Intel Basis fans burned again: Refund checks for scalding smartwatches bounce

Refund checks promised by Intel after recalling its ill-fated wrist-burning Basis smartwatches are bouncing for some unlucky punters. Amid a global safety recall, Basis Peak owners in the UK were offered a £184 refund to turn in their troublesome armslabs. Unfortunately, Chipzilla's payouts, delivered via Western Union, are …

[Mage]

Western Union?

I thought that was for marooned kids on holiday, broke students and scammers.

Why on earth are Intel using them? They are very expensive too.

[MattPi]

Re: Western Union?

Western Union is in part the money transfer service, but they're also a normal bank as well. Mortgages, checking accounts, corporate services, etc.

[Crazy Operations Guy]

Re: Western Union?

Western Union has a service where you send them a list of recipients and a pile of cash and they'll take care of all the check printing, envelope handling, and dealing with all the taxes / income reporting for the countries in which the recipients live. Its a huge pain for regular companies to do it and ends up being cheaper to just have WU worry about it.

Other than that, WU does a lot more than sending money: they perform physical transport of literal tons of money; they run the vast majority of long-distance courier services for goods that UPS / FedEx / DHL / etc. can't be trusted with; they also one of the main providers for the Telex services; and they control a sizable portion of the SWIFT network. Basically, if anything of value is moved anywhere, they're going to know about it.

[James 29]

Cheques?

I'd have thought in this day and age, they would simply deposit the money into my account - unbelievable

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cheques?

And you'd trust them with your bank account info? REALLY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel mobile true to form

Intel mobile = runs hot, delivered years late and half assed, flops and plug pulled immediately.

[JeffyPoooh]

SOLUTION

Take the Western Union branded £184 refund cheque to your local Western Union outlet.

I'm sure they'll happily cash it....for a 30% fee.

Thing is, they might hand you another cheque....now for £128.80.

GOTO 10

[Tom 64]

Ouch

Burned twice by intel? Literally and figuratively.

Paris - because wtf.

[lukewarmdog]

checks and cheques

Please note they are different things, can't just use one in the headline and a different one in the article.

I'd assume most people paid for their tech on a debit or credit card in which case refunds should be done via the same method.

[Oz]

Re: checks and cheques

The cynic in me says the reason they haven't done this is that they hope some people will forget to pay in the refund cheque, and so save Intel/Basis a bit of cash...

[ThomH]

Re: checks and cheques

At least if they're anything like me, they probably paid Amazon by card, and are very happy not to have to give any card or bank details to Intel now.

That is, assuming the cheque can be cashed, anyway.

[twilkins]

Got a refund cheque from Intel/Basis, and happily paid it into my RBS account.

I actually made a small profit on my ownership of the Basis Peak - I bought it for less than UK retail, then picked up an extra strap from USA on eBay. Basis refunded me the full list price for both items so I got an extra £45 in my pocket and a fitness tracker for 18 months.