Cash for Clunker appliances - Texas style

[Htown Harry]

Now I'm really getting annoyed...

I tried again during my lunch hour. After many false starts, I made it through to the Choose your Rebate page.

The scoreboard says 56% of the money is gone at midday.

Once there, multiple no-action clicks on hot water heaters finally led to a 10-minute load of the next page: the sign up!

I entered my name and address and the "copy these words" codes, then hit NEXT. Nothing. 30 minutes later, after some more page time outs, bad page loads, retyping my data and other missteps, I gave up.

The salt in my wound - which I noticed because I had so long to read the terms and conditions between page loads - you can only buy the appliance in Texas. No online appliance purchases are allowed. Looks like the state has rigged the rules to be sure they get every penny of sales tax.

[ziggy29]

Never underestimate the public's appetite from "free" money from the government.

[Telly]

Well that was a big waste! Wasted the morning, could never get beyond the choose your appliance page. Then tried again right after an early lunch, then they were showing the temporarily unavailable page with how many hits per minute they were getting. So I gave up.

About 4 PM I tried it, was quicker, all $ gone, only signup for waitlist. So I tried that, actually got eventually to the sign-up page, which after filling it all out, bombed for the registering of it, but using back on the browser saved it for retries. Printed all 4 pages of it out.

Then realized that the wait-list is worthless, if I am understanding it right, am held to all the same dates as if I got the real one, but I would only find out if I got a rebate by them mailing me, or not mailing me, a check. Well, I'm not going to buy something in a tight time window if I don't know if I will get the rebate or not!

So much for that. Back to plan B, wait a few months till they restock and have no one buying appliances in Texas, then I'll deal.

I sure hope somebody on this website was able to get something out of it, that it's not all just state employees who were able to get the rebate registration.

I wonder how REW fared... wasn't he trying to get the big rebate for a heat pump replacement?

[Arif]

No dice. Big waste of time. Next!

[Htown Harry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arif Next!

Just finished reading through the Austin paper's wrap-up on the debacle. The servers were off-line for about two hours during the middle of the morning rush.

Texas outsourced the sign-up effort to an outfit called Helgeson Enterprises.

Googling the firm name led me to this copy of their qualifications statement and proposal for West Virginia:
http://www.state.wv.us/admin/purchas...DEP14971_2.pdf

The proposal lists all of the energy rebate contracts they have won so far. If you live in one of these states, I would suggest keeping your expectations low:
GA, IA, CO, AL, MN, MI, KY, NV, TX, MS, AZ, RI, NC

[tinlizzy]

Harry - Sounds just like the Iowa rebate program!

I was looking to see if there were any lawn mower sales yesterday and there was this thread on Slickdeals.about the Texas rebates.

Arif - The best prices on washer/dryers are in Oct/Nov. Right now Home Depot has online codes out for bath that you can combine with sale prices. Don't forget that HD, Lowes, Best Buy and Sears all price match also.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telly I wonder how REW fared... wasn't he trying to get the big rebate for a heat pump replacement?

Thanks for asking. Yep, I was trying to get a heat pump rebate for my sister-in-law.

I was on a cruise last week (still on board waiting to go thru cusoms) and missed all the fun. Fortunately my SIL's niece had the perseverance to stay keep calling all morning until finally getting through and securing the rebate for her aunt.

DD's #1 & 2 had no better luck than you in getting rebates for a refrigerator and washer. I suspected it would be a cluster...er, mess, and the state govt. didn't disappoint.

[Arif]

Thanks for tip Tinlizzy. We can wait a few more months for the washer since it's already 13 years old!

Looking back at the fiasco known as the Texas Rebate cluster!@@$. I think I would of had a better chance of securing a rebate by calling in. On the website many people here were able to get to the webpage to select the category that they were interested in. After that is was a crap shoot if you got to the next webpage. You lost your spot in line after the website timed-out and had to start all over again.

At least on the phone (I think)you were in a cue once you got through and didn't lose your spot as you did going from screen to screen on the website. The website should of had one webpage were you selected the appliance, entered your personal info and selected go. That way you didn't lose your info and your position in "line" jumping from page to page.

Now how did the company in charge of this rebate program not figure that out after the first program they ran? And why didn't the state of Texas not call other states to see how thing company fared prior to signing them up? I know I know, lowest bidder.