Good morning, you just missed a $400 gift from Bill Gates.
Microsoft late Thursday plugged a gaping loophole in its widely advertised Internet-access rebate that essentially gave away $400 worth of electronics equipment--no strings attached--to thousands of consumers in California and Oregon.
But the fix, effective this morning, came only after thousands of consumers across California thronged to Best Buy and other retailers to take advantage of the slip-up. At the Best Buy in West Los Angeles, the result was four-hour waits with hundreds of people in lines snaking through several aisles.
The rebate agreement was supposed to commit consumers to paying for several years of Internet service, but those who have signed up for the rebate in California and Oregon apparently can cancel Microsoft Network access immediately without penalty.
"Unfortunately a few people are abusing a program designed to help people access the Internet," said Tom Pilla, a Microsoft spokesman.
But Pilla said Microsoft will honor its agreements with customers who took the deal in the last few months and now cancel.
Word of the loophole spread quickly after a report this week in the San Jose Mercury News hit Web chat rooms with a vengeance Thursday, sparking a debate about whether it was appropriate to take advantage of Microsoft's error.
"It doesn't feel immoral," said Jenny Ives, a 20-year-old Caltech student waiting with 70 others in a line at the Pasadena Best Buy.
Ives, who spent her in-store credit on a bread maker and combination television/VCR, added, "It works, and Microsoft isn't gunning after anyone." Ives said she intended to cancel the MSN access.
Like CompuServe and Prodigy, Microsoft began offering rebates across the country, with the terms varying by retailer.
The $400 rebates were among the most popular shopping deals of the Christmas shopping season. At Best Buy and Office Depot, consumers can take the $400 off what they buy on the spot, as long as they agree to pay $21.95 a month for Internet access for three years. If they cancel, they have to refund the $400.
But in California and Oregon, Microsoft changed the terms of its rebate because of the way it interpreted an obscure law regulating consumer lenders. So in those states a consumer could walk in, spend $8 on $408 worth of electronics, agree to the Internet deal and cancel the next day without having to return the rebate money.
