Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 15:44:52 -0400
From: John Cornwell
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: OfficeMax
To Whom It May Concern:
This is a request that you remove all OfficeMax links that promote online
coupons, such as $30 off $150. These coupons were meant for direct mail
pieces and were never intended for posting on web sites. Thank you for
your cooperation in this matter.
Sincerely,
John C. Cornwell
OfficeMax.com
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 16:28:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Hot Deals Maniac
To: John Cornwell
Subject: Re: OfficeMax
Hi, John. People all over the Internet submit their discovered coupons to
us all the time. I always felt that posting a coupon or a good deal at
OfficeMax would help promote your online store and your stores throughout
the country. I know that many people found their way to OfficeMax stores
or OfficeMax.com as a direct result of seeing public information shared on
my website. I always thought that sharing information would do nothing
but benefit your store. Do you think otherwise?
I will gladly remove OfficeMax from my site, but please understand that
Staples and OfficeDepot stores seem to not have problems with people
posting their coupons and deals on my site. I always tried to ensure that
each site was promoted equally and fairly - if a OfficeDepot coupon was
available, I always tried to suggest that a OfficeMax coupon be posted
around the same time, but if you do not want free advertising in this
public forum, I understand and will respect your wishes.
Also, I have a few questions for you.
I have heard from over 50 different people about problems they had with
OfficeMax mail-in rebates. Those people told me they submitted all the
required forms, signatures, and UPC's, and still had their rebates denied.
There seems to be an abnormally large number of complaints about OfficeMax
mail-in rebates. I am sure someone at your company is aware of this issue
by now, and I was wondering if you would like to make a public statement
that I can forward on to everyone regarding this issue. A small amount of
the people who had rebate problems can be seen here:
http://www.hotdlz.com/text/officemax14/ . I ask because my goal is to be
sure that OfficeMax receives the same amount of exposure and fairness as
every other store that is advertised freely on the Hot Deals Club. A lot
of people would be interested in hearing whether or not OfficeMax is aware
of or is addressing any problems with its mail-in rebate program.
Thanks.
Hot Deals Club
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:38:44 -0400
From: John Cornwell
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: RE: OfficeMax
Thank you for your response. As a general rule OfficeMax uses online
coupons as an acquisition tool to entice new customers or reactivate old
customers. Either way this is a very targeted group that is receiving these
coupon offers. This being the case we set strict budgets to allow for these
coupons. When coupons begin to get posted on web sites that are not
targeting the same customers for which they were intended, we get hit with
unintended costs. We appreciate the fact that you promote OfficeMax.com,
and we would be happy to assist you in making your business a success. This
would include providing the best price points, rebates, and specials
available. We work with affiliates on a one on one basis frequently helping
them to market us successfully and if you have any questions please feel
free to let us know.
I am sorry to hear about the difficulties regarding mail-in rebates.
Truthfully most companies, including OfficeMax, do not manage how mail-in
rebates are processed. A third party company does this for us. So if a
rebate is denied it is not OfficeMax that is specifically denying it. That
being stated, I can suggest two courses of action a customer can take to
find out information regarding their rebate. They can call our online
customer service at 1-800-283-7674 and a service representative can assist
them or they can go online to our site and click on rebate center. If you
follow the directions a customer can check the status of their rebate check.
Even though OfficeMax does not process rebate checks we take your concerns
seriously and we will take a closer look at the process.
I hope this clears up any questions you had. Thank you for your interest in
OfficeMax.com.
Sincerely,
John C. Cornwell
OfficeMax.com
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:54:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Hot Deals Maniac
To: John Cornwell
Subject: RE: OfficeMax
If people submit OfficeMax coupons to the Hot Deals Club website in the
future, should I not post them, or are there specific ones that can be
posted?
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 16:02:13 -0400
From: John Cornwell
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: RE: OfficeMax
Thank you for your message. We would appreciate if you would not post them.
Actually most sites you see online that have OfficeMax coupons post them
without our consent and you were not the only one to receive correspondence
from us requesting for their removal. We understand the motivation for you
to post these coupons, you want to be a destination where people think they
will find a great deal. From our perspective we have to be very careful
with coupons and would prefer that web sites, such as yours, post product
offers instead. If you have any questions let us know. Thank you for your
interest in OfficeMax.com.
Sincerely,
John C. Cornwell
OfficeMax.com
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 11:01:28 -0400
From: OfficeMax.com
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: OfficeMax Rebate Issues
Dear HotDealsClub administrator,
I've become aware of some issues your site users are having with the
OfficeMax rebate program. If possible, I would like to talk to you about the
issues and provide your users the information they would need to get any
problems resolved. Please provide your contact number so I can call you and
we can address any issues you or your site users have.
Steve Baisden
Manager, Investor &
Public Relations
OfficeMax, Inc.
3605 Warrensville Center Road
Shaker Heights, OH 44122
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:23:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Hot Deals Maniac
To: OfficeMax.com
Subject: Re: OfficeMax Rebate Issues
I found a lot of good deals at OfficeMax over the last few months, most of
those deals were "free after rebate" or "$$ after rebate" deals. I posted
a lot of those deals on the Hot Deals Club, since my site is a public
forum where people can share public information about good deals at online
and retail stores. A lot of my site's members had problems with their
mail-in rebates. I heard from a lot of people who said they saw a "after
rebate" deal posted on my site, purchased the item(s), filled out the
forms completely, yet still had their rebate denied.
To be honest, I get a few emails like this about almost every company's
mail-in rebate deal posted on the Hot Deals Club. I typically feel that
when someone's mail-in rebate is denied, they either did something wrong
or their denied rebate is an isolated incident. However in the case of
OfficeMax, I received an abnormally large number of emails from people who
said they had almost all of their OfficeMax rebates denied. I simply
asked those people to contact the rebate company or OfficeMax directly,
which most of them did. I do now know those people's outcome.
I am not responsible for anyone's mail-in rebate fulfillments (or lack
thereof) nor do I want to be. As a moderator of a public forum where
people freely communicate information, I can summarize information that I
hear about, and I heard of a LOT of people having problems with submitted
OfficeMax mail-in rebates. I did not contact OfficeMax myself on behalf
of my readers, because it is the individual purchaser's responsibility to
submit and deal with their own rebates. When they have problems though, I
do share those issues with other people in the public forum.
Unfortunately, I do not have a phone number where I can be reached until
tomorrow (Saturday), but I can be reached on email throughout the day.
If you like, I can simply ask everyone who claimed to have mail-in rebate
problems to simply contact you directly?
In the meantime, I will put together a list of people who told me about an
unfair rebate denial, and I can forward you the list if you want.
I appreciate you emailing me about this issue, and I'm sure a lot of your
customers will be happy to see that OfficeMax cares.
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 13:24:08 -0400
From: OfficeMax.com
To: Hot Deals Maniac
Subject: RE: OfficeMax Rebate Issues
Thanks for your quick response. If your site users are having problems with
their rebates, please simply have them contact OfficeMax through the
following Rebate contact points. OfficeMax will do everything it can to make
sure their concerns are addressed:
e-mail: omxrebates@officemax.com
Rebate Hotline: (216) 471-6202
OfficeMax Customer Service: (216) 471-6900
I would also appreciate if you removed the link containing OfficeMax
associate information on your site that points to:
[link removed by Hot Deals Maniac: link to an offsite page showing all OfficeMax executives' email and phone numbers]
Thanks for the offer to provide the list of customers that had problems, I
will take it and make sure our rebate team follows up with each of them.
I appreciate your efforts in helping us address our customers' concerns.
Steve Baisden
Investor & Public Relations