Life on the Road

You may recall my recent post in which I FIRED Tire Kingdom.

Well, things are moving on – and they’re more fired than ever!

I filed a complaint (directed to their corporate address) with the Better Business Bureau, and sent a letter with the same information to their Customer Service email address.

Astoundingly, I got the exact same form letter response through both venues. It said, in part:

Dear Customer:

We recently offered a promotion in which customers who made a qualifying tire purchase were given a certificate for a gasoline voucher program. Those certificates were provided by Tidewater Global Marketing. Unfortunately, Tidewater did not fulfill its obligations, and the Florida Attorney General shut down its operations.

Tire Kingdom takes great pride in customer service and satisfaction as well as in providing quality products. If you are a customer affected by Tidewater’s failures, we apologize for this inconvenience. We are providing alternative programs, and have retained a vendor that we are confident will meet our standards and your expectations. We offer two options:

Then it went on to explain the $100 prepaid Visa and $500 gas rebate promotions I detailed earlier – and the release you have to sign to get either one.

I had to laugh that they could have a fiasco like this happen, then blow off my complaint with a form letter, and still have the nerve to say

Yeah. Obviously.

Interestingly, yesterday I finally got a call back, from a harried-sounding woman in Marketing. “Ms. Jones” said that she is the only person there, and desperately trying to return the huge backlog of calles that this situation has generated. I got a call faster because I’m a squeaky wheel, it seems, but she is still on the queue from March calls – here almost at the end of April.

She had some interesting answers (and non-answers) for various issues:

1. The reason Tire Kingdom did not contact the affected parties to notify them of the situation and offer them the replacement options is… Tire Kingdom has no idea who the affected parties are!

Ms. Jones explained that Tidewater (the fulfillment company) had the database of registered customers, and it was never provided to Tire Kingdom. So when Tidewater went under, this information was simply lost.

Wait A Minute!

I qualified for this promotion by purchasing a specific product (“two or more Sumitomo tires”) from Tire Kingdom during a specific time period last Fall. If they actually cared, they could obviously go back through their sales receipts for that time period, and contact everyone who made that purchase.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that some of them would never have signed up with Tidewater… But do you care about the rest of us, or don’t you?

2. It was suggested to “them” that “they” offer us some additional compensation, but “they” decided not to.

Ms. Jones said that she certainly wished they had decided to authorize something like that, because it would have made her life a lot easier!

As to who “they” are, she said that was the Legal Department. When I said I wanted to escalate my complaint to them, she provided me with her email address, and said that she will forward to them my request for contact.

Then, presumably, I hold my breath for their speedy and satisfying response…

3. The gas rebate program isn’t as onerous as it seems (or is it?)

Ms. Jones said she wanted to “clear up some misconceptions” evidenced in my inquiry.

First, I was upset the I would have to “start over” with the 20 month ordeal of the gas rebate program.

She pointed out that I could select any starting month, including retroactively back to the time of my purchase.

My problem with this? I mailed my receipts to Tidewater, and they were not returned!

Ms. Jones assured me that I could submit copies of my credit card statements showing the purchases for those months. Still a pretty big hassle, to figure out what card was used, and of course 2008 is stored away already, and cost of copies…

PLUS I double-checked the form that I would be signing when I made the selection, and it says this:

Photocopies of gas receipts will be accepted for purchases prior to May 2009. Original gas receipts are required for gas purchased May 2009 and after.

That doesn’t say photocopies of charge card statements, but very specifically photocopies of gas receipts.

Sure, hindsight is 20/20 – I could have copied each batch of receipts before sending them off to Tidewater. I could also have sent it registered and insured mail, if you want to go further down that road. But it quickly bogs down a cost:benefit analysis for a $25 rebate.

Anyhow, is her word going to be enough guarantee for me? Especially after she’s spent the whole rest of the phone call lamenting her powerlessness?

4. They are handling the new rebate program themselves (or are they?)

Ms. Jones assured me that there was no danger of the new program being disrupted. Tire Kingdom is actually keeping control of everything “personally” this time, and only contracting out the paperwork through a direct-mail house.

Which is interesting, since the form letter they sent out said:

We are providing alternative programs, and have retained a vendor that we are confident will meet our standards and your expectations.

Hmmmm…

Not that it matters to me one way or another. It’s just distressing to feel like nobody there knows what’s going on, and/or nobody is giving me a straight answer.

In Conclusion…

I had several comments on my original post, and several private emails, from other victims of this situation.

Some people are wondering about the viability of a Class-Action Lawsuit.

It’s hard to believe Tire Kingdom would rather pay lawyers to defend something like that, than just throw us a bone.

Especially since, after all,

*giggle*