This is a followup to an earlier article, about my Soyo rebate lawsuit.
On Friday, 10/7/05, I got a new surprise. I got a check, purporting to be a Soyo rebate check. I do not believe it to be genuine. It’s not that I don’t think Soyo issued the check. It’s that I don’t think it’s really a normal rebate.
For starters, let’s look at the postmark.
That’s sort of interesting. Apparently, I am supposed to believe that my rebate, which was not in their system at all on Thursday, September 29th, managed to make it through the entire system in five days.
Let’s look at the check itself.
What is their story?
Not much to it. It looks like a standard rebate cover story. (Is it the one they give on real rebate checks? I don’t know.)
Note that this creates a huge consistency problem for them. They have previously said that they use a third-party company to process and issue rebates, but here they are, sending me a rebate check directly.
There’s one more interesting problem: The verifyrebate.com site does not list this rebate! I never got processed through that system. What really happened? I’d guess they got the notification that they lost the case. What they don’t seem to realize is that, as of about 9:03AM on September 30th, they owe me, not $20, but $130. The moment I had to file to get them to pay, they were on the hook for those filing costs.
Now, what will eventually happen is I’ll get the judgment docketed and so on, and eventually, I will be awarded the magical court powers to let me just go ahead and take their money. The hard part is that, since I live in Minnesota, and I have no idea where they bank, it’s pretty hard for me to figure out who to garnishee. Unless someone at Soyo were to send me a document with their bank’s name and address, and routing numbers, it might be very hard for me to find a bank to send the paperwork to.
So, when the time comes, I know what to do, who to file the paperwork with, and so on.
I am, by the way, particularly charmed by the misspelling. I have no idea what to make of that. It almost lends credence to the notion that they actually did do something with one of the voice messages I left… But then why no return calls or other contact? No, it’s more likely that, when they got the letter from the court notifying them of the judgment, they decided to try to weasel out of it by pretending they were paying all along.
So, there you have it, folks. If you sue Soyo, they may pay your rebate only a year later than promised.
Comments [archived]
From: Sean Conner
Date: 2005-10-09 23:45:03 -0500
Soyo did send you a document with their bank on it—the rebate check. Unless you don’t think they actually bank at Cathay Bank (and the routing number on the bottom matches the bank listed at the top of the check) then I’m pretty sure this is their bank. At least for US operations.
From: W5EGO
Date: 2005-11-10 11:05:15 -0600
What Sean Said. There probably is someplace on the
Web that will let you translate routing numbers to
bank names, and from the name you can determine the
address.