Welcome to scam week here at CheapEncounters.com! This week I will be highlighting several scams that I have recently encountered that badly need to see the light of day. Some of my most memorable and popular posts have been about scams (see the FreeNEzy.com saga and the Reservations Rewards scam), so I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this very important topic.
The first scam I will highlight this week is the current debacle from the recent Sears and Dockers Fathers Day rebate offer. According to their initial press release, consumers would receive a $75 Shell gas card and a “$10 Sears Reward Card” for purchasing $100 in Dockers apparel items during the promotion period after mail-in rebate. Pretty sweet deal: spend $100 and get back $85. Understandably, many consumers took advantage of the deal (including myself), expecting to receive a $75 Shell gift card and a $10 Sears gift card.
Imagine our surprise when we get our rebate back with a $75 Shell gift card and a $10 Sears COUPON! Yes, instead of a gift card good on anything in the store or online and without expiration as alluded to in the press release announcing the deal, consumers received a crappy $10 off $50 purchase coupon. Not only does the coupon require a $50 purchase, the purchase must be from Men’s Apparel and made by 10/15/2008, and excludes “special purchases, Great Price items, Introductory Offers, Lands End merchandise, Levi’s (pretty ironic considering Dockers is a Levi’s brand), fragrances, Celestial Star diamonds, Sears.com, Kmart.com, Landsend.com, Sears Auctions on Ebay, outlet store purchases, catalog orders, gift cards, money orders, wire transfers and protection agreements.” Additionally the coupon cannot be combined with other coupons like a gift card could.
Needless to say I and many others who took part in this deal feel quite deceived by this and are pursuing Sears for our $10 gift cards. Initially some on SlickDeals reported they were able to call Sears Customer Service and get the gift card sent, but apparently Sears has now decided to deny these requests. One person has reported that they had success filing a BBB complaint over the matter, so that may be the way to go at this point. As for me, I am waiting for the submission in my wife’s name to come in so that I can try to take care of both $10 gift cards with one call and one BBB complaint. Also if the rebate doesn’t come it escalates the issue to another level.
Have you been scammed by Sears on this deal too? Leave us a comment here to share your story with the world, and then use the following contact information to let Sears and Levi Strauss know you aren’t taking their crap laying down!
Sears
1-800-549-4505
Email
Sears National Customer Relations
3333 Beverly Road
Hoffman Estates, IL 60179
Dockers
1-800-DOCKERS (1-800-362-5377)
Levi Strauss & Co.
Attn: Consumer Relations
1155 Battery St.
San Francisco, CA 94111
Got the same non gift $10 gift card. And we sent 2 rebates – one in my name – one in my husband’s as per the rebate rules. Only one rebate came. Called about the other one and was told they didn’t receive it. I have copiesof my receipts but they won’t accept a copy to replace the lost original.
I sent the rebate in and was told I was disqualified because I get my mail at a po box. We have had a huge amount of rural mail box thefts so got the po box for important mail. Apparantly they are chosing to do their own form of “theft”
Hello,
As follows is a letter I just faxed to consumer relations today.
I am very unhappy and that is an understatement.
I just received all my rebate submission back for the $75 Shell Gift Card.
The reason given for rejection is the fine print on the back of the terms and conditions stating “Multiple, same day receipts can be combined”…………
On the main front in the fine print it clearly says “qualifying purchases made between 6/7 and 6/15.
I made my purchase of $103.59 the evening of 6/10 and when I got home and filled out the rebate form, I saw it said $100 before tax, so I made another 20 mile trip to Sears the next day and bought another $8.99 so that the base amount added up to over $100.
If you are intent on “splitting hairs” with such a “trick” inconsistency, you will drive people away from your brand. I have worn Dockers all my life but you are leaving a very, very bad taste in my mouth. You are doing much more harm than good to your ‘brand’
they returned back all my materials saying I did not put a date of birth on the form. The form does not even have that field on it and its not mentioned in the fine print either. I think we should call a good class action lawyer. Thousands are bound to have been gyped by this scam. All I got was the $10 of $50 coupon!!
Same boat as Tim. Although, the form I have included a space for date of birth …which I filled out! Not that it’s any of their business and shouldn’t even be required. Shameful.
Well, at least some of you received the $75 Shell gas card!! I was told by the Sears store people where I purchased the Dockers items that all the items (well over $100 pre-tax) I purchased qualified for the $75 gas card even though the items were on two receipts. But just yesterday I received my receipts and enclosures back with the reason for denial being “Your receipt did not indicate purchase of $100 of eligible Dockers items”. What a bunch of hooey!! I will pursue this with the contacts on this page but am interested in a class action lawsuit if someone is interested in taking this on!
I ordered $100 worth of Dockers. Two days later, I received an e-mail from Sears saying they were out of stock on one of the items. So, I ordered another item to make sure I was over the $100. I just received a letter yesterday saying I was disqualified because I made two separate purchases! I HAD to make two separate purchases due to Sears!
Just had all my receipts returned and rebated denied becase “Your receipt did not indicate purchase of $100 eligible Docker’s items” but that’s a load of bull They RUINED one of my receipts during processing wiping out the type on the last item so that it doesn’t appear. Looks like some piece of tape was placed over it. I scanned my receipts before I sent them in so I know they were perfect. Bunch of scam artists!
I received two of the $10/$50 “reward cards” (harumph!) and carped at the Sears Rebate Center to no avail, but DID get results from Sears Public Relations & Communications, who promised to send a $20 GC… WooHoo!
Their contact number is 1-(847)-286-2500… hope this helps!
We to were also scammed by this whole thing. We purchased everything online but when we went to submit it to receive the form to send it in the site crashed. So we called the number and a guy told us to just mail it in to the address he provided and everything would be fine. After 6 weeks we called in looking for the gas card and was told that it has been processed and it would be another 6 weeks before the gas card would arrive. To our surprise we later received an envelope stating that we were disqualified for not filing out the form correctly with date of birth and they were sorry there was nothing they could do. So we to are very upset over this and if anyone can figure out how to get this resolved that would be great. Maybe if we all went in on it something could be done about it.
[...] while back I posted about a scam being perpetrated by Sears and Dockers on a recent rebate promotion. The issue I had was that instead of a “$10 reward card” as [...]
Scammed too! I received an email though in August that said my GC was on the way and would arrive within 2 weeks. It is now October and no GC. These are big companies Dockers, Sears, and Shell – which is the only reason I went for it. The employee in the men’s dept told me about it and thought it was a great deal! What a load of xxxx! I don’t usually buy Dockers for my husband because they are so expensive – but I did because of the lure of the GC. I will never buy Dockers again. I won’t go to Sears either! Did Shell have anything to do with this scam?
Here’s my update from my previous post- I finally went to the BBB and man did they do a great job. Got a call from Sears. They offered me a $50 gift card instead of the $75 gas card. I said I’d only accept a $75 gift card. They agreed and sent it to me. I strongly recommend all of you file a complaint with the BBB.
I also took advantage of this deal and purchased over $100 in Dockers mens clothing. I mailed in rebate well before the June 28 deadline and today it is 11/11/08 and still have not received any gas card or anything else for that matter. I have not heard a word and I do not know how to follow up. Anyone know who to contact?
Twice since I started calling Sears I was promised a $10 gift card, but never got it. Recently, I was contacted by a Sears csr who actually promised me a $10 card valid on anything in the store, and with an expiration date of 12/2009. Instead they actually sent me via UPS, yes UPS, the same $10 coupon of $50 many of us have received, I got it today (Nov. 12) and it bears an expiration date of 10/15/08!!! Besides complaining to the BBB (many of us have done that already), I believe that we have a case for a class action law suit.
Remember, Sears press release states that we will get “a $75 gas gift card and also a $10 Sears Reward card by mail — so a total of $85.00 back!” I don’t know about you, but a $10 coupon is not what can be called $ back!!!
Sears can try to hide by making its press release not available anymore, however, you can find it on Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS204107+02-Jun-2008+PRN20080602
I think that Sears thinks that we will give up, so they’re in a way playing hide and seek with us!
The class action is an interesting thought, although probably not the best option. First off, you’d probably have trouble finding a lawyer to take this on since we are probably talking about a relatively low amount in damages (assuming 100,000 people took advantage of the offer and knew about the $10 “reward card” listed in the press release and knew about the class action suit and cared enough to submit a claim, you’d still only be talking about $1 million in damages). Secondly, after the attorney’s fees it is likely that claimants would end up with something as equally lame as the $10 off coupon. Unfortunately that’s how most other consumer class actions I’ve seen have ended up.
I certainly wouldn’t give up. See my follow-up post at http://www.cheapencounters.com/?p=294 to see how I was able to resolve my issue with this. If that fails, spread the word through comments on other blogs, making your own blog postings, and sending your story to the Consumerist.com and other consumer advocates.
Good luck!
Wow ! great info, i have bookmarked ur site and i’ll be back again and again ! Many thanks buddy
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Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the gratifying work.