It's been a month since the promise of a $300 dollar rebate. I was told that I would be notified in "a couple of weeks". Has anyone received or atleast heard about the promised rebate (for purchase of the riocar up to 30 days prior to the price drop)?

I received mine within a week and a half after speaking with sonic blue. They just credited my credit card.

Never got my refund. Sent mail to Empeg and Sonic Blue. No response from SB. Not surprised.

Empeg peeps replied to my initial email within an hour, credit card credited the next day, and a fleece delivered within the week too

Nope. They did not credit the money to my account. I have not heard a thing. Actually if I didn't see this message I wouldn't have bothered to look, I guess I assumed on good faith I would get creditted. Oh well, so much for good faith?

-- So I call them, and after waiting 55 minutes in the queue, all the people who could do something or investigate have left for the day. Ugh. And waiting nearly an hour seems to be the standard practice to get any human being from Sonic Blue.

Calvin

I just sent one email to the address specified with the details requested in the post Rob placed in the ANNOUNCE section of the BBS, they emailed back, job done. No need for phone calls at all. Have you tried an email, have you had a reply ?

I'm not sure why anyone would need to "notify you in a couple of weeks" - refunds get processed within a day or two as far as I know.

I suggest you take advantage of the email address (Jim Hafner-Eaton) that I posted a couple of weeks back - he is director of customer service and offered to investigate personally any problems that empeg owners had been unable to resolve through the usual channels.

By the way - and I don't think this applies to you - anyone who has sat back and waited for the rebate to come through automatically is out of luck. I did state quite clearly that it must be applied for.

Rob

Hey, I didn't get a fleece!!! where's mine! arrrghhhhh.....

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I requested a rio800 and the fleece the day they were offered, and the reply from Andrew Hogbin was they would be delighted to send those items within a couple of weeks. When the $300 dollar offer came up I emailed him back requesting that instead. But then I seem to remember an announcement that anyone that had ordered a rio800 would automatically get the $300 dollar rebate instead so I didn't follow up right away. I assumed it would still be a couple of weeks (my fault). Rob, I'll contact Jim Hafner-Eaton as you suggest and explain the situation. Thanks.

Bob

Andrew runs the international store and cannot process refunds for players bought from the US eStore. He did email everyone that had requested the free portable with contact details for either the US or Intl stores - sorry if you didn't get that email.

Rob

Obviously someone was feeling generous at the time, as the fleece is part of an unrelated referral promotion.

Rob

I'll try the e-mail address. The Sonic Blue phone system really does make a person grumpy. This morning, I called the 800 number, and then it asks do you own the product? I push 1, and it promptly says hang up and call the toll number. (e.g. if you paid for the product, you're not allowed to use the toll free number!). Then I call the number given, and after punching through the system, put on hold, it declares that it is unable to transfer me to the correct location. After trying again, it declares I have a legacy product that is no longer manufactured and it gives me the (254) 299-2759 legacy product support number to call. And I've been on hold for this number for almost 30 minutes already. Argh. The phone support system is a absolute and complete maze.

Calvin

On side note what about the free fleece for those recommending a friend do i count as i bought a riocar for the girlfriend (was going to be a backup but she scuppered that plan)

I emailed Jim Hafner-Eaton this morning and he already responded by telling me that he'd look into the matter.

I did much the same thing, send your details to Andrew ( both serial numbers and purchase dates etc ) and see what he says

Yes, I'd say that counts.

Rob

Update: Jim has found my original request for the Rio800.fleece jacket and has converted that to the $300 rebate which should appear on my next cc statement. Pretty fast service! (and in time for Christmas purchases)

I contacted Jim, and he responded to me and said THERE IS NO RECORD OF ANY REQUEST. I am so frustrated! Obviously Jim is doing what he can, but I have no phone records, and when I spoke to the Sonic Blue employee who promised it will go through in 1-2 weeks, I must have been blown off! :-( I don't have any respect for Sonic Blue's customer services at this point.

Wth the exception of the core empeg group, Sonic Blue has consistently made me feel untrusted as a customer. From the moment I placed my order, I've had to bear the burden of proof, multiple times. I recommend to anyone who speaks with Sonic Blue customer service to always note the date and time and full name of anyone you speak to. If these people don't show trust in their customers, we should not trust them.

Calvin

I just thought I'd throw in my $0.02 about crappy SonicBlue service. It is unrelated to empeg, so those of you that don't care, skip forward now.

A couple of years ago I purchased a video card manufactured by Diamond. Later, Diamond became SonicBlue in whatever manner. Later than that, my video card went bad. The card was still well under warranty (2 years into a 5 year warranty or some such). I called their support only to be redirected many times until I eventually got to ``legacy'' support. I was told that I had to pay them $20 or so just to talk to them, but if the card was found to be bad, I'd be refunded. Knowing that the card had to be bad (I'd had a friend who had the exact same symptoms, plus it was obvious), I agreed. The tech told me to try some things. I wasn't in front of the computer at the time, so I said I'd try them and call back, wanting to not be a jerky customer. So I did, and I called back and was told that I'd have to shell out another $20. I asked, just to make sure, that I'd be refunded the whole amount if the card was found to be bad. He said no! Only the call in which the card was found to be bad would be refunded. This means that the techs could arbitrarily drag out the troubleshooting process until they had ridiculous amounts of my money. Needless to say I yelled a lot until I was issued an RMA and all of the charges were refunded to me.

What this comes down to is that I really don't want to support SonicBlue in any way. But I really do want to support the empeg guys. I wish that empeg had stayed their own company or sold out to some less weasely company, like the Psychic Friends Network.

I had a post almost exactly like yours drafted earlier but I decided at the last minute not to post it. I didn't want to look like I was "piling on" when it's well understood around here that SonicBlue acquiring Empeg has sent their order fulfillment and customer service down the tubes. The thing that kept me from posting it is (a) it's been said a lot before by others and (b) the Empeg guys really are, as you said, the exception, and their commitment to customer service hasn't deteriorated since the acquisition.

I think we all wish they had held out a little longer and found a better buyer, but that might not have ever happened, and the whole Empeg venture may have collapsed if SonicBlue hadn't arrived. It really boils down to assessing whether the continued survival of Empeg, Ltd. is worth the price we pay by having horrible service from SonicBlue (when it's needed.) We all have different answers to that, I'm sure.

I had a post almost exactly like yours drafted earlier but I decided at the last minute not to post it.

Yeah. I've had that one cued up at least five times. But I decided to send it anyway because it still really pisses me off. I decided then never to buy any further SonicBlue products, but I've already had to renege because I wanted the tuner. But it's largely the reason that I haven't purchased more lenses, an additional sled or an additional empeg. I'd rather spend ten times as much and make a new lens or sled myself. And if my empeg ever breaks, I'll just have to hope that someone's selling one on eBay or that SonicBlue is no more and I'll pay Hugo or someone to fix it for me (not to assume that Hugo doesn't have better things to do).

No disagreement there. I'm not one to vent about something trivial, but sometimes, things just add up and up.

Calvin