SonyCard promotion woes - enough is enough!

Tirian

Various guises of the SonyCard promotion have been highlighted on this website since at least June, if not earlier. The gist of all of these is that by fulfilling certain criteria - either receiving and using the card, or spending a certain amount on the card - you will receive a number (variously 8,200 or 11,000 or 7,000 depending on which promotion).

While it seems to have worked for some people without difficulty, there seems to be a fair number of people on these boards who have gone through all the requirements and not received their points - myself included.

Unfortunately, the response from MBNA / SonyCard to queries about these problems has been extremely unsatisfactory.

In my case, it is three months since I made my first transaction - which, I am assured in two letters from SonyCard, should entitle me to 11,000 Pulsebeats.

If I speak to MBNA (which I have done at least four times now), they variously tell me that I need to call the Pulsebeats number, or that I've received my points (I have received 2,000 plus a few for the purchase), or that they can't add the points without a 'registration number' that I have to call Pulsebeats to get. On my last phonecall, the rep told me that I was now outside the deadline for getting the points ... even though I made the qualifying transaction over THREE MONTHS ago, well within the 90 days required!

If I speak to Pulsebeats (which I have also done at least four times), they tell me that they have nothing to do with adding the points, they just redeem them. They insist that they don't know anything about a registration number, and that MBNA should not be referring these queries to them - one representative even that they have raised an official complaint with MBNA for doing so.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Someone needs to sort this ghastly ridiculous mess out!! Since no-one on the MBNA or Pulsebeats lines seems to have any idea of what is going on, I have taken steps to get higher authority involved.

Both of the letters I received promising the 11,000 points were signed by one 'Andrew Scheer' of SonyCard. So I called the Pulsebeats line and asked for his email address.

RESULT 1

After much wrangling, the person on the phone came back to me with [EMAIL="tcare@diss.net"]tcare@diss.net[/EMAIL] - which I wrote to detailing my complaint. However this did not seem likely to me to be his personal email address, so I did a bit of web-searching to see if could come up with anything better.

RESULT 2

Andrew Scheer of Sony is on Facebook. How handy! I sent him the following message directly through Facebook today .. let's see what happens now!

Dear Andrew,

I apologise for contacting you in this way. I am writing regarding the extreme problems I have had in obtaining the 11,000 reward points promised to me in the two letters I have received bearing your name (27/6/07, ref: T818E/89800/0000113 and 19/7/07, no ref)

Naturally, I would not consider you my first point of contact in dealing with this issue - but my efforts over the last three months to find anybody at all at either MBNA or at SonyCard who can answer my questions on this matter have failed. Every person I speak to at either organisation simply tells me to call the other.

It is now over three months since I received and used my card, which in your letter dated 19th July was given as the criteria for receiving these points. Thus far, nobody I have spoken to seems to have any idea of why I have not received them, or be able to do anything about it.

It seems to me that, as you are the signatory to the letters I have received with these promises on - which nobody else I speak to seems to be able to act upon, I have no option but to refer the matter back to you.

Yours disappointedly

[Tirian]

I suggest that anyone else who has exhausted all other avenues on this debacle should pop an email off too, and - if they are on Facebook - whizz off a personal message to Mr. Scheer themselves.

Of course, it would also be nice if someone from MSE could perhaps prompt MBNA/Sony to get their bloody act together .... ????