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Why Are Software Rebates Being Rejected?
"A month earlier, I bought a 128MB Kingston DIMM from buy.com and once again submit the rebate as instructed. A few weeks later I receive a postcard saying that my request was denied as I didn't submit the original purchase receipt showing the price of the item. After sending an e-mail to the fulfillment company stating that I submitted the only receipt that I had from buy.com which is the print out of the Web page after you complete your order, I receive a response stating that my rebate has been approved. This particuliar rebate was an offer only valid through buy.com and Kingston which makes it difficult for me to believe that the fulfillment company wouldn't know what a receipt from buy.com looks like. I'm also still awaiting the rebate check.
I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a case of bad luck or whether these rebates are only a scam by companies to get people to buy the products due to the advertised after-rebate prices, and then they figure that most people won't submit the rebate requests to begin with and for those that do, they will make it as difficult as possible to receive the promised rebate money."
Ya know, this is way OT, but I feel I have to speak out on this:
/.
Posters, if you would read the posts before you post, not just the top two or three, and then reply to those to get your post up top for the moderators, you most likely will find that your exact point will have been made in almost identical language, or in many cases, even better than you would have said it!
This would save a lot of time for all of us, and even yourself, since you won't have to type anything, and IT WILL STILL GET SAID and READ!
For some reason, redundancy just got too much for me to bear in this particular topic.
Thank you for your time. We now return you to your local
my $30 rebate was screwed up by a company who later made good on it after i pointed it out. this must be because microsoft sucks!
god slashdot get a clue!
who sends those things in anyway? its only another way for those evil companies to build larger mailing lists. do you really want another visa application in your mailbox every week? is it worth $30? not to me it isnt
A lawyer friend told me that the courts in Philadelphia automatically reject all first-level appeals of parking tickets, which means that people feel they've had their day in court and lost. I imagine it's the same way- they figure a small enough percentage of folks actually return rebates in the first place, and for such a relatively small amount of cash even fewer of them are willing to follow up if they don't get the rebate later. It's a war of attrition, and guess who's going to win.
yup, /. has to relate everything to some perceived Microsoft wrongdoing (look mummy, I dare write the evil word in full!).
If they don't, they have no stories anymore :)
90% of the people dont want to spend this time just to get a few bux back, and I bet a lot of companies are counting on this... its all a gamble
I read about a similar problem in an IT magazine (Infoweek?) last year One reader had a very interesting way of deal with rebates.
The reader kept a spreadsheet tracking when reebates were supposed to be due. At the 60-day mark, he sent a "collection notice". At 90 days, he threatened to go to the Better Business Bureau. Apparently, he only had to go to the BB twice.
-Giordana (posting from the Windows partition).
Rebates are a scam to begin with, clear and simple. "We will give you $XX back!" Bullshit. What they really mean is that "Our product wasn't worth the money we claim it's worth (did you really believe they are giving you money back because they are so nice and find you such a nice person?), and we also want your data to our customer database." I've sent my own share of rebate coupons but that only means that I'm prepared to part with part of my privacy with a few bucks, as sad as that sounds.
Or I can go somewhere else that DOESN'T require a card to get the discounts and avoid the problem altogether. I hate carrying around dozens of cards for different stores just so I can save a few bucks here and there, instead I've taken up a policy of only shopping at stores that don't require a stuipid card. Goodbye Kroger, hello Shoppers.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Most people don't take the time to send back the rebate forms (I know that normally I don't). However, one vendor that made me decide to send the rebate form back was Best Buy (they not only print out the form for you at the register, they print out extra copies of your receipt). I don't know what their online policy is though.
While I shy away from rebates in general, due to all the problems mentioned by others, I must say that at least the local (Denver) Best Buy stores print out a rebate form AND an extra receipt.
Prophet's comments were accurate before Best Buy adopted this practice.
Someone should tell this to the MPAA and similar organizations. They've been suing out of state plantiffs on a regular basis for quite some time now.
OTOH, all that is required for a company to fall within a local jurisdiction is for them to do business there.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So, actually bothering to stand up for yourself makes you the equivalent of "Comic Store Guy"?
How could you be any more of a Sheep?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
How incredibly predictable.
An article about rebates for software purchased includes a rip on some unrelated Microsoft thing.
Where else but slashdot.org would you ever find people stupid enough to link the two together?
Nope: If the retailer pockets the money and doesn't pass the rebate on to the customer it only means that the rebate is what the manufacturers claim. I.e. A discount.
When iNTEL has a real life price cut on Pentium chips not all vendors pass that on to PC buyers either.
This BS about "Rebates being abused by retailers just shows that Rebate programs are a fraud.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Rebates, *when* the seller honors them, at least give the seller a great float -- they have your money, earning them interest somewhere, until they get around to honoring their rebate and send you what they owe you...
At worst, they're a rip-off because either you don't bother, or they never get around to honoring the rebate and they keep your money.
As for Quicken/TurboTax, I've *never* received a rebate back from them, over years and years..
They *are* a total rip-off; it's only because of the low price of their product (2000 version TurboTax for "$14.95" - $19.95 ignoring their "rebate") that I'll buy it anyway...
Quicken/TurboTax's rebates are a total scam.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I clicked on your link, half thinking it was just another goatse.cx redirect, and what do I find? A professional attorney who is heading up the OpenLaw forum and fighting for fair use rights. Thank God not every lawyer has sold out our society for a few measley bucks. You're doing good work. I wish I could help out beyond my donations to EFF and the ACLU, but you have my support, respect, and thanks.
Cheers,
--Maynard
I got a rebate form rejected because I didn't fill in an office phone number. They sent me a letter telling me I didn't complete the form and I needed to fill in the office number. I called them at the support number listed on the rejection letter. A woman looked up my file and reiterated the reason I didn't qualify. I then told her I didn't have an office number. She said OK and that next time I should write in NONE. Well they sent the check after that.
-weld
Chicago's main post office is 24/7 - the big place right down by the Sears Tower. Let me tell you - an 11:50pm postmark has saved my ass some late charges more than once!
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
I would vote for bad luck, or not reading the instructions carefully enough. I've always gotten my money back on all the rebates that I've sent. However I've sometimes had to spend more than three seconds reading the fine print. Rebates are obviously offered on the thought that people won't bother to cash them in. Same as the lifetime warranty on under $30 items. Where it's cheaper and easier for you to just go buy a new one than send a letter and/or the item to the company to get a new one.
;)
But on principle I always fill out rebate forms even if it is for a piddling amount of money. I've found that the only lists that my info ever gets "sold" to is usually that companies marketing department, and I really don't mind throwing away Quicken stuff frequently.
Interstate 30 at Sylvan Avenue, between Downtown and Oak Cliff.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I couldn't believe it when customer relations at Apple told me they wouldn't pony up the $500 rebate I sent in.
Reason? I sent it in 3 days late (including 2 postoffice holidays). Unbelievable, read on? They only gave me 11 days to send it in and that was burried in the fine print.
I know for a fact that at least at RadioShack there is a sign posted that says they will not sell your information gathered. As a matter of fact, if they do sell the (unique) information I give them, I know exactly where it came from and can sue them for all the fun gadgets I can use.
Mycroft-X
This is the first real sensible comment I've read on this topic. I also refuse to buy anything based on a mail-in rebate. As far as I am concerned, they are just another form of bait and switch.
Between coupons and my shopper's card, I routinely save 25% to 40% off of my weekly grocery bill. Over the course of a year, that adds up to several hundred dollars.
With that in mind, who really cares if the store knows I like Turkey Store Italian Sausage and Peanut Butter Captain Crunch?
Nashville Airport Post office is open 24x7.
Nashville is not that large a city.
I imagine this is not unusual, and expect most larger cities have one office open late.
I live in NYC. The closest PO to me is open till 6, there is one a little farther away open until 8, and the big huge postoffice by Penn Station is open 24 hours.
// mlc, user 16290
--
No, it's becasue our tax laws are so obfuscated that you need to either hire an accountant or buy the advice of one (via TurboTax or whatever) in order that you don't pay more taxes than you might be able to get away with otherwise.
// mlc, user 16290
--
This seems to be a rather obveous answer to the question.. how can a company offer 100% rebate?
Many items are sold offering 100% rebate.. Buy box of disks for $10 and get a $10 rebate... that sort of thing...
The usual answer is most people don't bother sending the rebates in...
But this dosn't sound like the right answer.. Most people wouldn't pass up a 75% to 100% rebate.. Or at least companys would assume as much... Why risk it? There is a major loss potental... It dosn't quite work out in busness logic...
The reason I keep comming up with is lotto... your not garrentied anything and have a very real chance of getting nothing back...
Pentasmal may have gotten it's slogen "You will get nothing" from rebates...
In any case.. I've passed up rebates becouse they just seem to good to be true.. and as the saying gose.. if it looks to good to be true it probably is...
I don't actually exist.
We have the BBB and other government agentcys but unless it's obveous fraud they tend not to act..
Sence it's hard to prove fraud in this case [they seem to reject only a precent of the rebates.. not all of them... it's hard to prove inconsistent behavure] they aren't likely to take action...
I don't actually exist.
You are allways given a 90 day loop no matter what it is.. 30 days in.. 30 day process.. 30 day out... standard operating procedure...
My mail is ususally 3 day in same day processing 3 day out.. however there are exceptions...
60 day loop is offered when you file a request electronicly... 30 second in.. 30 day processing 30 day out...
No real conspericy with the 90 days attached...
I however the the 45% number pulled out of thin air is exactly whats happening...
The rebate processing center must produce this 45% no matter what.. I get this from the comments posted..
A rebate center underfunded isn't getting the rebate money from the company.... they are being honnest and not artifically generating the 45%.. they fold...
Many have no problems others allways have problems... strange excuses.. odd rejections for strange reasons... etc...
So I have to conclude that not only is someone pulling up a 45%.. more likely they assume a 75%.. and then they need to artifically generate this by rejecting the remainder...
To reject the remainder hidden rules are tacked on.. penmenship counts.. and it has to be in pen.. not pencle and not printer...
They may reject by job title.. zone.. etc.. This becouse certen people ALLWAYS get rejections...
I guess if you can generate a repeatable patern you can bring it to the BBB
I don't actually exist.
The comic store guy is savy enough to know when Bart Simpson is pulling a con (This is a kid who has been pritty good about conning just about everyone when it fits his needs...)
Linux users are savy enough to know when Microsoft is pulling a con...
Yes he could be more of a sheep...
He could be trying to say how easy it is to find a Linux vender to a bunch of Linux users who obveously found the task imposable...
I don't actually exist.
If you can find a way to electronically file your taxes from home without TurboTax, TaxCut, etc. I'm all ears.
Most software is deved in house for in house use, not public use. If the public uses nothing but free software, you will still be able to eat. SO DO GET YOU PANTIES IN A WAD!
Companies know very well that rebates are only followed through on by customers 5-15% of the time. Add in an unintentional chain of red tape and possibly an intentional denial the first time around, and I would imagine that only near 1% of rebates are actually filled.
Don't you remember the day of ISDN installations, with 200 dollar modems (with a 200 dollar rebate)? I wonder how many of those rebates went through...
I've not experienced being denied but rather being ignored.
All too often I've sent in the rebate sticker or form (which are too small to write on) and never received a response. Of course, whenever you call them on it, they profusly apologize and ignore you some more.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Or at least most of it.
The rebate form is part of your receipt, issued at the checkout register. Fill it in, mail that half of the receipt, nothing more required.
At least that cuts the requirements for UPCs, and eliminates the "what do you mean you're out of rebate forms?!" problem.
BTW the figure for "how many people actually process the rebate request?" last I heard was around 10%. And the reason for rebates wasn't because you've essentially lent them your money for a couple months (tho I'm sure that has become a factor) but rather because this was effectively a guaranteed markup on 90% of product sold, yet legally advertised at a discounted price.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It seems to me the whole idea of a rebate is a scam.
What good are they?
The only thing I can think of is that some people will think "Oh good, $1000 with $200 rebate, that's really $800", but when push comes to shove, they neglect to do the _extra_work_ to get the rebate.
Sure, most people will probably do the rebate, but if 8% don't, then that's a lot like the company got to jack their price, without nearly the same reduction in sales.
Now, if they do rebates, and go one step further to make doing rebates an even bigger PITA... Perhaps that's even better for the company.
That is, until people start to wise up and avoid the extra unnecessary work associated with rebates. Personally, if I see a car after rebate for $n, and a car without rebate for $n+100, I'm probably going to do the car without the stupid rebate. What a lot of arbitrary busy-work. If they really want my dollars, they should include the price reduction in the sales price. I mean, really, why wouldn't they?
Years ago when Parallel Port Zip Drives were all the rage (and $200!), I went out an bought one. The only reason I went for it was the whopping $50 rebate they offered, plus a nifty carrying case.
The form said "6 - 8 weeks" for delivery. No big deal I thought, having $50 pop up in the mail 2 months from now would be great.
6 months pass...
I eventualy got the rebate check, but only after finding out that IOmega had pissed off a large group in Colorado (I think), and had a class action lawsuit brought against them because of the long time it took to send out (or not send) rebates.
In the end, I got a coupon for $10 off the inflated price of zip disks at CDW.
Like other posters have said, rebates are a roll of the dice at times!
Rebates suck. How come thy just can't lower the price??
because this would cost the company more money. It's much cheaper to offer a $20 rebate than to discount the price by $20. The company offering the rebate counts on only a certain percentage of people buying the product to send in the rebate form, and of those many will be incomplete/incorrect. Furthermore, they get to use that money for the 8 weeks or so it takes to refund it to you.
sue in Small Claims Court
maybe it's different where you live, but in my state you have to sue in the same town where a company does business. this is because the court has to be able to serve the documents, and can only do that in it's own jurisdiction.
Of course, while working there I gained a whole new contempt for customers, and pretty much the rest of humanity in general. While screwing "honest" customers was probably a bit of an overreaction, there was a bit of fraud going on. A surprising number of people (one should have been surprising enough) told me to my face that the reason they didn't have the receipt for the product they were returning was because they had sent it in for the rebate. Most people had the common courtesy to lie about why they had lost the receipt, why the rebate form had been torn from the box, why the UPC was missing, etc.
~~~~~~
under-paid karma whore
Or if you are greater the 25,000, just go to and do your taxes there anyways. Its a whole $35 (fed and state) before April 16 do do them there.
Excellent point. Agreed.
I appologize, consumers do it too.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love slashdot?
=-)
fixed. thank you.
/nutt
and file a complaint. doesn't cost you anything.
What else is there to say?
I also didn't get a rebate for an Atlas modem, though I only lost out on $20. Turns out, not long after I'd bought the modem, Atlas went under from what I'd heard. My dad forwarded a link to Best Buy info on how to collect the rebate, but I never pursued it. However, it is the only rebate I've never received, though most take their time to arrive.
Basically, it's "here's a small sum in exchange for being able to stick a known good address (you want to get the cheque, don't you?) in our marketing database."
--
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
I know I never keep track of rebates, but the last two I've done they've been sent out incorrectly. The first one was sent to my address, excluding the suite number. They also abbreviated my first name. So the mailroom had to decide where to put the check. It went to my twin brother and he gave it to me, but in a huge apartment, someone could have the same first initial and last name and might get your rebate check. The second one was delivered to the wrong house by the postal service. Maybe it's me, but I don't think it should take 8 weeks to process a rebate.
Most people will just give up and eat the loss. Dealing with these companies can be quite a hassle at times, and many people don't want to be bothered over a few dollars.
By the way, I just got my $35 rebate from Quicken on Saturday with no problems. It was less that a 2 week turn around, which is pretty good in my book. Maybe if this person got off their lazy ass and when down to Best Buy to get the software (like I did), they wouldn't be having these problems. Beside, BB doesn't hand out it's credit card information....
ÕÕ
The Austin Best Buy's print the rebate slips at the register, you just fill them out and mail them in. This system has worked well for me, I use it a lot.
This sounds like a government program. God forbid they give an instant rebate at the point-of-sale, cut out all the paperwork, and eliminate the fraud. I don't even consider buying anything with a rebate attached, particularly if it involves Best Buy. I'd rather wait until the price drops for real, or find something else to buy that doesn't involve me having to do 3 hours work to justify my payback.
Mail-in rebates are a scam, as many others have already pointed out here. Even if you really push yourself to jump through all the hoops before the coupon expires, and you finally get your relatively small amount back, your name still goes into a marketing database, which most likely is then sold to other companies.
-Legion
It is legal in california, I dunno about other states ... HMO's are about as close to pure evil as you can get .. save for religions founded on sci-f
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Calling rebates a scam is a bit strong - they don't have to be dishonest for the company to make a lot of money on the deal. The thinking behind rebates instead of discounts is pretty transparent (at least to those of us who went to marketing weasel school). A few of these have been well-stated by others, but some might not be as obvious:
1) Most people don't bother filling out their rebates or do so incorrectly.
2) The retailer gets to invest the money you paid upfront and get some interest before paying the fulfillment center.
3) Rebates are exempt from price-matching or price guarantee programs. Several stores will give you money back if an item you purchased goes on sale a few weeks after the purchase - this doesn't apply to rebates.
4) Almost all rebates require that you send in UPC symbols from the packaging. Most stores don't accept returns if the UPC is missing. Keeping returns down is a retailer's dream.
5) They allow the company to gather demographic information on its users, which in turn can be sold.
6) Rebates aren't available to items acquired via a rain check. Rain checks are are huge annoyance to retailers. Still, they're not entirely evil. I track my rebate submissions and I've received what was promised to me 95% of the time. Just know what you're getting into.
Usually airports have a post office branch that is open 24 hours. I've had to drive an hour out to IAH (Houston) to get a postmark for a college app.
Black holes are where god divided by zero
I sent in a rebate to ViewSonic last year and got the exact same runaround. They rejected my claim and sent me mail to that effect. I kept all the paperwork so I called and they said it was all a computer mistake and they would be sending me the check.
I took their word for it but now think it must be extrememly common. It's dishonest.
Also, there is the postage collected by the USPS for all of the superflious forms being sent to and fro. Another participant and beneficiary of the conspiracy! heh, heh, heh...
If people have such hard times getting these rebates, why aren't these companies being sued for the rebates?
It is their obligation to provide these rebates to their customers. Why are these companies even allowed, LEGALLY, to advertise rebates when it is impossible for people to get them with any speed or diligence on the part of the rebate company?
No all society.It's not limited to capitalism, this process occurs in all cultures and even appears in the gift culture. Socialists/Communists would like to pretend that it doesn't happen in their 'successfully' architected worlds, but in reality we know that it happens and is apparent in areas like organized crime, corruption, and simple things like nepetism/cronyism (again things that appear in all cultures including capitalism).
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I live in MA.. And the PO at a nearby mall is open until 7pm Mon to Sat and until 5pm on Sundays.
UPS Sucks
I got 350.00 bucks of stuff after Thanksgiving and only paid 50 due to rebates( I have all but 20 of the rebates back)
UPS Sucks
I've never been a big fan of rebates. Recently, trying to keep an open mind, I purchased a SprintPCS phone during their holiday rebate promotion, and mailed in the rebate following their instructions. I received a letter back saying that my rebate was rejected because I needed to send the original invoice, which I thought was ludicrous. I called Sprint and the operator told me to just send my first months bill. I complied. About two weeks later I received another letter, my original bill and all other documentation removed. The letter said they had no idea why I was sending them this letter. You can only laugh, at this point. It amazes me that companies can sit on rebates/refunds/requistions as long as they feel like it. I don't know, but this seems borderline illegal to me. As someone who will consult from time to time, if I treated my clients as poorly as I've been treated by ATT/Sprint/Verizon in the last few months, I'd be out of buisness, if not in jail. Rebates are a scam. Hardly worth the time to document the stupid purchase in the first place.
They need to be hit with a few class-action lawsuits for fraud. Then they'll straighten out and fly right. Right now they rest assured that most people will just give up and go away. Give 'em a good lawyerin' and they'll quit that...
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
I get the mental image of the guy who loses money is eaten by a soda machine, so the guy freaks and starts beating the crap out of the machine, and then hundreds of cans of soda rush out of the machine.
I sent in my TiVo $100 rebate over 2 months ago, and I still haven't received my check! I paid for the full lifetime service over 2 months ago. Whats the hold up? Anyone else having problems with the TiVo rebate? BTW, its a nice piece of equipment. Makes TV tolerable and even fun.
Yeah, keep a photocopy. If you get screwed, yell to the BBB, your state's consumer protection agency or attorney general, and the corporate office of the vendor.
This is true - in fact, most rebates are not redeemed.
When companies make these offers, they are counting on the fact that most people will not take the time to fill out the forms and mail them out. This is especially true of smaller rebates. The psychology of the lower price tag on the shelf is priceless. By the time you realize a rebate is involved, you already have the product in your hand -- or your 'cart'.
I'm sure this company thinks that if they make it hard enough for you to get your money, you'll simply give up. And with most consumers, they would be right.
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
You can also contact the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Just look for the Attorney General's Office in your State. In my experience, they tend to take the law to the letter and don't really protect the consumer a whole lot though ... :(
I've had the same problem (bogus denials) several times with Staples.com. It has gotten so bad that I've stopped buying anything from them except at face value. In other words, I don't buy anything from them anymore.
Others in my office have not had this problem however; I guess I'm just lucky, or some data entry clerk doesn't like my name. I agree that it is a conspiracy, but probably a smaller one than the company involved: the individuals processing the rebates are lazy. It's probably quicker to dump stuff into the "fraudulent" bin, or they have to meet a "fraudulent" quota, so they randomly dump requests.
Yes, they are hoping you won't send in the rebate. But they're hoping even more than you won't even plan to.
Rebates and coupons are a way that vendors establish differential pricing. All vendors want to charge the rich who value time more than money a higher price than what they charge the poor.
The modern fixed price, advertising based world doesn't easily allow that, thus the coupons and the rebates. They know the rich won't go through the hassles, and only those who care a lot will. They don't mind giving those the lower price, in fact they know they probably won't get more out of you so they are happy to do so.
But they could never sell the product for the rebate price and make money, so they are indeed counting on you not sending it in. The float on the money is a lesser issue, since most people don't send in the rebate at all.
The more hassle they can make the rebate process, the better this works.
The great curse would be a net business that automatically filled out rebate forms for you. That would ruin the rebate biz and get rid of rebates, eliminating the subsidy for the poor. Insisting on original paper helps stop this.
Shopping club cards cost the stores a lot because a lot of people who would never clip coupons use a club card. The store finds value in the data, but I find you can simply trade the cards randomly with people every so often to avoid that. Have a bowl at your parties for people to trade.
Of course, some club cards try to mail things to your address to discourage false addresses and trading.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Communism is not doomed to failure, if resources are properly allocated. Unfortunately, greedy human nature is what dooms this to failure.
And capitilism wouldn't work if it wasn't for the government passing laws to prevent Big Business from stepping all over Joe Consumer and Bob Employee.
Since when do ideas have to conform to reality? I was just stating that someone had a vision that had the potential of being perfect.
When we start making sure that ideas are grounded on reality as we know it, then the thinkpol will exist and we will all be doomed.
I personally refuse to buy products with attached mail-in rebates unless I am prepared to buy the product for the full retail price. Within the past year I have lost over $100 worth of rebates from various sources. They included 3Dfx, Kingston, and Cannon. Frankly, although $100 might not sound like a lot of money, it is when you are a poor, borke, unemployed college student. Besides, it's not so much that I lost the money that it is the principle of the matter. If these companies offer the rebate, and we the customers properly complete and meet the requirements for the rebates, they should give us our money. I also will not ever buy products from Fuji Cameras due to their denying rebates on the ground that the camera was priced less than the MSRP. I wonder if we could possibly have some legal recourse against actions such as these.
--------------------------------------
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
I've had similar problems with mail-ins. I once bought a joystick that had a $15US rebate, filled it out, sent it in, and waited... and waited... and waited. Finally after about 2 1/2 months I wrote a semi-nasty letter to the company, and lo and behold, my rebate check arrived a week later. /. a while back, something about "What a sad state of affairs it is when 'government' is replaced with 'corporation', and 'citizen' is replaced with 'consumer'." That observation seems to hold very true here. (BTW, kudos to the original author/poster of that statement.)
I'm beginning to think that companies offer these rebates to drive up sales, hoping that you either won't send them in, or won't bitch about it when you don't receive your rebate. It's a shame that to get something you *should*, you have to kick and scream and roll over for these companies.
I recall reading a post on
- Jester
I don't know about your state, but in New York, if a store has s sale that is sponsored by the manufacturer, the store is required to charge sales tax on the manufacturer's reduced price. If I come in with a coupon for $0.50 something at the store, I still have to pay the $0.04 sales tax on that $0.50. It's just pennies for a little $0.50 coupon... but when you're talking about something a little more pricey, like a web cam... $99.99 - #30.00 rebate = $3.24 in sales taxes paid on rebate portion, then you start to make a difference. Tack on another $0.34 to the cost of the rebate for postage... and then you're really starting to see the rebate become meaningless.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Another source of income for the companies is selling the information that you provided for the rebate. Plus, I really hate it when a cashier asks for your name, address and telephone number at Radio Shack or Futureshop. Again, they can sell this information.
Radio Shack I believe uses this information for mailings etc. (a cashier told me this). Plus, mail-in rebates according to the news can use this information for marketing purposes.
Not only do they count on people not filling out the rebate form, they get to earn the interest on the float. Which, on certain high volume products (such as DirecTV), can be a substantial amount of money.
It's not 5 to 6 weeks because it takes that long to process, that's 5 to 6+ weeks of interest on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.
-- jcwren
They are going to make it as difficult as possible for you to get the money back. Or make it take as long as possible.
After all, how many folks will not claim the rebate at all, or give up after just oneattempt?
If they can weed out more and more folks at each step, its cheaper for them in the long run.
And rebates are good press!
A message from our sponsor
microsoft is really good with sending back rebate checks. the copy of office 2000 that i got for my mom's computer had a rebate, the check came in exactly a month
Communism is not doomed to failure, if resources are properly allocated. Unfortunately, greedy human nature is what dooms this to failure.
I'm not a rabid, "capitalism uber alles", right-winger, but your argument seems to boil down to: the idea was correct, reality just got in the way. You might want to rethink the argument seeing how we happen to live in this reality.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Here is how the program that I worked on would work. First, a retailer, such as Joe's True Value hardware store would see an ad from Home Depot. There a product, such as a Name Brand(r) Hammer, would be advertised to the public at LESS than his cost for a True Value Branded Hammer through the True Value buying group. (Some buying group!) So, he contacts the manufacturer of the True Value branded hammer that he sells and faxes them the advertisement. They calculate a rebate based on Home Depot's advertised price for their competiter, a profit margin for Joe, the % of rebates redeemed, and other factors. The next day, a stack of rebate coupons arrives at Joe's, allowing him to match the price at home depot, or advertise a similiar price on his True Value branded hammer.
Because only a small % of people redeem the rebate, the True Value hammer manufacturer has only slightly lowered his price overall. (The % redeemed is proportional to the size of the rebate) Meanwhile, Name Brand Hammer is selling their hammers at a loss through Home Depot, but making it up in volume. (Or at least thats what the True Value hammer manufacturer likes to think.)
Note that Joe cannot get the same price for Name Brand Hammers that Home depot does. He and True Value just don't have that kind of buying power. So, he has few options in this situation. He will never be able to sell the product at the price that Home Depot does without the rebate.
Float is not the reason why people get 'screwed' by rebate offers. Back in my college days, I worked a big national computer retailer, who offered mail-in rebates for everything from canned air to computer systems.
As an assistant 'manager', I often drew the plum assignment of listening to people rant and rave about not getting rebate money.
About 75% of these people received no money becuase they simply did not read nor follow the instructions.
Some people even had photocopies of what they sent. Here are the most common mistakes that I saw:
- Wrong product or wrong model. (ie HP 690 printer instead of 660)
- No UPC. Many people mailed photocopies of UPC codes.
- No serial number or incorrect info. I remember one guy who wrote down a upc code as a computer's serial number.
- Submitting credit card draft instead of itemized receipt.
- Mailing rebates late. (Once over a year late)
Most of the other 25% of people with rebate problems receive them a little later than expected. At our store, we had to follow up on complaints until they were resolved; I would estimate that around 5-10 people per week (out of 25,000 or more rebate submissions) never received refunds for legitimate reasons.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You might want to take a look over at CyberRebate. It all looks like a good deal, til you read stories like this and begin to wonder.
-Stype
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
I would tend to agree with your point, but since the percentages (as stated by tons of people so far) are so low for rebates, they don't gain many names.
When it comes to building a large list, consider warrenty cards. Many more people send those in, despite the fact that several major court cases have ruled that it is illegal to not honor a warrenty on the basis that the consumer has not mailed in a warrenty card. That's the reason that I never bother with them.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
I feel for ya bud. If it helps, BOTH rebates (CompUSA $30 and WD $60) come from WD, in the same red-grey style rebate envelope. I got mine at the same time yesterday, so they should get that second one to you early this week, I bet.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Small claims court is really only useful if both parties involved are under the jurisdiction of the court in which the small claim is filed.
For example, if you sue bob the neighbor for damage to a tree on your lawn, the court can take some of his stuff, garnish his wages, or declare him in contempt of court- and then have the locals enforce its decisions.
However, what if defending party has no assets to seize that fall under that court's jurisdiction? For example, lets say that the company is incorporated in deleware and has no assets in California, where you claim that you have been wronged and sue for compensation. Assuming you win, there is nothing you can do to get money except make a lot of annoying phone calls.
Continuing this example, lets say you fly over to Delaware and sue there. Oh wait, youre suing for something that happened in California. 90% chance that the local court in DE has no jurisdiction over the matter being argued in your claim. It then gets dismissed.
Good luck, in other words.
When Flight Simulator 2000 (From MS) came out, I knew it was going to be a dog of a program (suck). I was dying to try it... and an employee at Fry's reminded me that MS offered a sasifiaction money-back guarantee. Well, the app was a dog (I think they've released two patches since then), I followed the instructions and mailed the product and receipt back to MS. Sure enough, they paid me back... cost of game plus tax! (FYI, the rebate check did not come from Microsoft, but some other company, which I presume handles MS's Satisfaction Guarantees.)
Also, I purchased Partition Magic which, according to the box, worked on Windows NT. Well it wouldn't install on Windows NT Server ("This product only works on NT Workstation" -- which is completely bogus BTW). The box said "satisfaction guaranteed" so I took it back to the store (UCLA computer store -- UCLA students are familiar with the fatso-slob manager who is an asshole). He didn't want to take it back, but when I showed him the "Moneyback Satisfaction Guarantee" sticker, he grumbled and issued me a refund.
I haven't failed to get a rebate back on anything... including soap, DSL, steak sauce, cell phone... I have forgotten to mail a few in which sucks.
The question is that it probably cost the fulfillment company more than the $35 rebate to refuse the rebate. Logic?
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
Please tell me you didn't bought an extended warranty with it.
money is money, and the manufacturers want to part with as little as possible. best data has an average 6 month turn around on their rebates. if a company offers a rebate, they are required by law to pay it as long as you meet proof of purchase requirements, usually a reciept and the upc strip. the reason for rebates is that the manufacture can't advertise specific price reductions, that would be price fixing, plus if the manufacture dropped the cost by $50, that would not necessarily translate into a $50 savings to the customer. it depends a great deal on the amount of markup on the product, a 50% markup would equate to $100 and a 12.5% markup would equate to $25. the evil side of a rebate is that not only do you pay sales tax on the rebate, it is technically income, and you should pay income tax on it also.
Why don't the damn government make rebates illegal or something? It's like those pyramid schemes, it's just there to scam people.
But since I can't change the law, I always get back at these stupid companies some other way. For every $1 I get ripped off, I will punish them with $10. BestBuy and CompUSA are the worst rebate frauds.
This is what I do. I'd go buy something, open it, take something I need, and then return the damn MF item. I got burned by Iomega a few years back with their stupid Jazz drive rebate, so I went back a few months later, got myself another Jazz drive, took it home, opened it, and confiscated for myself an extra Jazz disk ($100 at the store if bought separately). Then I returned that damn drive and gave Iomega a middle finger salute!
[dislaimer: the above is nothing but a dream that I would love to carry out one day]
There is rather valid reason that the manufacturers won't allow retailers to submit rebate requests. Unscrupulous dealers can submit claims that dont exist, or start the program late and end the program early to claim these rebates for themselves. I once watched a manager at a store I worked at claim a $500 rebate on a big screen television that was still in the store. He gloated when the cheque arrived. So many manufacturers ONLY allow rebates to go to the absolute end user. Sort of sucks, but if you make a system that can be taken advantage of, it WILL be taken advantage of. That's my two cents.
You're partly right. The reason for the reabate is NOt that they keep Your money for 4-6 weeks. No, in fact the MAJOR intake is from people forgetting to get the rebate check, or filing too late or mis-filing. Anything that'll let the company keep the rebate for themselves.
Face it. The gains from investing $50 for 4 weeks could NEVER yeild a doubling of the $50.
True, some people DO file for the rebate, but when it comes right down to it, historically, less than HALF the people buying the product end up getting the rebate. I've seen cases where we're talking single figure percentages that actually get the rebate when it all comes down to it.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
It's because the mail in rebates is the best way for companies to get your name and address into their database. Comanies know darn well the only a small percentage of customers register their software or products after purchase, and the rebate is a good way for these comapnies to get their hands on your infomation.
Fill in and send away a rebate, and in a few months you will be getting advertisements and other junk addressed directly to YOU.
My first reaction to this sort of thing is to ask why not contact the trading standards office. Is this just a UK facility?
If they've been taking people to small-claims court, they're even cheaper bastards than I thought ;-)
No relation to Happy Monkey
If you make under $25,000 per year, you can file your US taxes (both federal and state) for FREE electronically using Quicken on the web http://www.turbotax.com/turbotaxweb/welcome.htm. (Information about the deal is here: http://www.quicken.com/freedom/) Privacy implications at your own risk, of course.
American citizens living abroad still have to pay US taxes. You'd be amazed how far $25,000 US can go in other countries.
Problem #2 - You actually bought something with a "mail-in rebate".
Problem #3 - You are *not* doing computer and electronic business with companies listed on www.pricewatch.com, but you *are* making an online purchase.
Explaination of #3:
For those of you who don't understand purchasing items online, if you want good service, act as if you are the kind of person who deserves nothing less. Inform them about how you were planning on ordering "some more monitors for the Engineering Lab at " where you *supposedly* work, but were astonished to find that .
The companies that list on Pricewatch *have* to keep their customers happy and will get you what you want at a good price because that is the only way they can stay in business.
Explaination of #2:
Mail-in rebates have been cited as "scams" by the BBB for around five and half years now. Don't get upset about them selling marketing information and demographic material, if you are an above average human you'll rise above that crap and succumb to marketing schemes when they target you. The real problem is not getting your money.
Confusing point: "You have to understand that the company is under no legal obligation to give you back your money."
They of course *actually* are, but you don't have the money to fight them for it, since the money you'd spend to get the rebate legally would far surpass the money they made off of you.
Plus if they go bankrupt you are SOL.
Explaination of #1:
I have heard horror stories about buy.com and believe there are a few websites out there actually devoted to this place. Do background checks on products and companies before buying from them.
A friend of mine requested a monitor from buy.com and got a broken one twice from them. I believe one of the monitors just didn't work, the other one UPS screwed up in the mail. Buy.com sure as hell didn't care though.
I interviewed once with a company that does payroll and bill processing. I didn't get the job, but I found out that they have printing plants all over the country, they know how long it takes for mail to go from one area to another, and they send the bills from far away places to maximize the float on the money. For them, its worth millions of dollars a year.
I think that mail-in rebates are definatly a scam!
I've been screwed twice in the past year--the only two rebates I have ever sent back. One was for $69.99 for the bag/spare battery/other crap that was an addition to my camcorder purchase. The other was for an ATI graphics card for $39.99
Swindled out of 110 dollars! Liars suck! But bureaucratic corporations, where there is NO ONE to blame(or to take responsibility) suck the worst. Capitalism has its faults--all of which I can live with the exception of corporations who take zero responsibility!
--Chris
Software companies are getting greedier because of a recession I suppose.
Egghead wants to keep your business? Make them eat the rejected rebate cost. That is, assuming the rebate was advertised by them.
Also, customer satisfaction has fallen way below profit on the average company's priority list. So what if there's thousands of customers griping about not getting their rebates sent? The company has all that money to play around with, and so they go and waste the money on venture capital, R&D, or (more often than not) yet another hike of executive salaries. Then, when the BBB and FTC start investigating, they finally 'fess up and send the rebates before they become the target of class-action lawsuits.
I predict that this cycle will occur in companies all over the country. To the elitist capitalist, the famous excerpt of the Declaration of Independence reads: "...that among these are Strife, Misery, and the pursuit of Avarice."
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
No, in true communism trade is effectively demolished because the entire concept of personal property is demolished. Without personal property, there can be no trade.
No, you don't "get" anything because you already have it. As does everybody else. Neither do you contribute anything, because anything you have, everyone else automatically has. Read "Stranger In A Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein for further grokking.
And I have read "Animal Farm".
I'm glad he does, because even programmers (like myself) need to eat...
But seriously, a tax program is probably your money well spend. I won't neccessarly trust a well-meaning open-source inspired geek interpreting arcane tax laws.
JdV!!
<Enter any 12-digit prime to continue>
Rebates are simply a way to offer a product at a price higher than for which it is seemingly offered. Rebates benefit companies in several ways:
(1) They can advertise a product that costs $200 for $150, mentioning in fine print (after they have your attention) that the product really IS $200, but that you'll receive a $50 rebate. So it assists companies in marketing their products.
(2) Some MBA crunches numbers, and figures out that, hey, only 45% of people (number pulled from as$) entitled to rebates actually fill them out correctly and mail them in, so the $50 rebate is really like discounting the product by (.45 * $50), or $22.50.
(3) Time value of money. The longer the company can sit on that extra $50, the better off they are. Cash flow is a big issue with companies, especially when the amount of money is large. Typically, the third-party companies that process these rebates are located in the middle of nowhere (slowing mail delivery), and purposedly process rebates very slowly. I mean, does it REALLY take 90 days to process a rebate? Nope, the company just wants to sit on your money as long as possible.
So, with all these benefits, rebates are all the rage, especially with things like electronics. Knowing this, I usually avoid buying a product on the basis of a promised reciept of a rebate. However, this doesn't help much once you've already bought the damn thing and the company won't honor the rebate. Get on the phone with the company that promised the rebate, don't accept a different phone number to call, don't allow somebody to call you back, become the biggest pain in their as$; they'll give you the rebate just to get rid of you.
The pomposity of the professor is inversely proportional to the difficulty and importance of the subject being taught.
Right on.
Another thing they do that really gets me, is that when (if at all) you actually do get the rebate check, it's disguised as the regular junkmail that usually goes straight into the trash.
I've almost tossed many a rebate in the trash this way (how many that I've missed that did go in the trash I don't know).
Nowadays I'm very reluctant to buy anything that has a mail-in rebate. If I don't get the discount at the register, I'll shop elsewhere.
I think that there ought to be a law stating that the store itself honors all rebates, instant, mail-in or otherwise, then pay some lackey minimum wage to stuff envelopes and then when the lackeys on the receiving end say they won't honor the rebate because of some technicality, the store can throw their corporate muscle at the manufacturer and sue the bejeezus out of them if they don't pay the store the rebates they mailed in for their customers. A couple rounds of this and rebates (and all their woes) will finally be a thing of the past. Then something even more crooked will take its place...
I believe it's actually just as previously mentioned, an attempt to make money off of those who are too lazy to fill out the forms. The sales tax bit is just a side effect. After all, why would a big corporation want less for themselves? The only possible case in which the gov't angle may work is automotive rebates, which are almost always cashed, so who knows?
I am one who thinks that such rebates should be made illegal, they are nothing more then false advertising, look at a Comp USA or Best Buy add, you'll see very expensive things marked down to practically nothing. When you pull out your microscope you see the hoops that you need to jump through to get it. I have no problem with instant rebates ... but those damn mail in rebates that lie to you on the price and then there is no guarantee that you are going to get it back.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I assume you're posting as AC because you're ignorant. In most jurisdictions, the sherrif will execute a judgement for a fee (e.g. $75). That's no fantasy, it's reality. Come back when you know something.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
I'd spend ten times the $35.00 to see the look on their face when the sherrif shows up at Intuit while I pick which desk lamp I want to satisfy the judgement :).
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
It wasn't the fact that they didn't carry them that upset me, it was the fact that they didn't know what they were.
On the other hand, BestBuy does carry sound cards, hard drives, and video cards, last time I checked, as well as ethernet cards and modems.
You don't like Best Buy because of the rebates? That's like saying you don't like a root canal because its hard to find parking at the dentist. I'm surprized that you even succeeded in buying stuff at the store, I find it rather difficult to do that.
Recent Phone Call
Me: Dial number, listen to automated voice, punch in extension for computer department, get placed on hold and listen to muzak, finally get phone picked up. Hello, do you carry heatsinks?
Him: (Sounds very confused) Heatsinks?
Me: Yes, a piece of metal, often aluminum, that sits on top of a cpu and is designed to dissipate heat. Usually it will have a small fan attached to it.
Him: (Sounding even more confused) I don't think we stock any computers that come with them, and I don't think we carry them seperately.
BestBuy makes me wonder... Sure, their stuff might be relatively cheap (at least in my area), but they don't carry quality parts and they don't have the technical expertise backing them up. Its lik walking into an auto parts store and asking about alternators, only to get a blank stare. *Sigh* These places do not deserve business.
no text
I'll have to go back then. I swore the place off after being directed to call an 800 number so they could senf me my rebate form. I figured it was just another obfuscation.
They exist in the UK - I remember a few years ago you could get a "free" PC where the entire cost would be rebated about 5 years after purchase or something - I bet virtually none of those customers get around to claiming - it was quite a tight time-frame to claim in as well...
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
I wouldn't be at all suprised if there weren't some tax benefits for the company either.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
The BBB (Better Business Bureau, for those not Stateside) is not a government agency. They have no real authority whatsoever. They are a voluntary alliance of businesses who agree to maintain standards of business practice. If you file a complaint with the BBB, they can call the offending company and try to guilt them into doing "the right thing" or otherwise resolve the issue. If the offending company is a BBB member, then their member status (and bragging rights about being a member) can be jeopardized if the situation isn't resolved according to BBB procedures. If the offending company is not a BBB member, they can completely ignore them with little more than a smidgen of bad publicity.
I assume that they keep records on previous offenders and make it difficult for them to join the BBB in order to clean up their reputation.
I would ask the same question. But I already know a better solution. If you are going to use a OS that requires you pay for software... Just ask your friend joe blo down the street to burn a copy of it for you. I don't think ive paid for ANY software all my life accept 4 Linux Quake3 for my Sager. When I got Solaris 8, I just had a copy of it burned. Even though where I work I have to send in a order for the latest version, updates etc.... it just asked the supervisor 4 a copy.
M$ stock dropped in 1/2 since last year. If you are a MCSE, you will be broke.
You're not alone...
I submitted the same $90 rebate (actually 2 rebates totalling $90) in October, and finally called the fulfillment company a month ago inquiring why I hadn't received the check. They gave some lame excuse about WD underestimating the response to the rebate. I suspect the actual thought at Western Digital was closer to "Oh shit... you mean the customers are actually SENDING IN the rebate forms? Crap!".
After two more followup telephone calls and a nasty email, I finally received the $60 portion of the rebate a few days ago -- over 16 weeks after they'd received my rebate request form. The remaining $30 portion still hasn't arrived.
Yet more reinforcement for my belief that rebates should be avoided unless you were already going to buy the item in question.
Not to mention they mailed them out over 8 months after they announced they were doing so.
Michael Jantzen ^_^
Ferenghi Rule of Acquisition #37: Once you have their money, never give it back.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
In Canada (home of FutureShop) this is illegal. They must provide you with information regarding: how the informtion will be used; why they are asking; and allow you to refuse. If they use information for purposes not disclosed at the time of gathering, they must destroy it or subsequently aquire your specific permision.
Then, a few days later, I get *another* $25 Gift Certificate in the mail. ?!?!? I don't remember buying TWO drives, and even if I did, a lot of this stuff maxxes out, "1 rebate per household, etc. etc.", anyway.
So I'm thinking, they sent me an extra one by mistake (sure couldn't be compensation for the utter lateness!!) ... either way, I won't be giving it back!!
Who knows, maybe there's another Rebate Check floating around with my name on it, too... :-)
Companies make more money the longer they can hold onto your money. It's a trend from olden times. It's how banks work. It's how credit cards work.
It's how paying bills works.
Does anybody pay their bills by the 'due date' unless there's a 'service fee' for being late?? Nobody who I know!
Don't ascribe it as a 'corporate' thing. We 'consumers' do it too, whenever possible.
If you make under $25,000 a year you shouldn't be fiddling around in websites trying to find a way to figure your taxes electronically for free.
You should be using your time to scan help wanted ads and update your resume.
Ah, so you're going to take the day off work, and then pay the sheriff $75 to collect $30?
All power to you! We need more nuts like you, so we can reduce taxes!
I have no problem with stupid people who don't read the fine print at the sales display paying more. It's kind of a stupid tax, and it lowers my overall cost of shopping at the store, since I read the price carefully.
Keep it up.
To make stuff cheap, the correct way is to reduce the production. The bad new is, you can't reduce the advertisement cost, except you can find cheaper replacement, e.g. rebates, paper vs costly televisions ads. Most country require insurance company and bank to deposit a 10%-20% of bank money to pay the customer claims. The bad news is, there is no consumer law in any country that require company to reserve the same amount of rebate money/items for every product they sale. Although rebates look simple to the customer, it actually took numerous business operation cycle. For company to handles large number rebates effectively, a rebates system must be implace, which is costly. Some "smart" company market people think they can outsource the rebates work to some company to reduce the cost and blame the company when customer complain. Acutally, it is common sense to learn that customer will blame the producer instead of 3rd party. Actually, rebates money doesn't improve company financial status much. Smart investor tends to avoid company that "cheat" sales by using rebates. Because it is too unpredictable, e.g. complain, court case, consumer association intervention can interrupt the whole business. Sundry product manufacturer learned their lesson long time ago. They have made their pretty simple. They either use "on-spot" rebates method, or convert it to gift. They can easily budget this cost into advestisement spending. For high cost items, supplier will rebates the dealers will X percent of money to help dealer bring down the street price.
The whole POINT of the rebate is that you DON'T get the money. If they had wanted you to get that money off, they would've had some kind of discout or sale. But between people who forget about rebates, forget to include ALL of the necessary stuff, and the people who are too lazy to send it in, they end up saving money by NOT having to pay your money back.
Is it right? Definately no, but when has that stopped them.
Good luck with that rebate man, I'm still waiting for my rebate for $10 from last years tax software from Intuit. Here's a tip...don't hold your breath.
Here is my take on the rebate scam you pay the full amount for the product. The company gets their cut of this money which is higher than if they just reduced the price. They take this extra money invest it for a couple of months then if anyone does in fact apply for a rebate(they usually don't) they can send that person their money from the intrest they've gathered and not cut into the principle of the extra money they got by not reducing the price of the item.
Well first of all, I apologize for not being able to empathize with your rebate woes as I have recently had an awesome rebate experience with the people from TiVo. I discovered two unopened TiVo units at my local Sears on sale for an incredible price of merely $100 each (the dumb management of the store didn't even know what the hell a TiVo was let alone how much it was worth). Not only were they extremely cheap, they both included forms for a $100 rebate so here I am thinking "Woohoo!!! Free TiVo!" I quickly snag the two machines, take them home call up TiVo customer service and make sure I am eligible for the rebate, which I am informed I was (and even if I weren't, TiVo for a hundred bucks, you can't beat that). I send out the forms and weeks later receive my checks. Not only that, the customer service rep tells me where on the net I can go to learn how to hack into my TiVo. I apologize once again but this time just in case my message sounds too "Pro-TiVo," but with customer service like that, how could you not praise the guys? And I just wanna know, has anyone else had similar experiences?
~Not Quite Jake
"Oh my God!!! The dead have risen and are voting republican!"
Rebates and such are the default mode of MBA's who can't think creatively, which is most of them. Marketing people like to think of themselves as "the creative ones." But in my experience, they're the least creative, most conservative of all, and least willing to try anything new. All they ever do is follow formulas. The bright, creative people are all in IT, finance, and law. More often than not, marketing directors are dimbulbs who came up through the sales ranks, rising to their level of incompetence via the old "Peter Principle." If they get degrees, it's only because their company offered an automatic promotion, not because they actually wanted to be able to think, learn, and do their jobs better.
I've gone back into engineering after 15 years in marketing (I have masters' degrees in both), because I'm sick of spending my days with used car salesmen. Marketing may pay better, but engineering is ultimately more rewarding.
I've sent in many rebates over the years. Never have I bought something *because* of the rebate; but when I'm offered a few dollars back on something I was purchasing anyways, I usually go for it.
Well, so far, I've only ever once received the money back. To be specific, it was Circuit City, a $30 rebate on the delivery of my $1000+ refrigerator.
All the others, around a dozen total, never came.
In a nutshell, I simply don't believe rebates.
I'll bet they'd be interested to know about false advertising practices like this.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I routinely take things to the airport post-office in my city. It's open 24-7.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Um, what the bloody hell is a rebate?
From what I've gathered on this forum, it seems like some kind of discount *after* you've bought an item, operated mostly in the USA (certainly I've never heard of such schemes in the UK).
I must admit, if I'm understanding correctly, they stike me as incredibly daft, and probably illegal under EU trading laws (confusion marketting, unfair pricing etc).
Can someone explain what they are and why they're a good idea? Or, if they're a bad idea, why you lot put up with them?
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
It's also about retail prices. The company can temporarily lower the perceived price of an item without the stigma of lowering the actual retail price. After the rebate has expired, the product still sustains the original higher retail price.
Once you drop the price on an item, raising it again becomes nearly impossible. Rebates are an effort to combat downward price-creep.
Other reasons:
1) more people end up with the product (everyone else has it!) which bumps up sales,
2) the "float" mentioned above,
3) rebates give an extra impetus to a buy decision because they are timed. There is a greater psychological pressure to buy something when the consumer believes he is getting something for nothing,
4) perceived reciprocity. "Here, I'm going to give you this, if only you do that. Since I'm going to be so generous, it's not asking too much for you to buy it, right?"
Simple marketing.
Regards,
-scott
Regards,
-scott
Radio Shack, however, since they destroy the market for other electronics parts houses in most small to medium size communities, could do a much better job of carrying computer stuff. I wish I could walk into one and buy commodity priced stuff like cases, cables, RAM, drives, fans, heat sinks, etc.
I hate having to default to paying Radio Shack for anything. They always have stuff (IC's, LED's, LCD's, Bud boxes, and such) a couple of years before or after I need it, but not when I need it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Firms figure that if you buy the SW because of the rebate then the business risk they take in not awarding it to you is worth it. Odds are you'll just fume for a while. You still bought it and you already know that even if software burns your house down you can't return it and have no recourse. So they just screw you.
I'm sorry, I thought you got the memo.
You're forgetting one more thing. With the rebates, they end up with nice demographics data for the people that have sent in the rebates. Not only is it demographics data, it's also a great list of names and addresses of people that buy stuff -- something that is sellable too.
>Where in the US is there a Post Office that is >open past 5:00pm, except for special dates (like >April 15th)?
Dallas, Texas has a post office that is
open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except
postal holidays. "Open" means fully staffed
at the counter. The part that sells collectibles
keeps banker's hours.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It's nothing more than Marketing 101, pals. It is well known that only 10 to 20% people bother with the rebates hassle, so it's a cheap way (for the vendors) to make a "discount"...
--
I simply avoid products (and retailers) that offer
mail-in rebates. From my experience, about half the time I either never receive the rebate, or get only a fraction of the rebated amount. I now view mail-in rebates as a scam and refuse to play the game. If enough folks stop going along with this, perhaps the vendors would offer discounts rather than rebates.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I dunno about anyone else, but I very rarely got any rebates I sent for...
There's an easy way of dealing with that tho, just don't buy anything expecting to get a rebate.
I usually can find items online with price + shipping equal to or less than department store's price - rebate.
Mail-away rebates just aren't worth the time and trouble, especially when the initial outlay is the same.
--K
I basically bought my cdrom at Comp USA I think. I got the rebate scanned it and still have a copy of the UPC code as well as the rebate form. I sent it in and they tell me they never got it. I went through this for months till I finally gave up. The cdrom was from Atlas Perpherials. It was a 32X cdrom. They claim they never got it and asked me to email them a bmp of the rebate and all. I did several times and they still stay the never got it. I gave up. Atlas perpherials is a sub of newcom I think or something like that. It has been a while and it was 30 dollars that I was owed.
I had problems with Iomega and the zip rebate a few years ago where it took forever to get teh rebate, and they were actually sewed by someone about this.
I also had to wait a while on my zoom modem rebate.
After all the problems I have had with rebates (especially with Atlas), I NEVER buy ANYTHING that has a rebate unless it is in the store and I get the money at the cash register. This is my own policy and I usually recommend to anyone to avoid rebates. They are usually more of a hastly then they are worth.
Sure many people have no problems, but I'd rather not spend the money and then have to mail in something to get it back.
This brings me to privacy policy as well. Why do they need to offer a rebate? Why not just discount it instead? I'll tell you why. They want your mailing address. By sending in a rebate they guarantee getting your return mailng address. Isn't this a violation of my privacy?
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
I'm assuming you're in the US, since you mentioned Best Buy.
Where in the US is there a Post Office that is open past 5:00pm, except for special dates (like April 15th)?
Keep dreaming. Do you know how hard it is to collect on a small claim's court judgement? They just ignore the summons, they ignore the judgement and then it's up to the winner to try to collect. You'll spend more than $35 trying to collect.
80% of all rebates are never redeemed. Now, common sense says that as the value of the rebate increases, so does the likelihood of redemption, but it doesn't increase as quickly as you might think. Throw in another roadblock (an incorrect rejection, etc.)and the number of actually redeemed rebates drops even further. It's not strictly a scam, but go in with your eyes open.
On a related note, while comparison shopping on yahoo, I found an outfit which sells stuff at way too high a price, but will rebate you the FULL PRICE of the item, minus shipping. We're not talking Sony Wegas, but lots of wal-mart sort of stuff. Haven't tried it, I'm just too timid. I guess their whole business model is "play the float"?
Not only that, they get that valuable info whether or not they choose to redeem your rebate as they should. This is one reason it ticks me off so bad to be burned on rebate deals, like I was recently after the manufacturer refused to honor a $75 rebate on a new PC - and this is a large and well-known company. I'm rapidly coming to believe that consumers almost never get rebates, since I'm maybe 3 for 25 over the past few years.
At the very least, rebates have been weakened to the point that they no longer affect my buying decision. It's more like buying the product and a lottery ticket than any sort of assurance of saving money...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
If they try this scam of "we really meant this", please refer them to the legal doctrine of contra proferentem, a canon of construction in contract law that counsels in favor of construing ambiguities in contract language against the drafter.
(this doctrine is refered to, in cases by several US courts from the first circuit to the eleventh.)
If you *really* want to confuse them, quote the phrase it dervives from, viz. verba chartarum fortuis accipiuntur contra proferentum, the words of a contract are construed more strictly against the person proclaiming them
IANAL, btw :)
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
This is the stuff of which class action suits are made. If the conduct you experienced was a simple error, then that really should be the end of it.
However, if there actually is a broad, systemic and planned breach of contract (and with it, FTC violations for false advertising and the like), this would be bad. There are a host of firms, mostly in Illinois (don't ask me why), but they are anywhere, that do exclusively class action commercial work such as this. They go after large companies and chains who have engaged in penny-sales tax kiting, failure to pay small rebates and the like, and they get settlements.
Its no so much that the real plaintiffs get "justice," ultimately they end up getting at most what little bits they would have gotten before -- its that the companies are penalized, sometime severely, and thus dramatically deterred from their bad acting.
If you discover that this wasn't accidental, or that it seems to be happening with an unnatural frequency to you and others -- there are people who will happily work the problem without cost to you.
Unless you are a college student who only makes less than $25,000 a year because research only pays minimum wage, and you can't take on a third job along with going to school full time...
Actual earnings are not a valid judge of a person's worth.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Anyway like I was saying, rebates have always felt kinda shady to me. I can't help but wonder if their is a rebate formula, like the one used for automobile recalls, that marketers use when deciding whether or not a rebate program will be profitable, and takes into account at maximum number or rebates that they can fulfill. Honestly if this is the case would anyone here put it past rebate fulfillment companies to start denying claims once a rebate target has been reached? Like with the question asker for this topic, deny at first and give the rebate only on the second attempt with words of apology thrown in for good measure. I'd like to see some data on rebate fulfillment results and compare ease of fulfillment at the beginning of program to the end of a rebate, to see if the number of denied rebates that were later filled increases towards the end of a program. I wonder if such info is available to customers, probably not I suspect.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
I bought Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewindale for my girlfriend for her birthday last October, I got it under the premise that I would get like $10-20 back (Iforget how much exactly) ... so I followed their damned instructions to the letter, mailed in the forms, and they sent me back a letter in the mail that said I had sent the wrong UPC code! (What the hell?) Of course, their instructions told me to send the *ORIGINAL* UPC code, so I could not do anything to prove that I had in fact sent the right UPC codes to them. Anyone else have this happen to them? I'm quite angry with Black Isle... argh.
I've actually had some very good experiences with the Best Buy extended warranty. Granted, I wouldn't have purchased it for something as mundane as RAM, but I did get the extended warranty on my cell phone which I got at BB. Of course, with something like a cell phone I had a reasonable expectation that I would sooner or later drop/break the thing and the warranty on cell phones there covers battery memory. Sure enough it happened, after I'd had the thing for about 5 months I dropped it and busted off the antenna. I took it back to the service counter at the store and they took care of things right away. The only questions they asked were "Is grey alright? We're out of blue ones." and "Would you like a new battery as long as we're doing this?". I couldn't have been more impressed. All told it took less than 20 minutes for him to program my new phone and change my ESN with my phone company.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Lately, I've had a few bad experiences as well. It seems they use patience as a litmus test to decide if you should really get your rebate.
For example, I picked up a intel hub at CompUSA because of their "half-price hubs" rebate. Just a little 4-porter, but the price break made it much cheaper than its competitors. I got back a postcard that said they couldn't fulfill my rebate because I didn't provide my street address - I receive mail at a post office box. Ridiculous. They're mailing me the rebate, not hand delivering it. Unless they really want profiling info and sending the rebate as a second priority.
This postcard had a URL, and an 800 number. I called the number, and got to a message that essentially said "If you mailed your rebate less than 8 weeks ago, it isn't in the system. If you mailed it over 8 weeks ago, please hold for 2 hours..."
The URL was little better. It only had a form, where you had to even supplwhich rebate this was for, fill out a text box, and someone would get in touch with you. I actually got 2 emails that said that my rebate was being processed, and I should receive it shortly.
Of course, I still haven't seen it since then, and that was about 2-3 weeks ago...
As a side note, I recently purchased a logitech mouse from Best Buy using a gift card of theirs that I got for christmas. A few weeks down the road, I get this letter from Best Buy saying something to the effect of, "sorry we screwed up, here's a free $10 gift card."
I was like, "eh?" I certainly don't remember having any problems buying that mouse. Still, it's a free $10. However, I am keen to point out that it still works out in their favor, since Best Buy is in the habit of selling electronics and appliances, not $10 items, so I still have to pay them some cash. Oh well. I was thinking of buying another one of them mice (optical wheel mouse, very nice) for my laptop as well.
Rebates suck. How come thy just can't lower the price?? Makes sense to me. That's why I like when Micro Center offers the instant rebates.
Gorkman
If you read the business press long enough to see an article/interview/how-to on rebates, it's stated plain as day that rebates are an attractive alternative to actual price cuts because only about 10% ever bother to file for the cash.
Whose fault is that, the customers who make a stupid buying decision based on the after-rebate price, but then don't bother to send it in? Or the business people who exploit that tendancy? If your answer is the latter, then there will be a lot more wrong with the world that you will know what to do with, as exploiting one human weakness or another is the basis of most of our society.
Recognize that while rebates are genuine offers, they are simply bait for the purchase of the product. It's sad, but most of humanity will be swayed by the second of these two offers:
"You can finance the amazing low $10,000 price of the amazing troll-in-ator at only 5% per annum! OR! If you would PREFER to have COLD HARD CASH, we'll give you $500 cash back on every purchase!!!! (10% OAC)"
Or rather, it is not the function or substance of the price reduction that is important to the american "consumer" it is the form, fashion, or style of the discount that matters most. Getting cash back from a big corp is the average american's wet dream, so rebates sell like hot cakes even if the average rebatee loses in the end.
for these companies to farm out the rebate programs to 3rd party vendors.
"...whether these rebates are only a scam by companies to get people to buy the products due to the advertised after-rebate prices, and then they figure that most people won't submit the rebate requests to begin with and for those that do, they will make it as difficult as possible to receive the promised rebate money." I've had the same experience - OFTEN! - and have fairly extensive experience dealing with this crap. The explanation for this finally came from a marketdroid at work when we were about to offer one of these ourselves. It IS a scam - just legal based on the fine-print of the law.
You can find my reply at: my ISP's customer web site, or (my home machine. (exactly as I was going to submit it)
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I frequently find that Best Buy (and I am sure there are other stores that do this) will advertise a price for an item, taking off the amount of the rebate. For example, if an item is priced at $50, and there's a $10 rebate, the advertised price is $40. The catch is that the $10 rebate is already expired at the time that the advertisement is printed. They will then make the excuse that the rebate is offered by the manufacturer, not by them, and so they are not responsible. But the rebate says on it very clearly what its valid dates are. Rebates appear to be a way to sucker someone into buying something that they would probably not buy at the higher price. When the rebate does not actually materialize, well, you already have the product, you've already started using it, and it was just $10 after all, so you might as well keep it. I expect that most consumers 1) forget to send in the rebate form, 2) if they do send it in, forget that they have done so, so when no rebate comes, they don't actually notice, or 3) realize that the rebate has not shown up, but figure it's just not worth their time and trouble to pursue any further. So, for the price of the ink to print "with a $20 rebate", they are able to jack up the price by $20, and almost nobody really minds. Perhaps if more people would run these rebates down and make them pay up, perhaps we'd get prices that actually reflect the value of items, and not what some marketing goon thinks that they can squeeze out of the half-awake buyer.
Apache guy, Open Source enthusiast, runner
If this is used in association with the "preffered shopper" card that most stores use - they also know the little-old ladies name, address, phone number and age too.
Oh no! God help you! They know what you buy, nooooooooooo!
It's like this. You give the grocery store the ability to track your information, which they primarily use to track the effectiveness of sales, and you get a discount. Basically, you're selling to them the ability to track your purchases. If you don't want to give your information, you don't get the benefits, tough luck.
The only other things they use that information for are check cashing and so they know where to send the store ads to.
You people are way too paranoid. The grocery stores AREN'T out to get you. Put that copy of the Weekly World News down and open your eyes.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Nothing to do with 'human nature,' omae. But I'm a big believer in the concept that humans are hunter-gatherers, and are two meals removed from reverting to that in every way. "Lord of the Flies" style, if you will. It always amused me to see how much description went into the weaponry of the navel vessel who returned the kids to Civilization; an interesting comment.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Exactly; everybody gets what they require, and in turn contributes whatever they're able; it's trade in it's purest form, as opposed to commerce. You're not making the exchange for personal gain or profit, you're making the exchange for the good of the community. But it's still trade, unless there's a class who collects everything, then redistributes it, in which case it's no longer Communisim. :-)
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Is there something wrong with the idea of the exchange of goods or services for different goods or services? You know, trade? One of the things that allowed the creation of civilization as we know it?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
If you want to go by that stringent of a defintion, Communisim can never exist as soon as you involve humans. If Oleg grows potatos, he's going to want soemthing from Dmitry in exchange for them, believe you me. Read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" for further cynicism. :-)
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Communisim simply weights the scale; instead of, say, one pig always costing two chickens, modified by a) how many pigs there are and b) how many chickens there are, as in Capatalisim/free market, Communisim either a) sets down absolute prices (as in the USSR) or modifies the scale to 'whatever you need in exchange for whatever you can give,' as in True Communisim. More or less, at least. But when you get right down to it, when Ogg's in his cave with some grubs, and Thok's in his cave with some pointy stones, one day Ogg's going to realized that instead of trying to take Thok's pointy stones, it's easier to give him some grubs and ask for a stone. And since all Thok knows how to do is make spears, not harvest grubs, it benefits him more to do the trade than to kill Ogg and try to take the few grubs he had on hand. Open Source is a perfect example of how this doesn't work in real life; take a look at the percentage of people who really do contribute back to something they download, instead of flaming the coder who quite clearly says 'it's not even alpha' when it doesn't run. Or the number of projects that do the same thing, because there's ego involved. Or the abandoned projects, because the average person wants all the benefits and none of the cost; that's why it's called 'free as in beer.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I don't buy from companies that offer rebate promotions, because it is pretty much a scam. The longer they have your money, the more money they make. There is no incentive to give your money back in a timely manner, if at all.
After all the fallout for the Iomega rebate stuff, which really was the start of popularizing the use of rebates, I steered clear.
The only way to not get burned is to not participate--meaning don't buy one that has a rebate. If you buy one that has a rebate and don't participate with their rebate program, you are just helping reinforce the perceived effectiveness of the program (the ratio of people that request the rebate to those that don't).
If you still want to buy from people that do rebates, then for christ sake, don't include the rebate in the price of the item. Just because a $50.00 item is $10.00 AFTER REBATE doesn't mean the item is $10.00. The item is actually $50.00, plus a chance that it could be less, only if you jump through a bunch of hoops and complain enough, then add the cost of money (interest, etc.). If you value your time and your cash flow, its not a good deal.
-k
Gee, do you think that might be the case? Well duh. Rebates have always been that kind of scam, and on every product, not just computer equipment. Most people don't bother to cut coupons, much less turn in their receipts for rebate money. They've always been based on the idea that people will jump at the apparently low price but never bother to ask for their money back. That's why some states have truth in advertizing laws that don't let businesses publish after rebate prices, or only publish them in smaller type than the tag price.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
The product is sold at $150 with a $50 rebate.
The rebate takes (in average) 4 weeks to be processed.
That means that all the profit is from investing that money during those 4 weeks.
Putting it in the bank would get you (just guessing) 8% * 4/52 = 0.59% - not a very good profit margin. So they had to invest the money somewhere else where the returns were bigger (but so were the risks) - the stock market.
Now the stock market is in a down-turn, which means thei're losing money (or getting that 0.59% profit)......
You are correct. Rebates are a simple way to A) have a low "advertising price" and B) get people to pay the full price. As you correctly stated, the redemption rate is very low. Only when you reach a $100 rebate, will you eventually see a 60-70% redemption rate. For amounts below that redemption varies from 10-25%. In other words, 75-90% of customers who thought they are getting a good deal, have indeed paid full price. And yes, I truly hate rebates too, which is why I rather to to pricewatch.com and buy the OEM model and don't wait for months to get the rebate. However, somtimes the deals are just too good (I got a 45GB WD HDD for $99 after 2 rebates). KD
They get confused. The management does not mind because they procably get paid by request handled, whether it's paid or not. The company 'giving' the rebate does not mind if it's more difficult because they pay out less money.
If it can be shown as an intentional pattern, you may see something from an attorney general's office.
Fight Spammers!
There's an old saying, "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence".
I don't really believe the majority of rebates are out to rip us off. I think the problem is more that most companies are not setup to handle rebates, and don't want to pay for outsourcing them. So, we basically get an inexperienced company, with $3.50/hour employees, who don't know what they're doing.
Some states are trying to pass laws that require all rebates to be "instant" rebates, which means they take the price out at the register. This makes it easier for the consumer, and makes the store have to deal with the company, which they are more typically setup for (since they already have the infrastructure in place for sales rep, bulk ordering, etc).
Having been "burned" in the past by DirectTV, I find the best thing you can do is not buy products that require a mail-in rebate. If that's not avoidable, be SURE to make a copy of what you sent, and date it. Stick it in a prominent place where you pay bills, whatever, so you can be reminded to look for the rebate. Make a note of the phone number for checking on the rebate (most have these), and how many weeks to expect the check in. And if it's late, don't hesitate to pester them. They're customer service is there to make *you* happy. And if *you* aren't happy, make waves.
If you see legislature in your area requiring instant rebates, vote for it. This the best deal for us, as consumers.
One final consideration. Some rebates JUST AREN'T WORTH IT. If you get a $5 rebate on a pack of CDRs, and you're a consultant charging $75 an hour, is it really worth the more than 4 minutes it's going to take you to deal with the rebate garbage? It may be just cheaper to eat the $5 than the time lost messing with bogus mail-in rebate plans.
-- jcwren
I'm not sure what your question is, though. It reminds me of the Ask Slashdot a few days ago where the guy basically asked, "My operating system doesn't have good internationalization or support for Microsoft data formats. I refuse to use any of the software that does do these things. What should I do?"
The Microsoft EULA is more complicated though. There is a genuine question as to who is responsible for those rebates. (I don't think they ever expected to give any.) Advertising a rebate and then ystematically ignoring responses is inexcusable.
What companies are counting on is that you will forget you even sent the rebate in. What I do is when I buy something with a rebate on it, I promptly follow all instructions and look at the promised date for fulfillment. I then flip through the rebate tracking calendar I keep on my desk and write down on the promised date what the rebate is for, any contact number for the fulfillment agency and the date I am sending it in.
As I recieve checks in the mail I flip through the calendar and mark out the entry on there. If I reach a date and the entry has not been marked out, I promptly call the company and complain about the rebate. When they give me another promised date I transfer the information from the date I am on to the new promised date and make a note that I have contacted them once.
I follow this procedure until I get a check or if I go through 3 contacts with no check, I usually send off a e-mail to the FTC complaining about the company.
While this process is time consuming, it makes sure you get your money.
Also, many stores now have the annoying habit of listing their prices with rebates included. If I get to the checkout and the rebate doesn't apply or looks like too much hassle, I don't buy the item and just leave it with the cashier.
They are clearly borrowing money from you (rebate) taking that money, loaning it out at 19% or higher interest rates during the period in which you should get your rebate. Theres no other reason why your mail would not reach them within 5-7 days, 1 day to process, and 1 day to cut the check. This is truly one way the companies are increasing their cash... Cyberrebates.com is all about that.. also they probably estimate a certain percentage of rebates will never get sent in, on time , or at all as well. so a rebate isn't always worth as much as is stated.
===sam=== free nessus vulnerability scan = www.vulnerabilities.org
. . . and sue in Small Claims Court. They'll spend more than $35.00 to fly a corporate drone to the trial, or, more likely, just pony up the damn money.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
I've had similar expereinces. My last was with a USR 56K modem, when not only was I rejected for the rebate, AND the free upgrade to V.90...
Ever since then I ignore rebates. I can't stand it when stores put the rebate IN the price of stuff, such as Best Buy, which listed a 19" monitor at a great price... But read the fine print, it's after REBATE.
Look at the actual sale price you are going to be charged AT the register. Buy the best item at the best price. If you end up getting a rebate, great, but don't count on it.
Companies offer rebates because they expect most people won't fill them out and send them in.. They probably now reject all forms because most of them won't bother to complain...
At this point, I view rebates as a scam. If you want to impress me, take the amount OFF the price!
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Just wait for someone to have the item on sale without the need for rebates. If the company could afford to sell you the product for the reduced rate and intended on making good on the offer with no hassles, they would have simply lowered the price. Rebates are a way to draw people to the store to buy other merchandise while they are there. The money lose in awarding rebates is recovered by making it as difficult as possible to get the actual rebate check for those people that actually remember to send in the proper paperwork. Companies haev no real motivation to ever mail out rebate checks, which accounts for why half the time you send them out, you don't recieve them. By the time the check is supposed to arrive 12 weeks later, most people haev forgotten about it. If someone should remember and is willing to take the time to make the phone calls or write letters to the company about it, they will surely honor your request to avoid bad press, but now you've devoted more time than you ever wanted to just to save a few dollars. My advice is to stay away from rebates altogether. They all have a catch, and it's not worth the aggrevation.
I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a case of bad luck or whether these rebates are only a scam by companies to get people to buy the products due to the advertised after-rebate prices, and then they figure that most people won't submit the rebate requests to begin with and for those that do, they will make it as difficult as possible to receive the promised rebate money
Welcome to the crooked world of standard, everyday business practices. Almost every industry has some way of ripping you off. Next time you go to a supermarket, take a look at just how many products have scaly schemes worked out to get around the consumers right to the "implied warranty", and to make it as unlikely as possible that people will actually return broken products (e.g. I bought a fan recently, and in the fine print somewhere is a clause that I have to keep the box if I want to return it - this of course is a load of junk, as I am entitled to the implied warranty unconditionally under law *as long as I don't make other arrangements with my dealer when I bought the product* - and I most certainly did not agree to that before I walked out with the fan - but they know that the vast majority of people are going to throw away the boxes, and the tiny minority who know what they're doing is wrong don't care enough about the price of a fan to actually hire lawyers about it - so they essentially get away with not having to honour any warranties at all! (or at least, far less than the rate of failure of the product))
The companies you mention pretend they made an honest mistake - "whoops" - so about 80 to 90% of the people on whom they made "honest mistakes" just decide "who cares", and they get away with it. Or the long distance companies that accidentally switch you. The line between businesses and con artists is not always so clear.
The qualifications were: type at 50 wpm, and be desperate enough to work for a pittance. Most of the lucky participants were single mothers. They loaned you a 286 PC to take home. You went to their warehouse "offices" and picked up a box of n thousand rebate forms/enclosures. You took these home and plunked down at the kitchen table. You typed the information for each into a template form (day-glo green on black) which periodically saved the database onto a floppy disk... which you returned when you went back for another "box".
If I recall, the take was something like $15/thousand rebates. Needless to say, at that rate, you didn't spend too much time on any one rebate. Anything that wasn't *instantly* right, or didn't fit into the boxes in the template, you reject in a nanosecond.
Fascinating look at the sleazy truth of the "fulfillment industry". All at sub-minimum wages, no benefits, no longevity, you paid for gas and any medical bills from all the typing. All designed and operated by shadowy sleaze-balls. A much under-studied phenomenon -- yet another wonder of the corporate society.
Because they know most people, like me, toss the rebate in the trash. Rebates are a marketing gimmick meant to be able to say "35$ off!" on the packaging or in a flier. They're not evidence that the companies price point is suddenly 35$ less.
Bingo. Last figures I saw said that less than 2% of people actually send in rebates. Therefore, the companies play the numbers and expect to do well out of it. So instead of it being a $35 rebate, it actually works out to be a $0.70 rebate overall -- just as long as people don't send them in.
Some stores are now doing checkout rebates, which will change the game again. And some companies just did rebate schemes to get some marketshare -- Broderbund/Mattel/The Learning Company are prime examples of this -- for a long time they were giving their products away (effectively -- they were reducing profits on them to zero), altering the way the market worked, and creating a massive inflation in the home productivity segment for 1999. Which popped heavily about half way through 2000.
Beware rebates. And remember; about half of the cost of anything you buy goes to the distributor. So figure that in too, and you'll start seeing where the money goes.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
This is what my (former) employer did. We advertised a $30 rebate for our product. When customers bought the product, they found out that the expiry date on the rebate had already past. This was intentional--we advertised a rebate even though we knew the coupons were expired. If the customer called to complain, we told them the rebate had been "extended".
With this system, only about 30% of people sent in the rebate, but we could advertise the product as "Available for the low, low price of $69* (* fine print: with mfg. rebate)"
Our sales and marketing VP was a subhuman piece of shit, which is why we did crap like this. I hope he personally gets sued for fraud over it...
Anyway, the moral of the story is that rebates are basically a fradulent way of deceiving customers. Never factor the rebate discount into your price comparisons, and try to avoid rebate-giving companies all together.
By adding nuisance effort to getting a discount (whether filling rebate forms or clipping coupons), retailers can effectively sell at a higher price to those put off by the nuisance and a lower (but still profitable) price to more who might otherwise pass up the product.
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
Isn't it obvious?
When you buy anything which comes with a rebate form, you're paying full price, **including sales tax** on the **full** price.
Herein lies the conspiracy: If the product was simply sold at a reduced price, the sales tax would be lower and hence the government would get less money!
But no, instead, the vile suits decide to tempt people with the thought of getting money back, rather than the more sensible reduced price, and hence guarantee that the government gets sales tax on the $35!
it's so obvious!
hehe
ìì!
Companies make more money the longer they can hold onto your money. It's a trend from olden times. It's how banks work. It's how credit cards work. By holding the money, you can make money, by loaning it out, or (which currently would require sk1llz) investing it in the market. Because they always have cash in transfer, they have money to loan or invest continuously. This is a GOLDMINE.
And it applies to the new economy as well. How do you think paypal makes their money? All the real cash is from reinvesting and using profitable money management for the millions (billions?) of dollars that they have at any given moment.
And that is the whole purpose of rebates. I can't recall where it was from, but a friend of mine told me about a company that would give you a full manufacturers rebate even if you bought the product straight from them. Basically you would get the product for free, by lending the company money for 4-6 weeks or whatnot. During this timeframe, they can make a killing off of collecting all the 10$ from all the people who bought it to amass a million or so, and then lend that out with interest.
Well that's my take on it.
/nutt
It has to work like this : Company X hires company Y for rebate R ... Company X cuts a check to company Y for C(r)*E(r) dollars where C(r) is the rebate ammount and E(r) is the expected return rate ...
In all likelyhood -- the companies split whats left of the pot ... this is VERY common in alot of industries -- HMO's let doctors keep half of their unused specalist budgets -- some movie studios split the remainder of their music budget with the music producer (known a couple music producers in my life).
If the rebate company had no stake in the rebate, its primary concern would be to execute the rebate efficently, not to save money.
Just a thought
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Sound like someone from the rebate businees has stolen the plot from the movie The Rainmaker
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
A big part of the thinking comes from the fact that if you make the rebate difficult enough, a large chunk of people will just forget about it. Then you figure in the number of people who either lose their receipts or can't collect the required forms (Best Buy is really good about not having your particluar rebate card in the store). If you add in your experiences then you can easily see that a $20 rebate costs the company a lot less than a $20 price cut.
I also had a friend who used to sell radar jammers out of the back of automobile magazines. He claimed that he had about 20% of his products returned (even though he offered a lifetime warranty) whether he shipped working units or whether he shipped empty boxes with a couple of working LEDs. It is just business strategy, people want convenience. You have to give them the appearance of saving money but make it take up a little of their time.
Happened to me a while back. I sent a complaint letter to the Consumer Fraud division of the Minnesota (where I live) Attorney General's office. I cc'd the rebate center, Intuit corparate Customer Support, and corporate Sam's Club Customer Support (I bought the software at Sam's). Within days I had received two rebate checks (I only cashed one). A few weeks later I received a call from the woman at Intuit who had created the rebate program. She apologized profusely about the mixup. She said she had received three faxes about my case from Sam's, and people in Intuit. A few days later I received a third rebate check too.
Here's what happened to me:
About a year ago, I had the opportunity to purchase from Best Buy (first big mistake) 16 MB SIMMs for $15 ($30 minus the $15 mail in rebate). After clearly asking the sales rep and clearly getting a response of being clearly showed on the rebate slip that there was no limit to how many I could buy with the rebate, I purchased four of them, figguring I'd get a $60 rebate.
After finding out that there were no more rebate slips in the store, I was told to call a phone number and one would be mailed out to me. I called the phone number, waited three weeks, and got nothing. Afraid that the offer was expired, I went back to Best Buy to find another rebate slip, only to discover that the offer was expired and no more were available. I gave my predicament to them, and basically got the, "We can't help you...you're screwed," shoulder shrug.
Finally, one more week passes and I get the mail-in rebate slip. After singing praises to myself, I found out that there was only one day left where I could mail in the rebate slip before the offer was invalid. After hurrying to try and find the original boxes and putting the envelope together and squeezing in time with everything else, I rushed to the Post Office at 11:55 PM and asked them to make sure it was postmarked for that night. I thought that was the end.
Another month and a half go by before I receive the rebate. Expecting a nice $60 deposit into my Bank Account, I discover that I got a lousy $15. Angry, I called up the company, only to receive what very much sounded like a secretary that was working out of a dead-end office in some corner-closet basement in the office building, telling me that, "Alright, I'll jot your complaint down here and will get back to you." After telling her that she had yet to even find out my name or my phone number, she gave a small sigh and grudgingly asked what my contact info was. Any hopes of seeing the other $45 dollars were shot to pieces at that point, but I waited an extra 60 days in grave hopes that I would get a call back or another check (before the original rebate check expired). After three and a half months passed from my original purchase of the RAM, I gave up.
All I see in mail-in rebates is an opportunity for a company to make a sale without having to fully explain their unwillingness to uphold their end of the bargain. I mean, it's kind of like holding a "parking-complex deal" where you and your dealer both stand in the shadows, one with the suitcase of money, the other with the goods. If you're dumb enough to pass the suitcase over to your partner without bothering to BE ABSOLUTELY SURE that he's not going to run with the money, you're going to lose the money.
They jip you, and unless you get some big-name consumer advocate to help you out, you're going to get the bum-rap.
Anyway, I found Cecil Adam's column, Why are rebate checks drawn on obscure banks in the middle of nowhere?, which is a really interesting read.
Paul
I experienced problems with a rebate program offered by Logitech that was called "Buy More...Save More" and was offered to consumers during the period of July 15,2000 to October 15,2000.The amount of rebate was based on how much product you purchased at one time.The form that you needed had to be downloaded off the net from Logitechs site and filled in accordingly with bar codes attached and copies of invoices,the normal requests.The form header clearly reads to the consumer as follows: "BuyMore...SaveMore!""$200 of product=$70.00 Rebate" Buy 2 or more Logitech products:Totaling $50.00 or more Get a $10.00 rebate by mail Totaling $100.00 or more Get a $25.00 rebate by mail Totaling $200.00 or more Get a $70.00 rebate by mail. I thought this was pretty simple so I bought $232.00 of Logitech product from Buy.com all on one invoice. I was looking for a $70.00 rebate check in the mail after submitting all the paperwork. Well here comes my check nine weeks later and it is for $25.00. I said, must be a mistake so I called 1-800-741-1365 (Rebate Express) a division of the express group,they are a rebate processing center.The woman I spoke to informed me that the reason that I was shorted on the rebate was that each item had to be sold over $50.00 each and since the four wireless track balls were only $44.94 each and the cordless I-Touch keyboard was only $46.87,that the only rebate due me was for the four trackballs with a combined value of $187.48 which gets the $100.00 or more status and a $25.00 rebate. I told her that that was not clear on the rebate form and we started the arguing process,but she was not going to see it my way. I write this because I am tired of seeing the mail in rebate programs sucking us all in. I also want Logitech to know that I have nine workstations with there wireless products at each one....but all we be replaced with new product and all Logitech donated to others that don't have any,and that will keep nine users from purchasing Logitech products. Very slippery Logitech,we are catching on to your under handed ways and the consumer will prevail. By the way...cordless trackballs aren't worth a flip. Logitech does not even supply an email address for customers to write email to.
The worst temp job I ever worked was for a company (Company "T") handling a rebate program for a major PC manufacturer (Company "M"). If software/hardware companies are still farming this work out, no wonder the rebate programs are so bad!
There were about 16 of us were in the cubicle farm doing data entry and taking calls from irate people wondering why their rebates were late. I estimated the temp churn at 25% per week. It's very likely that the person handling your rebate was on his/her first day.
This company was handling about 12 different rebate programs, using a slower-than-molasses database that could be crashed by pressing a single wrong key and required 4 hours to rebuild.
Since we were answering the phone as "Company M", we were not allowed to say "our computers are down" and thus had to B.S. our way through the call.
As most of our callers were salespeople, they smelt the B.S. instantly and jumped into either sarcasm ("yeah, the check's in the mail, right?") or hostility ("let me speak to the manager, NOW!") The "manager" job rotated among the team.
This hell was not entirely Company T's fault. Company T had to cut and mail the checks, but Company M hadn't sent us the money to pay the rebates! We were sitting on thousands of checks we couldn't send out because they wouldn't have cleared the bank.
I lasted three weeks.
The purpose of a rebate is to gather marketing information so the company can spam you and sell your data to other companies. You got mad because they didn't fulfill their end of the deal. But, you are probably one of the few. Most people would just forget about it and chalk it up as a loss. I hate rebates. I'd rather spend the extra $10 up front than sell my soul to the marketing department. So you saved a measly $10! Big fucking deal! Your personal info alone must be worth at least $50 to them! Here's a tip: if you *must* claim a rebate, purposely mispell your name and see how much junk mail you start getting addressed incorrectly. Rebates are a carrot on a stick - trying to get to do what they want you to. Those little-old ladies who clip coupons out of the Sunday paper are in the same category. They spend 4 hours clipping coupons, and save a total of $5 in the grocery store - but the company now knows what types of ad they respond to, and what newspaper they read. If this is used in association with the "preffered shopper" card that most stores use - they also know the little-old ladies name, address, phone number and age too.
Apparently, rebate fraud is a real problem in the industry. It's not the fact that you did or did not purchase quicken. It's the fact that you may be one of those people who are making a rebate by scamming software companies.
It used to work like this. Buy a piece of hardware which was offering a rebate, cut out the UPC code, and send the rebate in with upc code from box. Return product to store, complaining that it doesn't work. Get refund, and wait for rebate check. That was until Best Buy and others refused to take back returns if the UPC was not attached.
Basically people started to figure out how to make a few hundred bucks by just cutting and sending UPC symbols. And that's why you have to go through the rebate center who's job is to make sure every rebate request follows the explicit rules of that particular rebate. And yes, they will just reject you if you didn't do everything exactly as they ask, like not highlighting the purchase on the receipt.
And that's also why I don't like rebates, and stores that aggressively market rebates (like Best Buy) unless the instant rebates are given to you instantly, and at the register.
It just furthers the Law of Rebates, that's why.
Why do manufacturers decide to give rebates instead of sale prices? Simple: Because nearly the same number of people will buy the product (with full intentions of sending in the rebate), then promptly forget or decide it isn't worth the hassle when they get home. I believe I recently read that only 30% of people ever fill out rebate forms and actually send them in, but maybe I'm wrong.
I send in a LOT of rebates, mostly because I check out deal websites and buy stuff that way. I've been keeping an Excel spreadsheet of them for about a year now, and I'd say that around 25% of my rebates arrive quickly, 50% arrive after several months, and 25% never arrive.
So why would they send them back to you with a lame excuse? Because I'm sure about 50% of the people out there would just get fed up and decide it isn't worth the effort and the hassle of calling customer service and bitching them out. Sure, they'll complain to their friends about how they got screwed, but they'll give up or set the envelope aside for too long or let it get lost in the shuffle.
Case in point: Western Digital had a 45gig HD for $190 with two rebates totalling $90. I bought two (one for the PC, one to upgrade my TIVO) and send in all four rebates. It took them 3 months to send my rebate form back with some minor note about how I had a UPC problem. I had to call, sit on hold for 30 minutes, and confirm that my UPC was good. Then it took them nearly another 3 months to send my checks. I got them yesterday, actually.
Moral of story: Keep a chart, always photocopy before you send em in, and complain a lot if they never come. I don't know about you guys, but $90 + $90 is not cash I don't worry about getting back...
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Let me give you the lowdown