Shopping online and looking for the best deal like a good consumer, Doug bought his Nintendo 3DS from Kmart. Part of the greatness of this deal was a $30 rebate that would (theoretically) come in the form of a gift code. Sending rebates to customers in the form of an electronic code seems so efficient, doesn’t it? Yes, we suppose it would be, if Kmart had sent the code, and if anyone at Kmart had any idea what it is that he’s talking about.

On 11/17  I used a search engine to find the best deal on a Nintendo 3ds game system. I found a deal for $154 with a $30 rebate in the form of a KMart gift code that was supposed to be emailed to me by 11/29.

Sure enough, the 29^th comes and goes and no emailed gift code. I call and talk to a nice woman who says she’ll take care of everything. I leave for a business trip for a week and come back to find no gift code.

I call again…

1^st rep: Wrong dept, call this number
2^nd rep: I don’t know what to do, try this number
3^rd rep: You need to call the online reward dept
4^th rep: I don’t know how to handle this – I ask for Supervisor
5^th (and last rep-Supervisor): Sir, I have no proof that you’re entitled to this gift code

This is where I sprung my surprise. Knowing what a lousy rep Kmart has, I copied and pasted the award offer from the website and put it in an email to myself. I told about it and she said that was not sufficient proof and that I should have a nice day…goodbye.

At this point I figured I had spent the $30 on the phone and made the decision to return it for a refund and vow to never give Kmart/Sears a penny of my money in the future. I found a 3ds for $3 more than the net price I would have gotten had Kmart come through with the gift code.

Doug ultimately found his item elsewhere, but if you’re still in a similar struggle with Kmart, we hear that you can contact their social media elves at kmsupport@searshc.com.

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