SOS thought it had helped solve the problem of Dave Peterson’s prematurely corroding batteries. It was wrong, and despite weeks of additional effort, his and a few other readers’ travails have resulted in that occasional brand of SOS column it pains SOS to write.
The one calling out the unresponsive, the unhelpful and the uninterested in explaining themselves.
Peterson, 69, of Madison, took advantage of the savings in buying in bulk by purchasing a 48-pack of AA Rayovac batteries in 2018 for about $10. Four years later, some of the batteries had started to leak — both unused ones still in their package and ones that had been installed in a clock and in a flashlight, the latter of which no longer worked as a result.
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Dave Peterson took this photo of the coupons he received from Energizer Holdings to replace corroded batteries and the flashlight they destroyed. Target wouldn’t take them, he said.
Peterson had been stymied over email by “Rayovac Consumer Services” — which he suspected was a bot — and so had turned to SOS, which in relatively short order was able to secure for him $30 worth of coupons from Rayovac parent Energizer Holdings so that he could buy some batteries and replace his flashlight.
That turned out to be easier promised than done.
Peterson said he took the coupons to the Far West Side Madison Target on Dec. 9, when he found the replacement flashlight for $21.99, but he couldn’t purchase it because Energizer restricts coupon purchases to one item per coupon — and the coupons he’d been sent were for $20 and $10.
He also couldn’t buy batteries with the coupons because, as he found out when he got to the register at Target, Target didn’t actually take the coupons, despite Energizer’s assertion that it did, he said.
Ultimately, he said, he ended up buying just a replacement flashlight at Menards, where he said an employee told him that store doesn’t take Energizer coupons because “my boss says that they are more trouble than they are worth.”
SOS’ Dec. 4 column on Peterson’s plight brought a Dec. 13 email from a reader who had a similar problem but who has since given up the struggle and whom SOS is therefore not naming.
He said he tried to exercise the warranty on some Rayovac batteries still in their packaging, but that because they had expired in November, Energizer refused. The man’s argument was that the photos he sent Energizer of said batteries pretty clearly showed they had been corroding since long before November.
SOS returned for a second swing at Energizer Holdings but this time got nothing in the way of a named response. Company communications manager John Leiby, who had been responsive to Peterson’s earlier concerns, did not respond to multiple requests for comment over several weeks. Neither did Energizer vice president Jon Poldan. “Rayovac Consumer Services” emailed on Jan. 12 to say “we have escalated your case to the concerned team” but has since gone silent.
Meanwhile, “Rayovac Consumer Support,” using a different email address from that of “Rayovac Consumer Services,” on Jan. 9 offered Peterson a check for $45 to cover his troubles.
Peterson refused, saying the time, travel and money he’d spent dealing with the defective batteries and the problems they caused was worth considerably more than that.
“The bulldog in me simply wants to know why they did not just send me a replacement flashlight and some batteries out of their inventory,” he said. “Or, if they really like the coupon approach, why restrict use to one coupon per item. … Why make this difficult?”
Meta mute
Speaking of going silent, while Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, had been responding to reporters’ emails with a poop emoji, Facebook, and its parent company Meta, can’t even muster that.
In line with SOS’ past experience, Facebook/Meta didn’t respond to multiple emails (trying to reach Facebook/Meta by phone is a fool’s errand) on behalf of two readers, Marcia Weisensel and Marje Murray, who’d failed in their attempts to get Facebook to restore or delete their hacked accounts.
Of particular concern for Murray, according to her husband, Dennis Sullivan, is that whoever had hacked her account was trying to sell things in her name.
“We have been unable to reach a person at (Facebook) to find out what else can be done to stop the fraud on people who think they are buying things from my wife,” he said on Dec. 16.
On Friday, Weisensel confirmed that she remains locked out of her account, and while Sullivan thought Murray’s account might have been deleted, a check Saturday showed it still existed.
Its most recent post, from Jan. 1, is clearly a scam: a photo of a U.S. Small Business Administration web page, with the comment: “NEW GRANT IS OUT NOW FUNDING WITH $26,000. NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE A LLC OR EIN ,NO PAY BACK HITTING FAST. ASK FOR INFO PRIVATELY ON MY DM @EVERYONE.”
SOS sent Murray’s hacker a friend request and a message politely asking the person to reveal themselves and stop running scams in Murray’s name.
It can’t hurt, and in any case, it appears to be more than Facebook is willing to do.
Harold Burstyn received an email saying “I’ve applied (a) $40 Amazon Gift Card to your account, the equivalent of the discount you should have received.”
The business is run out of his home, though, so he has no need for an additional, business-use Prime account.
