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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."
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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