my normally cheerful personality — Untold.

Recommendation:  If you have a choice of getting some merchandise from anybody other than Targus please do so especially if you are counting on a rebate to make the cost viable.

Internet Explorer (IE) Problem

For several weeks now I've been getting a message in the Internet Explorer status bar that read "Detecting Proxy Settings".  This message would stay there for sometimes up to a minute before finally connecting me to the web.  This would happen only when I first accesses the web each time. After much thrashing around I found out what was causing the problem. It seems that there is an option hidden deep in the IE option window under LAN Settings  for automatically detecting settings that needs to be turned off. Here's how you get to it.

When IE comes up click on the following buttons.

Tools/Internet Options/Connections tab/LAN Settings.

Look for a check in the "Automatically detect settings" line. 

Uncheck.

Close option screen and the problem is fixed.

Last step:  Either save this article or copy it to your "Computer Tips" folder so that you can fix the problem by going directly to the fix.