Persistence pays off

How far should you go to claim your rebate? How patient and careful should you be while submitting the forms and proofs for a rebate? How alert should you be about tracking your rebate? Do all of these things guarantee that you receive your rebate on time and that too in full? These questions surfaced in my mind when I had an unpleasant experience with T-Mobile regarding one of the rebates.

All these started a few months back when I decided to upgrade my 2 year old phone with a new Blackberry Pearl 8120. I was excited to see the features of the new phone on the T-Mobile website and decided to go for a 1 year contract with them. I called up T-Mobile customer service and they told me that the mail-in rebate on this phone was $100. I placed my order and received the phone in a week or so. I am a person who is very diligent when it comes to rebates. So the very next day I sent out the filled up rebate form along with the necessary proofs.

Weeks passed and I received a shocking letter in my mailbox saying that my rebate was disqualified since the submitted proof didn't contain a valid T-Mobile product SKU#. I was upset since I had read the rebate submission requirements in detail and was sure that I hadn't missed anything. I called up the rebate status center and explained them about the letter I received. The customer service person did some research on his end and told me that the rebate was valid and I had submitted all the proofs correctly. I felt vindicated. He gave me a tracking number and I religiously tracked my rebate.

Another few weeks passed by and I received a mail from T-Mobile. That mail contained a Visa Prepaid card worth $50. This was my rebate ‘check’ but only in the form of a Visa debit card. Well did you notice something wrong here? The amount was $50 but I was promised a rebate of $100. I was furious and called up T-Mobile. They confirmed that the rebate amount promised was $100 and they were not sure where the other $50 went. I was then connected to the ‘Rebate Center’. After holding the phone for 10 minutes, I could speak with a customer representative. I explained the whole story to her and she did some research on her end. She found out that my rebate was processed for some other promotion and that’s the reason I got only $50. She was not apologetic about it and she told me that she will put in a request to reprocess my rebate. I was curious to know when I would receive my rebate but she had no clue. I asked her to expedite the process since it was their fault; she told me that she couldn't do anything about it. Finally I received a tracking number from her and the onus was on me to check the status of the rebate periodically.

Some more weeks passed and my patience was wearing out. Finally I received another Visa Prepaid card worth $50. I heaved a sigh of relief. Even though I had sent all the necessary rebate documents well on time, it took me around 3 months to receive the rebate. Another amazing fact is that, if I had not enquired about the other $50 then I would have lost my money for no fault of mine. This is not the kind of service the customers expect from a company like T-Mobile. My question is why do you want to promise a rebate when you are not very keen in honoring its terms and conditions? I believe that patience, follow up and good luck are the important elements for receiving your rebate on time. Among the three, ‘Good Luck’ is the uttermost factor in some exceptional cases :)

Why Raju why???

“In order to preserve your self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat.” said Robert Byrne. This may be one of the reasons you lied and cheated your employees, your shareholders and  your company as a whole.  Why Raju why?? This would be the question many would be asking and that too for a long time.

When you decided to cheat for the first time did it ever cross your mind that it will not only affect you but a chain of people starting from your high profile colleagues to the common software engineer? You may be a genius at manipulating but not at all a visionary. Othewise you would have envisioned the plight of your company and your people when you decided to cook up your balance sheets.

Today your company makes headlines albeit for the wrong reasons. The western media has got a tool to target the Indian IT companies. The anti outsourcing lobby is gaining strength by the day and this has come as a blot to the many honest and sincere Indian software engineers working all over the world.

One of your biggest clients, State Farm, has decided to terminate its contract with Satyam. This will affect around 1000 employees of yours. These employees are upset and understandably so. Their future is uncertain. They have been asked to leave client site at the earliest. Heavy financial losses stare at their face because they need to sell their cars, furnitures and stuff at the earliest. What will your offshore resources in this project do? Where will they go? Can they be assured that there wont be any layoffs because of this? What wrong did they do to suffer like this? Was that their fault that they decided to join Satyam? Not sure if these questions ever surface in your mind but a common man would definitely lose his sleep over this.

I am sure you have created a name for yourselves by indulging in the biggest corporate scam in Indian history and if we go by the records, you will be out of jail soon. You can always go back to your normal life without much struggle since people will forget this incident once the dust settles in a few months. What happens to the employees those who lost their jobs and in some cases those who lost their lives? Many dreams are shattered. Who will mend them? The timing of your confession is one of the worst. Already the economic gloom is taking the sheen out of the sparkling Indian IT bandwagon and this fiasco is adding fuel to the fire. Lets hope that things return to normal in the days to come. Lets hope that your new board takes some good decisions to reassure clients and employees about the strength of the company.  Lets hope your company gains the ground that it has lost. Until that time people will be asking you “Why Raju why???”

Memories of my year end celebrations

I hope each one of you had a fantastic Christmas and New Year celebrations and we sure have greeted the New Year with lots of hopes and aspirations.

Each year when I celebrate these festivities my mind goes back to my past days when I used to celebrate with family and friends. Those were the days!!!

I wish to share with everyone some key things those were the highlights of my Christmas and New Year during those yesteryears.

Holy Mass: Back home in India we have midnight mass for Christmas and New Year. The church would be beautifully decorated and would be full of people both young and old. The mass would end at about midnight. We would then wish each other and cherish the sliced cake that would be distributed by the church on these occasions. Bursting of crackers would herald the onset of the celebrations.

Church Celebrations: Christmas and New Year means a lot of celebrations at the Church. Different weekends would be reserved for celebrations of different kinds. The Sunday school kids, women’s movement, youth movement etc would form one group. There would be another big celebration on the following weekend wherein churches from different denominations would participate. There would be beautiful songs by the choir, sermons, some stage performances etc. The true spirit of Christmas reflects in these celebrations. One of the main attractions, especially with the kids, would be the arrival of Santa Claus. Santa would distribute sweets and the kids would go crazy.

Celebrations at home: Variety of foods, guests, decorations etc would be the highlights of the home celebrations. This is the season for near and dear ones to come together and celebrate together. When the Christmas Carol band would arrive at our home it would create a lot of excitement especially with our non Christian neighbors. All and all it’s a wonderful season to be back home.

Christmas and New Year is the time to be thankful and joyful for all the blessings throughout the year and to be with our near and dear ones. I am looking forward to more such Christmas and New Year celebrations in the future. 

Wishing you and your family a Happy and Prosperous 2009!!!