It’s amazing what a little venting can accomplish.
A day after I wrote of my problems getting ahold of anyone in my attempt to get a rebate from DirecTV actually paid, I cooled off a bit and tried using their standard customer service contact form. None of the comment topics they offered matched mine (‘Angry Rebate Seeker’), but I picked one that was reasonably close and sent off my missive anyway. A rather pointless exchange occurred between myself and a few CSRs telling me essentially the same thing (“We’re sorry, but the volume of rebates is so large that the payment has been delayed blah blah blah“), but at least I got to vent a bit.
Nevertheless, less than a week after the last exchange, what appears in our PO box but a shiny new rebate check for $100. Coincidence? I doubt it. The whole rebate system is just shy of a bait-and-switch tactic, with retailers counting on us screwing up, or giving up, and pocketing the difference.
That said, threatening to contact the FTC when they don’t meet their own terms appears to get rebate offerers motivated – not only did I finally get my rebate, yesterday I received a stack of free pay-per-view vouchers. And the FTC still got my complaint… 
You can bet I’m going to carefully read the terms are on those before I even think of using them!
