After coming home from the office yesterday I was surprised to see a letter from the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. This is a program sponsored by the US Government to offset most of the cost of receiving over the air digital television. In early 2009, analog signals will not be sent out.
I applied for two coupons a number of months ago. The coupons looked very much like a credit card. The number on the card did not match up with the 16-digit scheme we are familiar with using Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover, etc.
Below the coupon was a list of about 8 stores within the radius of my mailing address. In my case Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Circuit City were listed as retailers.
I was very eager to use my new “credit cards”. It seems like a local retailer was not. I’ll explain later.