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Best Buy to Eliminate Rebates
plover writes "According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune 'In response to customer complaints, Best Buy, the world's largest electronics retailer, promised today to eliminate mail-in rebates within two years.' Can it be that we're finally nearing the end of one of the most hated marketing ploys of all?" Further commentary available at BusinessWeek.
Mail In rebates are a sham, in that it takes 8-12 weeks for the check to come in. I am not going to wait 3 months for a 2 dollar check.
It takes 1 minute to fill out the postcard and less than half a dollar to mail it off. I don't understand anyone who doesn't mail it off for their rebate.
Unless you're making $30.00 each minute ($1,800/hr), you're just wasting perfectly good money.
Does this mean that Best Buy won't be having rebates anymore?
I'm glad that I'll never have to put up with these tatics from BestBuy again (not that I ever did, I use pricewatch and Fry's for my hardware needs).
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I think not. They have to have thought up something better.
It's nothing to do with morals. Capitalism doesn't require morals. Best Buy probably spends more on customer complaints, lost customers, etc. to warrant this decision. They are self-interested, because they want to benefit the consumer.
(Only to the point where they have to do the least and get the most. They wouldn't give up profits for the consumer's benefit.)
I have yet to find any of the slashdot April fools jokes funny this year, last year, the year before that, etc... Come on and end the jokes!!
You're at the bottom, you'll be the last to find out.
Stores typically advertise prices after rebate, making you think you pay less. But for obtaining the rebate check, you have to go through a long process and give up some privacy on the way.
Here in Germany there are strong laws protecting consumers. Here we have no rebates that are comparable to those in the US. Sometimes there are coupons attached to the product (like: collect 5 of these, claim a freebie/prize). But never we are told the product costs less than at the register. Heck, even the sales tax (more correctly: VAT) has to be included on the prize advertised for the item.
--- Eat my sig.
If anyone was wondering why Slashdot would choose to link the Minneapolis daily paper for this story: Best Buy is based in Minnesota.
So many people either forget or don't bother with rebates that Best Buy would be crazy to abandon them. It's easy money in their pockets...
It's only easy money as long as people don't wise up to the scam. BBY and almost all other merchants have been riding the rebate scam hard enough to kill a mule for the last half decade at least. It is amazing that it still fools so many people.
All it takes is for a large enough minority (probably less than 20% of all their customers) to decide that any product offered with a rebate is automatically disqualified from consideration for purchase and all that extra margin the merchants have been making on the rebate scam goes away.
The immediate effect will be that any sharp merchant will cease (ab)using the rebate scam in order to try to recapature those customers who've decide they won't play the rebate game any more.
That may possibly be what's going on here now, but I have my doubts about BBY management being akamai enough to notice and react to a rebate backlash. I expect other merchants to act first before BBY gets it in gear. I just don't have any confidence in a company that is primarily known for building and populating big, square smurf caves.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I like rebates.
I really, really, *REALLY* like rebates.
What I dislike is feeling like I've been lied to, which is how the whole advertise the price after rebate thing makes me feel. Sure they explicitly say that the price is "after rebate", but that's *AFTER* the listed "price"... and it's just plain wrong, IMV. Rebates should simply not be factored into any primary listed price. If they want to, they can list the main price, then list the price after rebate immediately following. It will communicate the same information, in much more honest fashion, IMO.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So, could anyone explain this to the rest of the world?
Thank you in advance,
Mark
So, if BB eliminates mail-in rebates, will they permanently lower their prices? Will they increase the intelligence-insulting "instant rebates" to compensate? Yeah, right...
On a related but perhaps OT note, I've always wondered why car companies have to provide many thousands of dollars in rebates and "incentives" to sell their products. Anyone ever think that maybe the price points were too high to begin with? Just a thought...
That means "April's Really Big Fools Day", or "Fuck, Would Somebody Find The Spineless Fucking Retard Who Invented This Fucking Holiday And Beat His Fucking Brains In Day"
Too bad, you being the first post on this thread, you could have posted "last post" and it would have been on-topic and funny...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
No offense to you but I asked a member of your "Geek Squad" a test question: "How do I get started with Perl programming?" The response? Perl is a mixture of C++ and Java so you should buy C# and go to Sun's web site and download the Java SDK. Well, they were right about getting the Java SDK from Sun's web site; but how clueless do you have to be to mistake any programming langage for a "mixture of" two? I was pissed, when you don't know the answer to a question should you just throw buzz words at someone? No! You try to answer their question or admit that your clueless.
No offense to you, but asking a Best Buy employee (most likely a $8-an-hour community college student who likes gadgets) about relatively complex programming languages is akin to asking the guy who recommends wine at the grocery store how to start a vinyard.
If he was motivated enough to know Perl, don't you think he'd be anywhere but that hellish crap job?
If you're going to correct spelling, at least get it right. It's "their", not "there" or "they're"
If you don't dabble in Perl, then why is your name "The-Perl-CD-Bookshel?"
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
You didn't mention this explicitly, but retailers generate a lot of their profits during the Christmas season, and when you buy a gift for someone you're certainly not going to cut up the box to collect the UPC to send in for the rebate. So they get to keep that money too.
What a scam!
no shit you picked a good user name! play the retail game - politely ask form some pen and paper, and when they give it to you, ask to see the manager so you can get his or her boss's name and number + corperate. at which point they'll bend over backwards and give you the cash you should have recieved.
on the other hand i have zero sympathy for you risking your credit rating over a stupid hard drive - you should never make impulse buys over $50, especially if you have to budget your money as closely as you apparently do.
moox. for a new generation.
Ah... so that is part of the ploy?
It is not so common here. Recently I bought a cable box and I would get half of my money back. I sent in the forms, and indeed: they were lost.
I did not know that would be standard procedure...
It must be inconvenient for the company as well. They have to keep records of which forms are received for the first time so they will be discarded, then advise those complaining customers that they need to send them a second time, this time handle them correctly, and make sure they do not get the rebate again by sending one or two extra forms...
And even then, the first-time failure of the handling of course stamps a negative image on the company.
They must have had a difficult time deciding if this is all worth it...
Three words for you boss, computer fair and Internet. I used to shop at Fry's all the time, and grew to hate it just like you. Now if I need anything I'll hit the local computer fair, there is one at the Orange County fairgrounds here in SoCal every other week it seems, and there is a huge one in Pamona every few weeks. Check your local papers, there has to be one in the Seattle area.
Just a bunch of vendors trying to undercut the other guy, if you know how to wheel and deal a little bit you can beat the crap mainstream stores like Fry's and BestBuy any day of the week, even if you were to get your rebate money.
As for the Internet if you can hold your horses for even a day you can find killer deals on the internet, a lot of places have free shipping. Plus if you order from the right places you dont have to pay geschtap^H^H^H^H^Hsales tax.
Phuck Fry's, BestBuy, CompUSA et al. The one last thing I would recommend is your local corner computer shop, those guys are just geeks trying to make a buck, they may not have everything but they'll have most of what you need, plus they can order stuff. Plus he's the guy at the computer fair selling stuff as well, so give him some love, you just might make a friend who can hook you up later on.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Yeah right.
Problem with Best Buy (especially in that situation) is that shit rolls downhill. It always comes from the top, the people who deal with customers the least.
No matter, they broke the law in not giving what was advertised so his budget practices don't even enter into the logic game you try to play. You can't blame a customer for not getting what they were promised.
Or can you? That is the movement that companies are making now a days...
Get your Unix fortune now!
I don't know, I would consider advertising the after-rebate price in 150pt font, and the note advising you that's only after a mail-in rebate 1/75th that size. You say, "Wow! A hard-drive for $29.99! Deal!" Take it to the counter and suddenly it's $75. "Oh, sorry, didn't you see? That price is only after a mail-in rebate. Would you like to purchase the product anyway?"
Not everyone has the time, interest, or desire to RTFM. Nor should anyone be expected to when dealing with how and when to spend their precious dollar bills. Really, those kind of rebates should be between the manufacturer and the seller. I think the mark-up should include that kind of convenience.
In the end I guess I agree that it's not my most hated marketing ploy, since, to me, all marketing tactics are equally worthy of my animosity.
Many stores don't do cash refunds because they don't want to keep large amounts of cash on hand just in case somebody needs a refund. Cash is too tempting for robbery or sticky fingers.
You can pay for large items in cash, sure, but if it's over a certain amount (varies by store policy) most or all of your money goes straight into the store safe rather than the register cash drawer. They probably couldn't refund a large cash purchase even if you hadn't yet left the store.
Sig for hire.
I hope it was.
Think of the logic behind this:
I'm Joe Sixpack.
I save up my money to buy a television.
I get there and get the last one in stock because I had to save up my dollar bills.
I get it home, it doesn't work.
I take it back to the store to get a refund.
They tell me that even though I gave them cash, the most liquid form of payment, that I will get a check in the mail.
8 weeks, or 2 months, later I get a check.
The check isn't liquid.
Banks charge $5.00 just to cash it even if it's drawn at that bank.
Liquor stores want 2 to 6% of the check just to cash it.
I'm serious when I say not everyone has a checking account. I can't for various credit reasons, my father couldn't because of a nasty divorce which left him in bankrupcy, with fees it may not be affordable, I may not have enough money to use the checking account.
Remember, there are people out there scraping by. No matter, why should I take a check from you when I gave you cash?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Sadly, this is no April Fool's post, whether it was intended as such or not. I have yet to see the rebate check for the very laptop I'm typing this post on, and I mailed the claim in the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Nor do I expect to see it, nor am I going to even bother bitching to Best Buy about it. As they say, "don't throw good money after bad."
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
If this isn't an April 1st joke, the 2 year time frame is still a bit of a ways off. I would bet dollars to donuts you'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE below the rank of executive or some high level managers, those directly responsible for getting this off the ground, that know more than the average /. reader right now.
No sig for you!!
but I ignore rebates altogether when I'm shopping for electronics and such. I don't even allow them to be a factor in my buying decision. The amount I'm paying for an item will always be, in my mind, the amount they charge me at the register, regardless of whatever rebate it promises me.
If BestBuy has something for $100 with a $50 MIR, but the guys down the street are selling the same thing for $75, I'm buying it from the guys down the street. I've never found MIRs to be reliable and I have and always will be willing to pay a bit more than the "after-rebate-price" to avoid them. Now, if I do buy something that has a rebate, I'll go ahead and send it in, provided it's a worthwhile amount ($20 or more) and I'm not too concerned about destroying the packaging of the item by cutting the UPC off the box. In this case, I just consider MIR a sort of bonus win (like a lucky lottery ticket) and not part of the amount I'm saving from the store.
Am I just being a stubborn consumer or do others have a similar attitude?
Of course you do have the option of having them do a functionality test, it's a bit of a hastle given that they charge a while $0.00 and that it takes a whole 5-10 minutes to verify that the machine boots correctly (assuming you have to go through a setup process).
After their sales staff insulted her in the store (only for wanting what was due), she decided to get the refund and buy a machine elsewhere.
That truely does suck, but I would have to ask this, what kind of insult was it? Don't get me wrong, I had a computer salesman imply that I had some damaged my video card purchased 2 days prior which had a TV encoder IC chip actually blow out, (I could see the silicon inside sitting at an angle) and he had the audacity to say "well if you don't know what you are doing" to certified computer technician with years of experience. So I understand that people do say insulting things, but also having held a job way back in retail I can tell you that people are rather fscking nuts, I've been called a fscking idiot because I could not move a customer from a terminal that needed to be restarted (and was about 2 minutes away from being usable again) to a terminal already in use by an existing customer in a department which was not my responsiblity. The issue was that the gentleman in question had gotten this view that right after Christmas with the returns line being 2 hours long that he was somehow more important that the people who had waited just as long as he had. And that my refusal to immediatetly bow down to his demands while he was insulting me was completely unbelievable.
The point is, those clerks may have been majorly stupid and disrespectful, or it maybe that the situation turned a poor choice of words into an insult for your mother which really wasn't meant to be taken that way.
Still, if I pay cash - why should I wait for a check in the mail? Cashing a check isn't cheap for people who don't have checking accounts, not everyone does have one too. Hell, they discourage the use of checks as it is.
Because, as with most major retailers, the company limits access to money to prevent potential theft from employees and other unknown people. Odds are that that money you handed to the cashier was taken from the front register and placed in a safe to ensure that the company wasn't risking loosing 500+ dollars (and not just the cost of your machine). People have a habit of attempting to rip off major retailers all the time, they return false products sans important components or they return just the empty boxes and stupid clerks don't bother to check the box. So as a safety measure, ask yourself this, if you ran a store generating a $10,000 a day and had to just choose some guy you may not know personally to handle that amount of cash, wouldn't you feel concerned about the possiblity that that guy could accidently send a few extra hundred dollars some guy returning something, now, multiply that by they 600+ store Best Buy has. Isn't it a safer bet to have some bean counter hit a few keys, print a check and mail it off?
Yes, it sounds like you went through a hastle, which did suck, but the store would have had a policy that would have given you options since there is no way in hell a sale associate at any, ANY retail store would let you walk out of the store with an obviously non functioning machine you had just spend 500+ dollars for, your mother could have had a technician test the machine, and while it maybe possible that she wasn't asked if she would like a functionality test, I have yet to purchase a machine from (Best Buy or any other retailer) and not have those sale drones try and sell me on the fact that a functiona
I have yet to see the rebate check for the very laptop I'm typing this post on, and I mailed the claim in the Monday after Thanksgiving.
So, why don't you call the number on the rebate form? You know, the one that you kept a copy of, along with copies of the UPC and receipt?
I've done several thousand dollars of rebates over the last three years and I have never not received them in the end. On a few, I did need to call in when the turnaround date passed without a check. That's why it is really important to keep copies of everything you send in as well as the appropriate due dates for each.
- Tony
If stores were required to post the out of pocket price in bold this would all come to a stop....VERY quickly.
Now, why would someone go through all this for the $10 rebate on a stack of $25 CD-Rs?
Maybe he's the type of guy that doesn't like companies that *rely* on the "hassle factor" to screw people out of small sums of money (which --> big profit).
Maybe it's principle. Maybe he just doesn't like losing. But if more than a miniscule proportion of people did that, it would soon not be worth the retailer's time to pull the scam.
So, it makes sense from a larger scale point of view. Whatever his conscious motivation, this *is* ultimately logical.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The money quote: In fact, more than 80 percent of consumers surveyed by NPD Group of New York last fall said they sent in their rebate forms.
Just having consumers hate the rebates isn't enough. Rebates only work for sellers and manufcaturers if a substantial number of people fail to send them in. That is, they bought the product, probably having been persuaded by the rebate, then never sent in the rebate materials. I recall several articles in the past (no links, sorry) that explains how if the number of rebate submissions approaches 100% of purchases, then it's cheaper for manufacturers and sellers to cut the price. The rebate overhead, of course, is what really makes this happen.
So, an 80% submission rate is probably close enough to 100% that sellers/manufacturers aren't seeing the kind of return they're used to. Who cares whether the buyers like rebates? What matters is whether they file for and receive the rebates. Now that the FTC is cracking down on that second part (i.e., companies not paying off on the advertised rebates), where's the upside for the companies?
I just wish they would not lie to you. I was told by a manager that they cannot accept opened software back because it is illegal to do so due to copyright laws..... talk about lame.
I buy a disney game for my son and it was scratched... it would not even play in the computer at best buy. it was the only one that was on the shelf and I was told this lie when I asked for a refund.... I asked how then do I get compensation for my defective product and the manager tells me to call disney... when I asked for the disney customer service number for me to call she said they did not have one..... in fact, there was no customer service number to call..... I was pissed at the time of this conversation, and I told her I would never shop at a best buy again... and I have not.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Well if Best Buy is going to eliminate rebates within two years, I guess I can wait two years before shopping there again.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Obviously, to do this, corners are cut. You are not going to get the same service as a place where they are not having to play games to bring you a low price. They are not going to expend resources to ship extra product across the state and in the process lose money.
And it is not about buidling relationships. There is none. A person shops at best buy for the lowest price. If the price is lower somewhere else, they will go there. If Best Buy has the lowest price, the person will go to Best Buy regardless of past experience.
The only thing slimy is the six to eight week wait time. This seems unreasonable, as most places I go refund large sums in 14 days. However, you get what you pay for. If dealing is honorable people is a benefit, pay for it. There is little at Best Buy that is a neccisity.
If I may add a computer tidbit. I remember about 10 years ago buying an Apple Laptop. There was some minor issue with it, and i wanted to exchange it. It had been at least a week, and the store said I could not return it but had to send it back to the manufacturer myself. This was reasonable, as at that time computer manufacturers were increasingly refusing to exchange computers that had functioned for a week. However, Apple still had the policy of allowing up to 30 days. Of course now almost everyone is 14 days, though apple will still allow 30 days under soem conditions. Fortunately I was able to ruturn the machine, get a new one, and not suffer the productivity loss of having to wiat a month for a repair.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Why would a computer repair tech know anything about programming languages? The people at Geek Squad are techs. They replace parts, run virus/spyware scans and reinsall an occasional OS. Which part of this job requires knowledge of Perl? Why would you assume a PC tech would?
In the past three years, I've submitted something like 125 rebates. I'll admit that my record-keeping hasn't been flawless, but I bet I'm getting about an 85% hit rate, and for substantial rebates (> $25), I'm getting a 100% rate of return.
So, I for one will miss rebates. If you're diligent about them (I print out the form as soon as I purchase online, and I fill out the forms as soon after purchasing as I can) you can get some incredible bargains, plain and simple.
I see them as a subsidy for the non-lazy, borne on the backs of the lazy. It's a tax on other people, I acknowledge, but a tax that redounded to my benefit. Oh well...I guess I'll just have to slow down my electronics purchases. I'm sure the wife won't mind.
You and me both. I've only had to fight on one rebate, with Staples. I got a card in the mail that said sometime to the effect of "Your purchase on 3/1/2001 does not fall within the rebate offer for purchased made within 3/1/2001 and 3/31/2001". After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I called the number, they said there was nothing they could do.
I called the local Staples store and asked the mangager to resolve it. He refused until I asked what he would rather do, solve this problem with me, with the consumer reporter on the local news, or the North Carolina Attorney General's office. I got a call back from Staples corporate HQ the next day and my rebate check via fed a couple days after that.
Rebates are bad when they are simply sales that should be offered in store. When they are deep discounts, I like them because I'm organized enough to actually send them in and keep track of what I've received and what I havent.
Let's hope they do better than Blockbuster did with that "No more late fees" crap.
There are two hidden costs to mail-in rebates:
1. Extra sales tax
2. Lost interest on the rebate
#1 Sales tax gets charged on the pre-rebated price. It's probably not a big deal in the states where sales taxes are usually lower. Where I live (Ontario if you must) sales tax is %15. From your example this gets charged on the $99. $7.50 more than if it were charged on the $49.99.
#2 While you wait for your $50 back any interest you could earn on it is lost. Those rebates can take months to come back. %3 cumulative interest on $50 over 4 months (which you can easily earn with a decent savings account) comes to $0.50
So the cost of the drive from Best Buy comes to $99.99 * 1.15 - 50 + 0.50 = $65.49
Plus a stamp/envelope/photocopy and the risk of being slimed.
The extra cost of buying online is shipping charges.
From my last experience buying a hard disk the same model was at Best Buy and some tiny pc shop nearby. I don't have the exact numbers but the tiny shop had a slightly higher price but no mail-in rebate.
Currently the Canadian Best Buy flyer has a 120GB Maxtor for:
$169.99
- $24 instant rebate (applied post tax, can't confirm)
- $26 Mail-in Rebate
---------------
$119 ($145.49 after tax)
---------------
The neighborhood hole-in-the-wall shop (Laurier Computer, Ottawa):
---------------
$109 ($125.35 after tax)
---------------
Same specs on both: 120GB 7200RPM ATA-133 8MB by Maxtor. So it's probably the same model.
ummm - that assumes you have a regular job and something to "direct deposit" with.
Then you have been lucky. I purchased a Tivo from Best Buy, that came with a $100 rebate. I sent in the rebate the next day, everything was in order. I even typed up my name and address so that they couldn't claim it was illegible.
They claimed that it was lost in the mail. I've *never* had mail lost except sending it to rebate places. I think it was probably "lost" after they received it. I went to Best Buy, where they reprinted the receipt for me, but they wouldn't give me the rebate form again. I called the rebate company, and they told me to get the form off of their website. I went there, and it didn't exist. They didn't have a single Tivo Rebate form. So I'm out $100.
Lessons learned:
Send your rebate via registered mail. And if that doesn't work, you're screwed.
I hope they implement instant rebates. Now that would be nice, and I'd probably go to Best Buy more often.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
Unlike their English counterparts, who have the benefit of a very good Advertising Standards Authority, and their local authority's Trading Standards office, American consumers are left high-and-dry because 'the market' has to be allowed to operate without government interference. The fact that millions of customers get screwed is totally lost on them.
If KFC advertises a mini chicken sandwich, for example, and it looks much bigger on the poster than it is in real life, the ASA will ban the misleading ad in England. As the whole mail-in rebate scam shows, American consumers get NO protections whatsoever. Welcome to the land of free enterprise.
For everyone dissing you, i'd like to thank you, or at least your organization. Yeah geek squad is kinda silly, but they've helped me out. I was building a system this summer and we had a storm that knocked it out (lightning strike to the pole, hit the cable, passed through the cable modem, but fried the occupied ports on my router and my system). Im not much of a builder so i didn't have enough spare parts around to swap stuff in and out. I was able to take my system there and get it checked out no charge. They were able to narrow it down to a bad motherboard fairly quickly. Also were quite complimentary towards my build skill (wire management, parts choice etc). I suppose something like that would be a welcome change for them from probably spending 90% of their time cleaning spyware off hosed machines, but it was a good customer experience.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Given the abuse that consumers suffer with these rebates (some of which I can attest to personally), I'm surprised the Attorneys General from the various states haven't targeted the companies offering them. At a minimum, I'd expect them to go after unclaimed rebates using the government's power of escheat. There must be a ton of money left that goes unclaimed, and states are hungry for revenue all the time. Or, they could levy fines against companies who falsely claim all the rules weren't followed (I've had 3 of those myself, and I have absolute proof that I fulfilled every niggling requirement. They still denied them, claiming there was no UPC in my submission. Lying bastards. I have a photocopy of what I turned in, and the original UPC is right there taped to their stinking form.)