Amazon does not honor some Mac OS X 10.2 rebates

MacFixIt reader Thomas Santee lets us know that Amazon refused to honor his $50 Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) rebate coupon, despite a statement that the rebate was valid from July 29th through September 3rd.

"On July 30, MacFixit noted a $50 rebate offered by Amazon.com on advance orders of OS X 10.2. The Amazon.com rebate form said the rebate applied to purchases made between 7/29/02 and 09/03/02. My rebate for an 8/7/02 order was declined because, according to a reply from their customer service center, the rebate on OS X 10.2 was terminated for any orders placed after July 31."

One reader kept the original e-mail, which Amazon sent when it rescinded the $50 rebate offer:

"Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com regarding this issue. We recently offered a $50.00 promotional rebate for 'Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar.' This item is currently available for pre-order on our web site. Due to the overwhelming response to this promotional offer, we are unable to continue offering the rebate at this time. We will be honoring rebate offers for pre-orders of this product that were placed on or before 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002. At this time, we are unable to honor this rebate offer for pre-orders that were placed after 7:00 pm PDT July 31, 2002. We apologize for any inconvenience. Since your pre-order was placed during the time period that this promotional offer was posted on our web site, please proceed with submitting this rebate offer per the instructions located on the rebate form. Please note, these offers will be limited to one per household. If you were unable to print this rebate form at the time of purchase, please contact us; we will send you the necessary link to print this promotional offer. Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com."

The same reader received a subsequent message from the company's rebate department, stating "Thank you for participating in this promotion. Unfortunately we could not honor your request because of the following reason(s): Mac OS X 10.2: Jaguar - Invalid SKU submitted"

According to several readers, their Amazon-ordered Mac OS X 10.2 boxes did not include UPC code stickers. In addition, a number of users who did buy the product before the adjusted date - and have performed all the necessary rebate steps - are still having difficulty getting their money. John Reagan writes:

"I did purchase Jaguar from Amazon before July 31st and did qualify for a rebate. I even received an email from Amazon to confirm this. After I received Jaguar, I filled out the form, copied the UPC, etc. and sent in the rebate form. Last week, I went to the www.rebatestatus.com web site to check out the status of my rebate (now pushing 10 weeks) and they have no record of my rebate form. I contacted them via e-mail and they requested that I send it again (this time I used registered/return-receipt). I haven't received the return-receipt postcard yet."

Users report similar problems with other Amazon rebates, including an Adobe Photoshop Elements package that neglected to visibly mention that a digital camera had to be purchased in order to receive the offer. The information was only provided (at least in conspicuous fashion), after a purchase was made.

Feedback on this issue? Drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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