Poll: Microsft Live 40% Cashback on HP computers on Black Friday

[professorman]

I just want to see what are the results of SDers who were trying to get in on the Microsoft Live 40% CashBack on hp purchases, going through the live site. I would also like to see what are your intentions if you plan to hang in there to fight for cash back or if you are giving up and cancel your order.

[wikipost]

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[Nutdotnet]

There has already been one of these....didn't work out too well.

[professorman]

There has already been one of these....didn't work out too well.
This one has a poll. The other one didn't. This information in the poll will be useful, and not jumbled/scattered all over the tread.

[twolves14]

40% cashback worked fine (obviously havent received it yet, but i know it worked)...

[professorman]

My brother received his, and he subimtted his at 7:09 pm PST, which was after the deadline, and he received his but I guess their servers were up by then. I did mine at ~3pm PST, and they have no records of my transaction.

[mortalmonkey]

I successfully placed an order. However, I did not receive any confirmation from Live Search/Cashback program/MS. My cashback account still reflects 0 activity. If this mess doesn't get sorted out soon, I will be returning the laptop I ordered. I cannot afford to keep a 1k laptop.

[rocktest]

unsuccessful

I had emailed both HP and Live during the fiasco Friday. Both emailed me back today and blamed the other party. I think more of the blame is on Live since it was through their method that the HP site was down, and they were still the ones that got the site/ad hits, meanwhile they sent this ridiculous email back:

Thank you for contacting Live Search cashback Customer Support. Due to the high volume experienced through our site there were problems for some people getting the deal on HP. Unfortunately HP sets the percentage off of their sales, due to the sale being Friday we are unable to promise the 40% off in cashback. If you would like to contact HP and see if they will work something out with you, we would be willing to get your sale through on their approval.
We don't have a schedule of promotions or events. Each store determines the cashback percentages, and the cashback percentage can vary over time. Please use Live Search for your online search and shopping needs to find offers available.

So what are they arguing, that HP hit some limit or were the people who messed with the site so it'd be down during that timeframe, even though Mcsft is the one sending out the cashback? I don't really get how they can advertise it and now say 'we can't promise the 40% cashback', so can I have the ad money I earned you back?

[wview]

Unsuccessful, all day off and on, started right before 9 am cst. I was looking for laptops for a couple other people, went with another brand just to get something on sale. I hadn't thought about getting one for myself, but with that deal I was going to. Guess I'm going without. Pages errored/wouldn't load right away from the start for me, only got the hp site with the login/captcha a few times. Every other cashback site I tried worked (like ebay, it was fine the whole time). I've used cashback successfully in the past before.

I emailed HP the other day, no response except that my message was forwarded to the right department (I forget, but I emailed the CEO/whatever, might as well start at the top). Live.com, my message was forwarded to 3 different people one who blamed my computer (which I build my own, and can fix any problem, my system is fine, and I was having the same problems as everyone else). Finally ended with them telling me to resubmit a message through the web form again, don't know why they couldn't forward it to the right place, again, themselves.

[Intrepid.]

Good idea for a poll, but unfortunately the Black Friday forum is essentially dead now that Friday is over.

[mfp]

I followed a 40% link after 7PM and ordered a laptop but only received 3%. I wrote a detailed note mentioning that I had a screen shot and copy of the URL I ordered from. I also let them know I'd been trying all day and that I assumed they had extended the hours due to the problems connecting earlier in the day. I just received this:

Hello,

Thank you for using Live Search and for your recent cashback purchase on www.hpshopping.com. Microsoft regrets that you experienced difficulties placing your order due to our limited site availability on November 28th and apologizes for any inconvenience that this caused. Your purchase (order number H105135993) received a 3% cashback reward because it was completed after the end of the limited time 40% cashback promotion. However because of the issues with site availability earlier in the day, Microsoft will honor the 40% cashback reward for your purchase eligible transactions.

Within a week, your cashback account rebate will be corrected. You will see a cancellation for the original 3% cashback followed by a new purchase with a 40% cashback reward. At that point, your purchase will be processed in the same way as all normal cashback sales and will stay in “pending” status for a period of up to 60 days, to account for returns. After this, all eligible purchases will be marked as "available" in your account and the associated rewards will be available for redemption. To view the details for this purchase or your other Live Search cashback transactions, sign into your Live Search cashback account. Please refer to complete program terms and conditions located here.

We appreciate your patience as we resolve this issue. If you have other questions about cashback, please visit our FAQ. You’ll also find a Help link on the FAQ page to contact support.

Thanks,

Angus Cunningham

Sr. Director Live Search cashback Operations

[professorman]

Good idea for a poll, but unfortunately the Black Friday forum is essentially dead now that Friday is over.


How can I get it moved to another forum then?

[sagarmatha]

I tried to get in right at 7AM PST, the start time but could not get in after wasting almost 2 hours. Then went out to do some B&M shopping and came back at around 2 PM PST and started to to log in after about 90 minutes, I did get in through succesfully, after reloading the pages repeatedly.

Was happy and placed the order about 3:35 PM PST, HP confirmed the order, live.com has failed to update any cashback till date. Just got a couple of generic emails. They have already shipped the printer. Laptop ship date is 12/8/2008. What should I do, I can not afford a 1K laptop too!

[professorman]

YEA!!!! Just got my Cashback!!! I was in the NOTHING boat

Elizabeth B is my savior!!! I wrote a detailed email, outlining my cashback attempt. I sent my first simple email on Saturday, which told me to wait until December 2nd. I then wrote my detailed email attached below. I also forwarded the confirmation of my order from my two confirmation emails which had my FAR Printer and my HP Laptop.

I attaching 3 files to it:
1. Screen Capture image showing browser history confirming purchase
2. PDF printout file proving confirmation of purchase from hp.com for purchase.
3. Official ad from HP telling about the Microsoft Live 40% Cash Back.

I had not heard anything back from them, so I started emailing them daily. This is the first response I have gotten from anyone. When I read Elizabeth's email, I was disappointed, but then, I looked on the next email, and 5 minutes later, I received my CASHBACK!!!! YEA!!!

Elizabeth's reply to me was:
Hello,

Thank you for contacting LiveSearch Customer Support regarding your missing HP purchase. We have had several customers report similar issues, and our technical team is actively working on fixing this issue for all affected customers. We hope to have a resolution shortly, and we will keep you updated on the situation as we have more information.

If there is any change in the status of your issue or if you want to check on the progress of your missing cashback, please reply to this message.

If you have a new question or concern, please send a new e-mail message in order to open a separate Service Request.

I apologize for the frustration you've experienced, and I thank you for the patience and cooperation that you've shown so far.



Regards,
Elizabeth B
LiveSearch cashback Customer Support

The email I wrote was:
Dear Mike,

As stated in your previous email, I have waited until December 2nd, however NO PURCHASES has shown in my cashback account. I have made the transaction exactly as described in your ad.

At the very bottom, is a copy of my 2 orders received from hp, by going through MSlive site.
1. For laptop computer
2. For Printer

I have participated in the 40% Cashback from HP, by clicking on the link from the live.com site with the 40% cashback. I ordered the laptop below along with a printer below. I have forwarded two emails attached below with the confirmation for each. I completed the purchase between the listed time, and I received the order confirmation at 5:56pm EST on November 28,2008, which were well between the hours advertised of 7am-7pm PST (which is 3 hours behind EST). I went through the proper proceedure and finally succeeded to get my cashback activated before being sent to the hp.com site. I would like to know when will be cashback show up in my account. I am getting worried that somehow something did not work properly on your site due to the traffic on that day, and Microsoft Live lost track of my order, or it got lost in your servers backlog. Please advise me what would be the next step to secure my promised 40%. The information below was requested in the "contact us" page on your website.

This is the url I went to after receiving confirmation that my cashback was active. This url proves that my cashback was activated at the time of shopping.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/home.do?fix=abc&aoid=31187&kw=hp&tafcjnef=fy08&ppc=CCp261713935source=MSNCashbackDirect&mscbg=1&jftid=my_number_here


ATTACHMENTS:
1. Screen Capture image showing browser history confirming purchase
2. PDF printout file proving confirmation of purchase from hp.com for purchase.
3. Official ad from HP telling about the Microsoft Live 40% Cash Back.

Explanation of screen capture of browsing history.
1.The browsing history clearly shows that I was first signed in to live.com home.
2. Next, I went to live cashback search page
3. Next, I click on the hp live search line
4. Then I was directed to the HP Official Store, with the screen caputure showing the link giving above, proving that my cashback was activated, with the section source=MSNCashbackDirect&mscbg=1&jftid=my_number_here. This proves that the source of the hp site was MSNCashbackDirect.
5. I next went to "Buy Notebook PCs
6. I went to "Buy HP Mobility Notebook"
7. I went to "Buy HP Pavilion"
8. I went to "Buy and customized"
9. I went to "shopping"
10. I went to Order Checkout
11. Checkout
12. Eventually, I printed the pdf file "HP Laptop order_confirm"

Everything was done as instructed. I do not know why my cashback has not shown up, but I hope that you can resolve it for me, because everything went through the system and I made my purchase.

Windows Live ID or cashback username: Professorman's email

* Attach or forward the Order Confirmation you received from the store when you made your purchase. Please make sure it includes the following information:
o date of purchase: Fri, 28 Nov 2008
o merchant order number: Hxxxxxxx
o order subtotal (excluding shipping, taxes, coupons, or discounts): $793.98 (for both printer and laptop)
o Itemized list of products purchased: (See below for itemized list)
* Payment method used to make the purchase: credit card



Thank you.
Sincerely,
**Professorman**

[digitalhandle]

Got mine today finally. Went from nothing to 40%. Not bad. Still really annoyed with the experience. Typical Microsoft.

[Intrepid.]

Got mine today finally. Went from nothing to 40%. Not bad. Still really annoyed with the experience. Typical Microsoft.
So the whole 40% off thing was a bad experience for you?

[stuckonashelf]

got mine on saturday, 8 days after spending 2 hours ordering. was worth the trouble to me.

[mortalmonkey]

Still nothing for me. No replies, no cashback, no nothing! :(

[AquaBlaze]

I waited until my desktops were at the door before I officially put a fork in waiting for the cashback to show up. I took that as a sign that the MS offer was not going to be honored, and it was time to call up HP to take all the crap back.

Of course, HP got in a final zinger to me on my end. I notified them that it was their failure (and MS) to not honor their 40% BF deal, and it was that reason I was returning their product. The reason they wrote for the return? "Buyer's remourse". :P

Oh well. I guess HP just loves to eat shipping costs both ways. Zing away, HP. :D

[genester]

***Please Rep me if you find my information useful. I have no rep points :(, and I want to start contributing to this great community***

I understand your new and want rep points, but begging for it is not the way. Contribute to the community and rep points will come.

[Rebound]

I'm furious at Microsoft. I spent over $1,000, and after sending them a boatload of e-mails, they gave me a 5 percent rebate, with no explanation of why I didn't get the 40%.

[sramdon]

I got my cashback after fighting. I am glad I kept records of everything.

[Rebound]

So the whole 40% off thing was a bad experience for you?Yes, the deal was that you'd get 40% off of an online purchase, not that you'd spend three hours trying to get into their crashed website, then send e-mail for ten days "begging" Microsoft to give you what they promised.

[Rebound]

I'm full-bore pissed off right now, so I wrote to the press and the Attorney General's office, and I let Microsoft know.

I found out how to e-mail Rajat Taneja (http://blogs.msdn.com/user/Profile.aspx?UserID=10171), the Group Manager at Microsoft who's in charge of this debacle.

[Intrepid.]

Yes, the deal was that you'd get 40% off of an online purchase, not that you'd spend three hours trying to get into their crashed website, then send e-mail for ten days "begging" Microsoft to give you what they promised.
And? Stuff happens. I'd do it all over again to get 40%.

[Rebound]

I just got my 40% credit a few hours ago. It took Microsoft twelve days, and a LOT of false e-mails until they got it straight. So here's what I got -- TWO HP notebooks, described below, for a after-rebate cost of $406.75 each. Not top-of-the-line, but definitely very good.

- HP Pavilion dv5t Entertainment Notebook
- Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
- Pentium(R) Dual-Core Mobile Processor T3200 (2.0 GHz)
- 15.4" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
- FREE Upgrade to 4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
- FREE Upgrade to 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
- Webcam Only
- Wireless-G Card
- SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
- 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works 9.0

[mortalmonkey]

still nothing for me.

[m-73]

I had no real problems other than taking about 3 hours of clicking but I started at 1pm Eastern on black friday. I maxed out specs on a dv5t which cost ~1700... made purchase at about 4pm.

Around 8 pm that night I got the order accepted email from HP and almost 24 hours from then did I get the Cashback confirmation.

I received the laptop yesterday morning via FedEx. I am very satisfied for 1000 dollars but would be extremely unimpressed paying 1700. So if cashback is later denied for some reason or another I will be fuming!

[luckygiftvn]

i got laptop today and 320$ pending

[Rebound]

In other news... Maybe this is one for the Tech Support board, but, holy BLEEP, those laptops are loaded to the teeth with crapware.

[HurricaneDavid]

This one has a poll. The other one didn't. This information in the poll will be useful, and not jumbled/scattered all over the tread.

A) This is not a slick deal.
2) How is the information in the poll useful? Is your course of action going to change based on what other people are doing?

[mortalmonkey]

finally, finally, finally, this morning got a response from MS; and yes, I did indeed get the full 40% cashback, finally!

One caveat though: The cashback is currently pending and according to the email I received, it will remain pending for more than 40 days. My fear is that they'll revoke the cashback well after the HP return period...

If that happens, I will be fuming needless to say.

[professorman]

A) This is not a slick deal.
2) How is the information in the poll useful? Is your course of action going to change based on what other people are doing?

In response to your first statement labeled A):
I agree, this would be more appropriate in deal discussion. Yes, I am a newbie. I asked a mod to move it, but it is still here in Black Friday. I put it here in Black Friday because obviously, Black Friday is over, and we can only discuss the deals on Black Friday now.


In response to your second statement labeled 2):
Maybe you should read up the definition of a 'poll'. The other tread were about discussion. A poll give quick, clear concise information to the questions which the poll asks. The other tread the person was referring to (which was a short tread without a poll), each poster go in and post, "I am keeping it", "I am returning it", " I am fighting to get it."etc. With this tread, you look on the poll and get a idea of what happened. If you did not purchase a laptop from HP on black friday though Microsft Live cash back, you will not know the hell most of us went through, the time invested in trying to get this deal, only to loose sight of the slick deal of 40% cash back when it did not show up in our accounts.

[DTW_flyer]

Long story short (everything worked as originally hoped -see red text...
I was initially only planning to get a cheapo desktop if I got through w/ the 40% CB tunnel. But I too went wacko after BARELY getting through at the last minute around 9:50pm EST. On the Nov28 BF evening when I was failing to get through I, in the meantime, setup an account on HP and saved certain my cart configurations.

Then when I somehow got through w/o CAPTCHA window??? I logged into my hp acct and added many but not all configs (desktop+printer, laptop+monitor+printer, mini+printer, and accessories to be used w/ the pretty sweet hp rebates offer 1042). Since I didn't want to take the chance to further tinker w/ my earlier configs, I just added like mad into a single order and proceeded in haste to checkout via AMEX and submitted at 9:57pm.

Afterwards received HP Order Accepted confirmation email at 10:12pm EST. More/most important 3.5hrs later, I rec'd Cashback live confirmation email stating "You received $1xxx.xx from your HP Home & Home Office Store purchase on 11/29/2008:" this single and only MS CB email showed all items totalling entire order w/ each itemized at 40% off.
-----
Now my OT question-> re: partial return back to HP???...
As all this was successfully placed in a single order... I'm debating to return the mini (got 16gb SSD) and my fear is that after 60 days my entire MS CB can go down the toilet.

As I would want only its returned items' cb be void, what do y'all think :confused:

[inyearstocome]

Now my OT question-> re: partial return back to HP???...
As all this was successfully placed in a single order... I'm debating to return the mini (got 16gb SSD) and my fear is that after 60 days my entire MS CB can go down the toilet.

As I would want only its returned items' cb be void, what do y'all think :confused:

Why risk it? You finally got the cashback applied, you could EASILY sell the mini for purchase price minus 40% or for more than that and come out ahead, and not risk losing a cent. Seems like an easy decision to me. In fact, if you PM me an asking price I may be able to find a buyer :-p

>>> Aside from the above<<<<<

I had tried logging into cashback and getting to HP's site during the last hour of the promotion, unsuccessfully (one or both servers would always time out). Finally, I just placed the order at the HP site.

I explained this in detail to Live.com Customer Service via email, and attached their requested info including the order confirmation email from HP (which didnt come to me until 12:30am the following day, 11/29). After an email back and forth, a CSR credited 25% to my account. I was upset, and happened to notice that he entered the transaction date as 11/21. I emailed him back the same day, and within a couple of hours he had adjusted it to 40%.

The moral of the story, if you tried to place an order and were unsure if the cashback was applied, FIGHT FOR IT. They are listening and willing to cooperate and make good. Credit to them for at least fixing a shoddy situation. Good luck!

[erdoran]

Got mine today finally. Went from nothing to 40%. Not bad. Still really annoyed with the experience. Typical Microsoft.

I would think that if you have documentation but don't get the cashback you could dispute through your credit card company?

[Rebound]

I would think that if you have documentation but don't get the cashback you could dispute through your credit card company?Nawww.... you can return the equipment, that's the offer. The credit card company isn't going to side with you in a price dispute if the vendor is offering a 100% refund, no way, no how.

[Silver5656]

who are people emailing in order to talk to microsoft about their cashback issues?

[DTW_flyer]

who are people emailing in order to talk to microsoft about their cashback issues?cashbk@live.com>>> email addy in the polls above, be reasonably patient (couple days) expecting a non-canned response. G/L :thumbup:

[bubblegum404]

Do you think this cashback fiasco is going to result in a LOT of returns by January 15 causing a high inventory and therefore drive prices way down?

[Silver5656]

I have emailed them on 12/22/08 and have still not heard back from them. I understand it is the holiday season though. I hope I hear from them soon. I go on vacation soon and must return the laptops before I leave. How long does it usually take to hear back from them?

[sampsonti]

didn't spend hours but tried several times with no luck.....

[toxicity]

I have emailed them on 12/22/08 and have still not heard back from them. I understand it is the holiday season though. I hope I hear from them soon. I go on vacation soon and must return the laptops before I leave. How long does it usually take to hear back from them?

In the same boat...... will be calling HP and returning within a week......

[ToughPeanut]

HP gave me the 40% off for a PC, but it did not give me 20% off for target.

[joogle]

I decided to return mine - can't live without a trackpoint on a laptop - the ones Thinkpads have.

either way - my return was a hassle - took 2 hours of calls/hold time for them to properly apply the credit -- by the way i found out the $29 credit they gave me earlier for a wrong battery they sent is all tied back to the order showing up as a refund.

hence it would have rejected my cashback anyways - good thing i found that out.

for people who got credits- just be ready in case you need to fight MSFT for the cashback.