Today I bring you a humble cautionary tale about how I did the equivalent of throwing a $20 bill in the garbage. My price protection fail started in December when I was tasked with purchasing a Christmas gift for myself. The third party controller I purchased in 2011 stopped working just before we left for Alberta. (Well, that “some reason” may be my partner’s uncanny ability to destroy electronic devices.) I figured I might as well get a nice replacement for her to wreck next. I bought an Xbox 360 controller at Best Buy for $59.99 plus HST.
Last week, I was looking for a laser printer. I did something I said I’d never do again: I looked at the FutureShop flyer. I found wireless Xbox 360 controllers were on sale for $39.99, a full $20 less than what I had paid.
My first reaction was “I am an idiot.” Then I realized I had made the Best Buy purchase on my new SmartCash World MasterCard. One of the card’s features is price protection. I suspected I’d be forced to jump through a ton of hoops to get price protection. I was committed, however, to enduring some inconveniences simply to share my experience with all of you. I called up SmartCash and they gave me the toll-free phone number (1-877-654-7511) for making price protection claims. Apparently MBNA can’t just do it. Sigh. The phone number was only available during regular business hours so I called it a second time the next morning. I’m getting too old for this.
There are a ton of limits on price protection — even more than I expected, and I’m cynical. There’s a minimum claim of $10, a maximum number of annual claims, a maximum value per item, and a maximum total annual value (but always check your cardholder agreement). They said there was a form I had to fill out and they’d email it to me.
They didn’t email it. Sigh. A few days later I got the form in the mail. For some reason it was addressed to “Josephs”. Here’s the documentation I’d be required to provide to get my $20-ish back:
- Customer copy of the original vendor’s sales receipt showing cost, date and decription of purchase;
- The account statement showing the charge;
- Original, dated and highlighted advertisement / flyer to prove that the identical item was offered in Canada at the reduced price within 60 days of the date of your purchase; and
- Copy of the Explanation of Benefits that was received from the merchant offering a lowest price guarantee and/or other provider (if applicable).
Requirement #1 makes sense, and this is where I pulled my truly bonehead move. I usually keep receipts. During the first half of the year I keep all of my receipts in one container. During the second half of the year I keep them in a second container. At the end of the year I empty the first container into the garbage and repeat the cycle. Thus I keep all of my receipts for at least six months. (By the way, paper is sequestered carbon so recycling it is bad for your carbon footprint. Carbon criminals. I’m such a hero dumping paper in the landfill.) For any significant purchase (e.g. a TV), I keep the receipt with the manual and warranty in a box (creatively labelled “Manuals and Warranties in black marker). But somewhere between Edmonton, Alberta and Omemee, Ontario I lost my Xbox 360 receipt and thereby stupidly cost myself about 20 bucks.
Notwithstanding my idiocy, this entire “price protection” scheme is obviously setup to discourage legitimate claimants from completing the process. Why couldn’t I pay the $2 to get a non-original receipt from MBNA? Why can’t MBNA interface with the company so I don’t have to send the insurer an entire account statement? In regard to requirement #3, I read the flyer online — do I need to print the entire flyer out? Or do I have to go to FutureShop in Peterborough and get a physical flyer to mail in? It does say “original” flyer. Why couldn’t I email a JPEG and a link? Heck, why couldn’t I email all the documentation rather than spending $1.20 in postage (because with all those documents in an envelope, I couldn’t just use one stamp). And I don’t even understand requirement #4. Are there any lawyers in the house who want to interpret it pro bono? Beyond the four requirements, you need to fill out an entire page of information e.g. the product’s specific model. How the **** would I know an Xbox 360 controller’s model number? The packaging is in an Alberta landfill (like I said, Enviro-Hero). It all just adds up to a major rip-off. The price protection guarantee offered by the World MasterCard is, to me, not worth the time nor the money required to make a claim — unless it’s for a large amount (as of publication, a claim is capped at $500).
While I upgraded my card to enjoy higher cash-back for another 6 months, my subconscious clearly liked the “price protection” idea enough to remember the feature when it became relevant. Being hopeful set the stage for my inevitable disappointment. My lessons learned are as follows:
- Don’t believe that a price protection plan will ever be useful. It’s marketing fluff buried in a maze of exclusions.
- Don’t buy unnecessary stuff (e.g. Xbox 360 accessories) at full MSRP — even under the duress of a girlfriend’s scorn.
- When travelling, do a better job of keeping receipts.
Heh. I went on a wild-eyed cynical rant over at Myownadvisor.ca about how lowest price protection guarantees are a marketing technique for the gullible:
http://www.myownadvisor.ca/2013/01/if-you-want-to-price-match-please/#comments
This is about the same. If they’re going to stand behind their promise then the stand-up thing to do is to make it easy for people to claim. Your experience makes it seem like they’re thrown in deliberate roadblocks. That’s pretty indicative of someone trying to not stand behind their promise. And the conclusion should be? Write a letter to MBNA and include their chopped up credit card with it.
lol nice. I would cut it up indignantly– but I get a lot more than $20 cash-back with the card. I’ll remember this, however, when my 6-month promo period runs out (after which the SmartCash SUCKS; TD ruined the card). And you’re right about price protection features on credit cards; next time I’m going to be a lot less gullible.
For many other things it sounds like negotiating with the “account retention department” is very effective. I wonder if giving them a call would work here…
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could go online to your credit card transactions/statement, click on the purchase in question, select from a drop down “Price Protection claim”, link to the online advertisement in question (or upload a pdf scan of the flyer), submit a claim, and then be contacted if there is any problem?
Even if they set a maximum claim per year and minimum dollar value per claim, it would be an amazing feature. Sadly, something like that will never make it to Canada.
Exactly. They’ll never do it because it would just encourage claims. Lord knows that MBNA wouldn’t *want* people to use their cards’ features; they just want to be able to sell marketing fluff and not deliver on the impression they create in consumers’ minds. Implication, innuendo, and marketing psychology, no substance. Seems to be MBNA’s new strategy ever since TD bought them out. Bankers are such charlatans.
I have a system of keeping receipts. I have a folder for each month rather than two folders. Once a new month starts I trash the year old receipts and start putting new ones in. This system works for me since I have a pretty good idea of what month I bought somethingin should I need to scrounge up that receipt. It also keeps me from the monumental task of wading through 6 months worth of receipts. For large purchase i do the same as Joe, staple the receipt to the users manual and keep it somewhere safe (Finding the manual when I need it is a different story though).
Glad you have a system that works for you. I admit, going through six months of receipts sucks, but personally I do it so rarely that — for me — it beats keeping a monthly system.
Reminds me of when I threw away $20 by submitting an incomplete rebate form for my new monitor. I was rushing to get it done before my daughter got home for lunch and didn’t include the invoice. I emailed the rebate company explaining what happened and they told me to send it in separately. They bungled the paper handling, so I’m out the $20 plus four stamps (didn’t want the hassle of buying US-bound stamps, so used two domestic permanent stamps on each envelope). I’ve contacted them again to see if they can find my invoice, but no response. I suppose I could throw two more stamps down the drain in hopes of recovering the $20… maybe.
Mail-in rebates are a massive ripoff. If I did a “Top 10 Ripoffs” article, I’d definitely include them. If you ever want to call out that specific company let me know; I’m confident I could get it pretty high in the search results for their company name. I got burned years ago by Staples on a similar $30 rebate except I literally did everything; they just never sent me my money. At the time, I wasn’t as money-smart (and I had less time to fight consumer battles; I was a pretty dedicated uni student). Nowadays, I would have raised hell.
**** you Staples.
I’ve never really had problems with rebates, though I’ve heard the horror stories. This time, I screwed up, so I’m not surprised they bungled it too. Come to think of it, though, my last rebate experience was bad too, that time it was a video card. It took many emails, and many assurances that “NOW you will receive it, there was just one step I forgot to do when I approved your rebate.” before I actually received the cheque. I suppose the lesson is to keep on them about it, since most people probably forget about the rebate shortly after they send it off.
Also worked on a “we double your warranty free” case with another credit card. It was a bit of a pain as well. Had to send in a copy of the invoice, warranty, and a letter from a repair shop indicating the cost of fixing the device. This was for the scanner on an all-in-one printer. There was only one place in town that serviced scanners, and they worked exclusively on commercial scanners. They offered to look at it for $100, but I eventually got through to the repair guy and he graciously sent me an email of what was wrong with it without looking at it and the cost of repair (I had described exactly what the symptoms were). In the end though, I would have had to mail the printer to Toronto for disposal, which would have been about $50. I didn’t realize I had to ship it in. Figured the scanner function wasn’t worth that much money, so I kept the piece of crap, which has now failed completely. *Cough Samsung*.
1) Good to know about Samsung printers. 2) I didn’t realize there would be unrecoverable costs related to a credit card’s extended warranty. Then again, it just doubles the warranty so a consumer should pay close attention to the value of an underlying manufacturer’s warranty.
After I posted this complaint about the rebate, I typed out another email to them, and lo and behold, it got approved a couple hours later. Glad I didn’t badmouth them too badly, or name and shame the company. Turned out all right. I think they did an good job, considering the extenuating circumstances.
Congrats, thanks for the update
Oh, price protection claims. I always like the idea of having that as a backup, but knew it would be a pain in the a to get it done. They make it difficult to discourage doing it. Why make it easy? Everyone would be wanting price protection, especially during the holidays!
You should be able to walk into best buy, tell them the price has dropped at Future Shop within the 60 day window of price matching and they will give you the $20 bucks back. Show them your visa statement indicating the purchase at best buy on the day you bought it. Or go in to best buy, buy another one, price match it at future shop. Wait until the sale is over, and then return it without the receipt thus getting your 20 bucks back
lol you are crafty. +1
That’s what I was thinking. (the ask BB to price match the FS price part.) If you used your BB rewards card, I think they can even look up the fact you bought that specific item for that specific price. Since BB and FS are owned by the same company, it’s irritating that they compete on prices in the first place….
I didn’t use a Best Buy Rewards card. I didn’t like that it gives a user like $5 for every $500 spent; not worth it considering how little I buy there. And yeah, it’s pretty symptomatic of Canada’s cartel-esque retail sector.
I believe we have the BB card just to increase our social status when it falls out of my husband’s wallet at parties. : )
Yeah, I had an old Samsung laser for many years, and it worked fine, but the last two Samsungs I bought were terrible. The other one is a wireless colour laser printer, and it is complete junk. I’ve replaced both with Brother brand, which so far are operating more smoothly.
You’re right about the extended warranty. The credit card’s insurance company just reads the terms and duplicate them. I guess I should have done my research better on this, as I ended up wasting quite a bit of time on it for nothing. Samsung’s warranty basically said “We know our product is crap, but you must pay shipping to have it repaired, you dumb SOB.”
lol funny story about Brother — I just replaced my piece of garbage inkjet I got from them in 2010. But more on that Friday!