Rebate Debate
Florida attorney general Bob Butterworth in March filed suit against CompuServe Interactive Services, Columbus, OH, charging that the Internet service provider failed to deliver promised rebates. The suit asks for up to $10,000 per violation more than $1 million in total.
Butterworth says CompuServe failed to provide rebates to many consumers who signed up for Internet service when buying a new computer.
“Consumers were promised $400 rebates from CompuServe if they agreed to purchase Internet services from the company at $21.95 per month,” Butterworth says in a statement. “The rebates were supposed to be made within eight to 12 weeks, but many consumers had to wait considerably longer than that while others received no rebate at all.”
While numerous rebate applications were rejected because they lacked information CompuServe deemed essential, Butterworth says that didn’t stop the company from billing customers each month.
The suit also charges CompuServe with slamming (signing up customers for more expensive service without notice or authorization); harassing customers by failing to stop billing consumers who quit the service; and billing twice monthly for the same service.
CompuServe denies all charges.
“We’ve processed hundreds of thousands of rebates and work to process rebates as quickly as possible as we receive them,” says spokesperson Anne Bentley. “Members get rebates in eight to 10 weeks following application approval. We’ve issued several hundred million dollars worth since beginning [the rebate program] in the summer of 1999.”
As for slamming, Bentley says, “Absolutely not. We are up-front about billing options and have a fairly good track record of customer satisfaction. [Poor handling of] billing issues is not in our best interest.
New York City-based AOL Time Warner owns CompuServe.
