A rebate runaround, a car rental rip-off and … roaches?!

Adrian Ma (0:01)

N-P-R.

This is The Indicator from Planet Money, I'm Adrian Ma. A few weeks ago, we did an episode looking at the various systemic reasons why American consumers are feeling rage right now. And at the end, we asked you for your tales of consumer rage. Today, we're going to share a few of those stories. Think of it as group therapy, indicator style. Four tales of consumer woe, with a few econ lessons sprinkled in.

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Adrian Ma (2:07)

Our first story of consumer rage comes from Joe Morton of Boynton Beach, Florida.

Recently, he bought a new dishwasher. And at the time, the company was offering customers a $200 rebate. So after Joe bought the dishwasher, he went online to fill out the rebate claim form, which asked for the appliance serial number.

Joe Morton (2:26)

When I put in the correct serial number, the button to submit disappeared.

So you couldn't actually submit the form. It's just a very convenient glitch to have on the website.

Adrian Ma (2:36)

Convenient indeed. So Joe calls customer service, and they tell him, don't worry, just send us a picture of the serial number and we'll enter it for you.

Joe Morton (2:46)

But then, a little while later, I get an email back, hey, your serial number is incorrect, you need to correct it.

And I'm thinking, how in the world is it incorrect? You guys put it in for me, I sent you a picture. The only way around that was to call customer service again.

Adrian Ma (3:01)

And thankfully, this time, it worked. A few weeks later, Joe got an email for a $200 gift card.

Joe Morton (3:08)

But oddly, Joe says, it comes from a third party, mypaymentvault.com.

Adrian Ma (3:15)

mypaymentvault.com. I mean, it sounds like the kind of email that could easily end up in your spam folder without you ever knowing about it.

Joe Morton (3:23)

I'm sure it's very calculated to make it hard to get the rebate and then to make it hard to even like claim the rebate after you've been sent it, you know?

Adrian Ma (3:34)

Joseph, have you heard of an economist named Richard Thaler?

Joe Morton (3:38)

Oh, yeah.

Adrian Ma (3:39)

For those who don't know Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize winning behavioral economist who coined the term choice architecture. And I couldn't help after reading your email thinking of this because choice architecture is basically this idea that there is no such thing as neutral design. And like a process can be designed with ways that help people, which Thaler calls nudges, or these processes can be designed to hinder people, which he calls sludge.

Does this resonate with you?

Joe Morton (4:11)

Oh, for sure. This process is just full of sludge on purpose.

Adrian Ma (4:19)

Our second story comes from Deb Orsini from Gilderlin, New York. And the first thing you got to know is that Deb's husband loves breakfast cereal.

Deb Orsini (4:27)

And he eats, he layers his cereal. So like there are five different types of cereal that go into this bowl in the morning.

Joe Morton (4:33)

What?

Adrian Ma (4:34)

He's making like a cereal layer cake every morning?

Joe Morton (4:37)

Yep.

Deb Orsini (4:38)

So he puts, I think, checks in first, and then he puts in raisin bran, and then he'll sprinkle it with a little bit of oatmeal. He puts black seed in there. He puts Wheaties in there, and then sometimes he'll put shredded, little mini shredded, frosted shredded wheats in there.