jimbo

I got this today, in case they missed anyone here's the email:
________________________________
UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT Firm Id# 11-2301137
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK Attorney Id# bp3711
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IN RE:

CYBERREBATE.COM, INC., Chapter 11
Case No.: 01-16534-CEC
Debtor.
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PLEASE TAKE NOTICE

By order dated September 20, 2001, the Court has ordered that in all
instances except as specifically provided in the order, notice need
not be given to all members of the creditor body unless a specific
request to continue to receive notice is filed with the Clerk of
the Court and with a copy to counsel for the Debtor. Such a filed
notice should contain the following information:

1. The name and number of this case as it appears above;
2. A request that notice of all proceedings be given to the entity
filing the notice; and
3. The name and address to which notice shall be sent. For Web
Claimants (defined below) such information should be your email
address.

Request for such notice should be filed by mail addressed as follows:

Clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
75 Clinton Street
Brooklyn, New York 11788


In order to continue to receive notices, a copy of the request must
also be mailed to the attorneys for the Debtor whose name and address
appears at the bottom of this notice, to the attention of Bonnie L.
Pollack, Esq.

The order also provides, for Web Claimants (defined as claimants
for unpaid rebates who purchased from the Debtor via its Web Site)
only, that said claimants receive notice by e-mail in all circumstances
other than notice of any bar date for filing claims and the hearings
upon Debtor's Plan and Disclosure Statement, as to which the manner
of service of notice will be determined at a future time. To the
extent
any Web Claimant elects to receive written notice instead, the notice
described above must contain that election.

IF YOU DO NOT FILE SUCH A REQUEST, YOU WILL NOT BE GIVEN NOTICE OF
MANY PROCEEDINGS WHICH MAY TAKE PLACE IN THIS CASE.

Ruskin, Moscou, Evans & Faltischek, P.C.
Attorneys for Debtor
170 Old Country Road
Mineola, New York 11501

As of October 15, 2001 Ruskin, Moscou, Evans & Faltischek's address
will change to:

Ruskin, Moscou, Evans & Faltischek, P.C.
East Tower, 15th Floor
190 EAB Plaza
Uniondale, NY 11556-0190

Heat

A little background for the new comers: Cyberrebate offered items for sale at about 10x normal price ($900 gameboys, $160 DVDs, etc) but promised to give 100% back once the rebate form was mailed back. The theory was that they made money by investing the money for the three months or so before you got your money back. Things were fine during the boom times, but as of last May they had declared bankruptcy leaving people with thousands of dollars in unpaid rebates (it looks like the last rebates paid were claims sent in around Christmas time). During the spring of 2000, Cyberrebate did things like offer nice electronics (at 10x price), offer free vacations if you ordered x thousand dollars worth of merchandise, etc, but went bankrupt instead.

So, people had thousands (and in many cases, tens of thousands) worth of merchandise at 10x prices. They realized that they would not get anything from bankruptcy court, so they tried to dispute the charges with their credit cards, claiming that the rebate was part of the transaction. All of the credit cards at first denied all disputes, but over this past summer Visa and, I believe Mastercard and possibly American Express caved in and started refunding the money to people who had been trying to dispute the charges (though most still had the merchandise). Discover card, as of a month ago, was still refusing disputes for cyberrebate purchases. Oh, the cyberrebate customers were pissed, were trying to sue Discover, etc, the last I saw they weren't getting anywhere.

The reason that there were a large number of Discover card people is that Discover offered a percentage as cash back (2%?). Thus, people reasoned, they could order, say, $8,000 worth of merchandise from cyberrebate (and actually get ~$1,000 worth of stuff), get $160 cash back from Discover, then get the $8,000 back from cyberrebate.

Anyway, let cyberrebate serve as a reminder to you: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And if you still aren't sure, whatever you do, don't throw thousands of dollars at it.

chanster

This situation still pisses me off. Not to sound rude, but all these chargebacks hurt people with a lot more legitimate claims because credit card companies tighten rules and raise interest rates.
I think it is bogus that people conned the credit card people into giving them chargebacks.