Cedar Rapids Weather
Appliance Rebate Money Runs Out
IOWA CITY - Diana Baculis plans to get rid of an old washer in the basement. Picking up a $200 rebate from the state would only help that process.
“I kept clicking on and it said the link was broken,” said Baculis, from the kitchen of her Iowa City home. “The state of Iowa should have been ready for hundreds of calls and they weren’t.” All throughout Monday, people in Eastern Iowa spent hours dialing a phone number or hitting a refresh button on a web browser. Over and over. By 4 P.M., the state reported, on a website, that all of the rebate money - about $2.7 million dollars - had been "exhausted" on all qualifying appliances. “Dialing, redialing, redialing,” said Jo Ann McNiel of Cedar Rapids about her morning. She pointed to her Amana Master Clean 5000 dishwasher, which she speculated may have even been in place in 1976, the year her home was built. “While it’s okay and not one of the major problems of the world, we decided it was a good time to replace it.” McNiel also wondered about people who may have taken off work or were really counting on the rebate money. The state activated the Energy Efficiency Appliance Rebate Program for 8 A.M. on Monday morning. The Iowa Office of Energy Independence website states Iowa’s allocation of $2,775,150 for rebates on refrigerators, clothes washers and dishwashers would lead to about 9,000 people securing the rebates, ranging from $100 to $500 per appliance. Dave and Amber Marty of Solon also needed a new dishwasher. After trying to log on “with no luck”, they drove to the Sears at Coral Ridge Mall with no rebate documentation. The Martys picked out a dishwasher and were surprised to find out they qualified for a $200 rebate as the customer service clerk was able to get through the system. “We’ll have to go back in and see if there’s any other appliances we need,” Dave Marty joked in the parking lot afterward. Marty said they paid less than $400 for the dishwasher before the $200 rebate. Even when some people were able to get through to the website, their hopes were squashed. Kerry and Mary Jo Fitzpatrick of North Liberty are retired and spent hours trying to get a rebate. Kerry worked the keyboard and Mary Jo kept dialing. Finally, at 11:15 AM, more than three hours after they started, Kerry’s hard work paid off as he got through to the website. He entered the information about his upcoming dishwasher purchase and clicked ahead to the next web page. Only the next page read, “Oops! This link appears to be broken.” He had to start the process over again. More Good Stuff |
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