Today ended up being insane errands day. All errands. All. Day. Long. Ugh.
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So I was filling out Best Buy rebates this morning. You all know how that is. You buy lots of stuff at Best Buy cheap during the holiday season and then get stuck with hours of work trying to get the price that you thought you were paying originally. Well, as I was filling out the rebates I discovered that when I had purchased the products that I had that the store had told me that I could buy an unlimited amount and still get the rebates. But now as I was filling them out I notice the fine print on the rebates themselves from the manufacturer that says that they will not honor more than one rebate from an address. I look again at the Best Buy receipt and it clearly says right on it, in addition to the person in the store having told me and the display saying nothing about limitations, that everything that I bought on that receipt together were eligible for the rebates although the rebate printed on the same piece of paper clearly disputes that fact.
So I called the Best Buy store where I had purchased the products. I couldn’t get through to anyone for twenty minutes. Now, think back, when is the last time that you called a regular brick and mortar store and couldn’t get through for twenty minutes? I mean the whole store is SO busy that they are no longer taking calls? I eventually called through to the appliances department and had them get a manager for me through that route. The manager attempted to get out of having to do anything because “Best Buy is not responsible for the rebates and Best Buy says that advertising a price and not giving it isn’t really false advertising but after you purchase the product and get the rebate is the actual advertising.” Now many of you may think that that makes no sense – that advertising only exists after a product has been purchased and that you can state anything you want prior to the sale as long as you don’t lie about it after the fact. Well, I have no retort. Anyway, the manager finally admitted that the store was wrong to mislabel the display, misstate the rebate limitations and misprint the receipt confirming that misstatement. Now that the store has finally admitted to being at fault the question is: will their honor the stated price (or… will they honor a rebate that they claimed to offer but didn’t… just semantics at this point.) The answer: no. Since it isn’t false advertising or anything and just plain lying. Oh I see. No wait… Anyway, they did agree to take back anything that I couldn’t get a rebate on. That is better than nothing but does NOT qualify as honoring their advertised price. Now I have to make a drive to the city (read: Henrietta) just to deal with this. They do this, quite obviously, because most people won’t bother but I purchased almost $1,000 of things that they were refusing to honor rebates on where the rebates were worth over $750 of that amount. So it was VERY important to take them back. The prices were awful without the rebates.
So Dominica and my day became a day of errands. Lots of errands. I woke Dominica up and told her that we had to go to the city to take care of myriad things so she got up and got moving and we were out of the house by 2:00. Okay, maybe a day of errands is too generous. A day of resting with several errands tacked on at the end is more appropriate.
We started by getting lunch at the Omega. We were both really hungry although Dominica is barely able to eat anything at this point because she is so disgusted by everything that is allowed by the diet. She can barely bring herself to eat at all.
Our first errand was Best Buy. Fortunately the girl working the counter was very nice and helpful and as soon as she looked at the receipt that clearly stated that we got the rebate she didn’t give us any problem returning all of the items. That was a big relief. I was half (or more than half) expecting there to be another big argument about how it isn’t Best Buy’s fault if they misrepresent their vendor partners.
Then we ran to the bank to do some much needed banking that we have been putting off for forever because it is never, ever convenient. Then up to Despatch Junction. There were some train supplies of which we were in need and we wanted to get it taken care of while we could. Mostly we got things like track and paint. Just basic stuff.
FedEx had tried to deliver my replacement cell phone today but dad hadn’t been around so they took it back to the transfer facility way out on the west side of the city on Manitou Rd. Since our timing and location was decent we took the opportunity to drive out to FedEx and pick up the phone so that we don’t have to figure out how to deal with it tomorrow. That went smoothly and quickly. Then we drove down to dad’s house because he had gotten a shipment of stuff that I needed to have over in Geneseo and it was more or less on the way home from that part of the city.
We got home and spent the evening relaxing and watching more of the second season of Angel. We watching two episodes, I think, and then went to bed on the early side because I have to be up quite early in the morning. I have a big project day in Rochester and Buffalo tomorrow and I need to be ready for it. It is going to be a really long day.