Saturday, September 22, 2007

www.greatfunsite.com

www.greatfunsite.com - this is a site which offers discounts at several stores. Depending on your needs and habits, you may find it useful. There is another interesting aspect to this site. You will normally come across a pitch to join this site when you shop online. At the end of your online purchase, many times they offer you to join this site. They normally offer 1 or 2 months free to become member of this site. Then they charge something like $15 a month. Depending on which site refers you, you may get interesting rewards for trying out www.greatfunsite.com. In my case,I was referred to www.greatfunsite.com after buying air tickets at Orbitz.com. They promised 15% discount on Orbitz's purchase. Sounded like a great deal. So, I signed up. Anyway, first two months of trial membership were free. Although you may have to spend some time and effort to get the actual reward. First www.greatfunsite.com is supposed to send you the rebate form which you have to fill out and send back. I had to call them to have it sent. Interestingly they sent a wrong form which would allowed me to claim lesser reward. What shall we call that? Honest mistake. May be. Another 2 phone calls and they sent the right reward form. Then on it was smooth. Rebate for $75 arrived after a few weeks. Good deal it was to get $75 off of $500 air tickets. Most of these rewards bank on the fact that people are simply diligent enough to claim such rewards because of required paper work and follow up. But, if you are up to the snuff, rewards like this galore on the net. Some things to keep in mind. First, always maintain scrupulous records in the form of e-mails, phone call logs etc. Make sure to ask for id number and names of people you may speak on the phone. Be prompt with correspondence. Be relentless with follow up. Always ask to speak to supervisor if the person on the phone does not provide right information or gives you a run around. With enough patience and diligence, you can get the reward check ultimately.


This was not a mail-in rebate. But, even in the case of mail-in rebates, experience if more or less the same. Staples stood out for its better practices regarding mail-in rebates. Refreshingly, they automatically do the paper work for your mail in rebate. As soon as you buy any article with a mail-in rebate, they set up an account at their rewards' web site. That's it. There is nothing more to do. No rebate form or UPC bar code to mail and worry that it may get lost in the mail. After a few weeks, check arrives. I do not understand why other retailers can not do this. As everyone understands, businesses use mail-in rebate to improve their cash flow temporarily and to get free working capital. 4-6 weeks that they hold to your money is like loan without interest for them. I have no objection to that at all. Even after that, why make customers go thru the hassle of making copies of receipts, sending UPC bar code from the package, give run around before mailing the check etc. You promised to reward, just do that after you have held the money without interest for certain time. Staples deserves to be praised for its ethical and customer friendly practice of processing rebates without unnecessary paperwork. If other retailers do the same, they can hope to get better responses. Many retailers probably do not realize. But, the fact is many customers find mail in rebates a big turn off because the paper work involved to get a small amount back is simply not worth many times. So, they shop elsewhere. If the same people come to know that getting rewards is not that bad, they will happily buy and wait for their rebates. Staple should actually give publicity to its nice practice. Otherwise, people may shy away from Staples too.


Cheers!


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1 comment:

ripped off and angry said...

this company essentially RIPS_OFF people!!! do not believe a word anyone says about them! I found out they charged me over 139 dollars for something i never wnated or even knew they were selling. This is definetly a scam, look at these sites:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Consumer-Services/TLG-GreatFun-800-290/tlg-greatfun-800-290-8603-ct-h-72mdf.htm