kuniform

I bought a Fujitsu Scan Snap scanner, and it rocks. It’s all duplex, full text indexing, faster than a speeding bullet, paperless office, blah blah blah. And with a $50 rebate, who could go wrong?

Well, the thumbs are pointing at ‘this guy.’ I sent Fujitsu exactly what they asked for in the rebate packet, and what did I get in my email today? This:

Unfortunately, we were unable to honor your request for the following reasons: We did not receive an original serial number label with your request; We did not receive a rebate certificate with your request; You must submit more than one UPC symbol or proof-of-purchase tab to qualify for the rebate.

You will receive an additional notification by mail. You may also access your submission by contacting us at:

Online: http://www.fujitsu-fcpa.rebatestatus.com/link.aspx?xxxxx-xxxxx

Customer Service: 877-247-2328

We appreciate your business. Thank you.

I did send it all in, exactly as they asked for. Ironically, I can’t find my copies of those forms. I think these rebate form companies get extra cash for denying legitimate requests, it’s all I can fathom. This is the second rebate I’ve sent out and had this happen with, even though in both cases I followed the letter of the law.

The disadvantage of outsourcing everything is that there is no legitimate way to register dissent. Fujitsu has their cash, the rebate company probably keeps a premium, and calling them doesn’t let Fujitsu know how badly they’ve screwed a customer. It’s a win-win-lose proposition. So, I’m done. Done with warranties, done with rebates, done with operating with corporations as though they actually meant to honor contracts. It’s not like this is new ground for me, but it certainly is painful to tread it each time I do. It’s a system designed to screw people over. Feel the karma of that, Fujitsu, you’ve earned it.

Joe Clark is leading a group of developers in writing extensions and corrections to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It’s know as the WCAG Samurai, and it looks rockin’ good!

If you are interested in real world, proven interpretations of the WCAG guidelines, check out this site today.

Wowza. First, Happy New Year! Now that we got that out of the way, here’s a time-lapse video of Picasso on Google video. Metafilter has the backstory and comments on it. It’s amazing to see how the end product looks little like the picture he began. I think there were a few different points in the painting where I thought it could be done. Anyhoo, thanks for the links, Brendan, including the Jackson Pollock short film on YouTube, the other Google video.