Slashdot Mirror
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.
...with the April Fool's posts!
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?
Honestly, as it's still April Fool's on the West Coast of the US, I'm having a hard time buying the story.
If it is indeed true and not a part of the crapflood that is 1 April, then damn, what will I do with the extra postage?
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
The Associated Press doesn't pull April Fools jokes, methinks.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
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.
Only my extreme tenaciousness allowed me to get my rebate for a router. I had a photocopy of the reciept they lost TWICE, claiming I never sent it in. On the third time they tried to pull the old "no facsimilies" routine, but I kept at them and they relented and gave up the 30 bucks.
A richer man would have just given up. That is part of thier plan.
Joking about the end to rebates is about as evil as making them in the first place.
That's just mean!
Note to self: Call 666 on my phone and ask hell to reserve a spot for this son of a bitch right next to the lot reserved for Best Buy.
Thank goodness I got mine today!
I work for the geek squad at Best Buy #601. Rebates are what we get most of our complaints about, except for service plans. Thats a different story. We would have definately heard about this. We just had our monthly "pep" talk (at 8am sunday morning) and nothing of this was mentioned. If i can confirm this, i will submit a slashdot story.
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... not that I'm defending them or anything. Just looking at it from their point of view.
Probably yet another April Fool's joke, but it would be a good idea for them to cut the crap with the rebates and just give lower prices in the store. I don't know what the data looks like, but obviously enough people forget to send in the rebates to make it worthwhile for them to offer them. I've done it, and I'm generally pretty diligent about everything.
Enough already--with the rebates and the fake stories.
The purpose of yesterday's shitty posts was to make today's posts seem great.
Lighten up for Christs sake. Quit complaining. It was all for April Fools. So what if the articles werent extremely clever or entertaining. They were silly and off-base. Thats what April Fools Day is.
You'd think on April 1st the Sun would report something serious for a change.
At least I wasn't fooled this time around. Unlike the article about the Meat Tree.
that is about how much they actually pay out in rebates yearly....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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!!
They make money because only half of rebates are redeemed. This means that they can advertise the price lower than without a rebate by counting on some people not getting their money back. The people that benefit are the ones who do send in their rebate because they're getting a better deal at the expense of the lazy people who can't cut out the UPC code.
If blockbuster can be made to refund people for something just because _they_ had the details in finer print (and it wasn't even that obscured, IMO), I don't see why Best Buy can't be made to stop this effective bullshitting they are doing by advertising the price after rebate as if it were the sticker price.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Ya have to have rebates first, before you can eliminate them. (Right now, by the time you actually get the rebate, you forgot that you sent the thing in.)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
When did they start giving out postcards. Back in the day (when I was dumb enough to shop at Best Buy) I got these mile long receipts that you could wipe your ass with for a month.
I tell myself, "self, fill out the rebate info and do all the work BEFORE you open the box of your new little gadget"...and I do. Works every time. Forces me to do the work before I get my reward.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
they knew there would be a high enough percentage of people not bothered to mail in the rebate, so the advertising was far more profitable
Good riddance, I say. Mail in rebates were just a way for them to mislead in advertisements
Business Voyeur
Customers dislike rebates. Really, really, REALLY dislike rebates. Why continue a practice that is a major complaint of your customers?
Any person with a brain can see this only benefits the company not the customer.
/.ers that when I start my own business that my store will not have rebates or .99 cent bull shit on prices. In fact every thing over $1 will be rounded off to the nearest $1.
I'm here now swearing an oath to all
But I like Mail-in Rebates. I've saved so much money over the years from them. Of course, I only really bother with > $20 rebates. I can't say I've ever had any problems with rebates...
recently I started shopping at Fry's in Renton WA. I live north of seattle so it is a bit of a drive. Often one of my buddies will go with me which usually results in a bunch of stupid purchases we weren't planning on, but makes for a fun (although expensive) afternoon.
We wander around the huge store eventually losing track of each other. We are now only slightly embarrassed by having to call each others cell phones to find each other (although this took some getting used to). They have some really good deals especially considering the rebates. I started wondering if something was up a few months ago however when I bought an item, and a few days later when I went to mail the rebate in I noticed some fine print that said I should have mailed it sooner and it was no longer good.
now I have grown to hate fry's. yes I still shop there, but I am so frustrated when I have to wait 5 minutes while the cashier has to collect the stack of rebate forms for all the items I bought. Often these rebates are not even marked on a sign in the store so I am usually unaware they are even available.
I did all my christmas shopping there and was horrified at the stack of paperwork it generated. A seperate set of photo copies, forms to fill out, file folders to label and store in a "safe place" and stamped/addressed envelopes to buy, lick and stick. Some of the rebates were impossible to collect as I realized that I had given the UPC codes on some items away with the gift. The giftee's had usually thrown them away (of course) by the time I figured out which reciept went with which gift.
After cooling off for a couple months I found myself at fry's making a purchase again. Again there was a nice rebate available. This time I was absolutely determined to get my money. As I read the fine print I found another disturbing detail. On this particular rebate (and probably most) sending the required stuff to get the rebate meant that you could no longer make a warranty claim. The warranty of the item required the original UPC, and so did the rebate. So you were given the choice of $x back -OR- the warranty for the product.
what a world. my fingers are tired of typing. if you skipped the rest of my message I will sum it up for you: rebates suck, frys sucks, best buy sucks, and so do you, and everything else around us.
goodnight
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
I'd give you mod points if I could.
The percentage of people who actually send in their rebates is somewhere between 8 and 11%
sig goes here!
the "fine print" isnt really that fine. the pre-rebate cost is printed in the same size font as the post-rebate cost on BBY tags. the rebate amount is usually smaller, but thats really neither here nor there.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
The Federal Trade Commission recently ruled that retailers are liable when rebates aren't paid by the manufacturer. So, now that they can't pass the buck on rebates, retailers want out of them.
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.
who those "little people" where putting rebate coupons in the mail on my street.
And I thought the circus was in town.
If anyone was wondering why Slashdot would choose to link the Minneapolis daily paper for this story: Best Buy is based in Minnesota.
So they plan to kill off rebates... and the catch is to do it within two years. That sounds like a rebate in itself! We'll believe when we see the checks in the mail. :P
~ Old Warriors Society
I work for Staples. The Staples online EasyRebate system has all but eliminated mail-in rebates. Rebates can be submitted at https://www.stapleseasyrebates.com/
Customers seem to love this option.
~DF
1. Retailers are liable for rebates.
2. More people send in rebates than commonly thought.
3. People hate them.
So this being the case, the two biggest reasons for Best Buy to offer the rebates aren't very huge.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Bought a hard drive that was $100 off after rebates (160GB a few years back). The manufacturer rebate was for $60, the comp usa rebate was for $40. Thats all well and good except they both required the original UPC. It was advertised as $100 off, not $60 off. It was advertized as $100 or something and i ended up paying $140, thats false advertising, plain and simple.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I know an (unethical) IT guy who had a nice suplimental income by buying stuff for his company and sending himself the rebate checks. I think a lot of the rebate driven sales are from scum like that.
I don't know if you meant the April Fool's jokes or the rebates, but I agree!!!
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
This is not April Fools. Check out Google News
If you RTFAs, they are going to give you Reward Zone points instead, which means store lock-in. I've been staying away from Best Buy completely, except for their loss leaders, so that's not a better solution as far as I'm concerned. Frankly I'd rather take my chances with the rebate since I've got the whole process down (keep copies of everything and report to BBB if nothing ever comes). Haven't missed one for years with that.
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...
A couple of examples:
In 2003, my rented house got sold from under me, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to travel for a while. Towards that end, I bought a Toshiba laptop and a Sony-Ericsson cell phone (T-Mobile). Both were pretty cheap, even cheaper with the rebates.
The fine print on the laptop rebate stated that the check could not be mailed to a post office box. Seeing as that would be my address for a few months, I put down a friend's address. Three months later, the rebate still hadn't arrived. Five letters and seven phone calls later, I got my $100 rebate. Toshiba hadn't sent it because the address I'd used to register my warranty had been different from the rebate address and they thought I was a rebate scammer.
The cell phone rebate was another story: it wasn't until I filled out the paperwork that I found out that the rebate was incompatible with the monthly plan I had applied for. In the long run, I was better off with the cheaper plan than with the cash rebate, but I didn't find this out until I had purchased the phone and activated the account.
Yes, it was CrapUSA...err, CompUSA in both cases.
For the record, I've had no problems with Staples and Breast Buy rebates.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Best Buy has been talking about doing this for the past few months now in their conference calls. Besides, look at the date, its April 2nd
I was so excited about the headline I posted before reading the article and finding out it was a joke.
I'm still pissed from disappointment.
Last year Best Buy also came to the conclusion that their Reward Zone members actually liked getting less "rewards" and cut the reward program back so it now takes twice as many points to get rewards as it did before.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
...it seems to me they stopped honoring rebates a long time ago. I bought a Linksys WRT54G box and a 802.11g PCMCIA adapter back in August. Each had "rebates". I filled in the paper work, cut out the UPC codes, and mailed everything a day or two after my purchase. I still have not received my rebates.
One other thing worth mentioning -- If you purchase a "rebatable" item in an area that charges a sales tax, you must pay the tax on the full purchase-price of the item. This reduces the effective amount of the rebate. FYI.
Their rebate policy was flawed, but so are their other "policies". I will no longer shop at Bust Buy because "policy" always trumps the customer.
Take for instance their refund policy. If you buy a computer, and pay cash, and that computer doesn't work when you get home - you must wait for a check if you want to return it for a full refund. I advised my mother on going there because of the good prices. She paid cash and got a good deal. The PC was fried and they didn't have another to exchange.
Apparently another policy is that Bust Buy doesn't ship items from store to store or order replacement items if they are out of stock. Her options were: Wait 1 month for them to fix the computer, for free; wait 6 to 8 weeks for a refund; or pay the manufacturer to ship a replacement (and pay to take the broken machine).
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.
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.
Someone should also look into the fact that they never honor their rewards program. In one visit we bought $300 in DVD's and was supposed to get a $25 store credit in the mail (after paying another $10 to join the "club"). The credit never came and they don't even have us on file. Worst part is that we bought more, expensive, items there hoping we'd get a reward!
Scam!
Get your Unix fortune now!
hell of a long time to be in a conference call. They're phone bills most be through the roof and in need of a major piss break.
Actually, Best Buy has gone a large way to eliminate rebates already. I used to get a lot of good rebate deals at Best Buy, now I hardly get any. In elimination of the rebates they don't seem to have done much to reduce prices, they have just eliminated many of the deals. I for one miss getting free optical mice or free 50 or 100 packs of CDRs after rebate, even if I did have to send in the rebate materials and wait months. The remaining rebates seem to be on higher priced items, but before you get too thrilled that they are eliminating rebates, what in the world makes you think that they will lower prices to reflect these lost rebates? They sure didn't do it on the cheaper items that frequently had rebate deals on them, I doubt that they will do it often on any item after they completely get rid of rebates. No one forced you to send in those rebates, but it was a way to get money back if you did. If the rebates vanish completely but the prices still don't reflect it, then we all lose.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
How is this any different than what they currently do?
The ______ Agenda
The catch is that they often "lose" the paperwork, or require many "hoops" for you to do, so that you may get your money. They rely on the fact that many people do not fully complete all the steps necessary to acquire the refund, and thus the company never pays out. I've seen figures that state only about 10% of people wind up getting their money from these things, for a variety of reasons - forget to send the paperwork, lose the receipt, forget the deadline, etc.
..........FULL STOP.
Ha! all you suckers who don't mail in your rebates are subsidising my purchases. :P My rebates are bigger because most of you don't mail yours in, which is why it makes good business sense for best buy to offer products below cost after rebate. I'm sad to see it go.
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
The article is probably a joke, but nevermind.
My brother bought a stack of recordable CDs from a retailer in Vancouver close to five years ago. Of course, the advertised price at the time was a phenomenal deal and against my protestations and the angst inducing mail in rebate requirement for the "sale" price he bit and purchased the CDs, filled out the form and mailed in all the required bullshit.
Needless to say months later still no check. Down to the store he goes only to find out from the retailer that this is common problem and that most companies contract out their rebates to "fulfilment centres" where "fulfilment" is anything but.
We get into the "I told you so" conversation and I jokingly mention that he should sue. Note that by this point he'd called, mailed a letter or two and been generally frustrated. He looked into the matter and decided that he would file a small claims suit. According to him, they are incredibly easy to file in BC with only a few sticking points such as the legal name of the entity you wish to make a claim against and the type of business presence the company maintains in BC.
A few days after (and $100 later for filing costs) he sent a copy of the statement of claim to the company offices in Vancouver he received a nice phone call from the company offering to send him a check for the rebate and the cost of his filing fee (which was claimed in his statement of claim). He never got to stand before a judge, but he did get his satisfaction.
Now, why would someone go through all this for the $10 rebate on a stack of $25 CD-Rs? Well, he's the guy that decided half way through university that instead of engineering he wanted to become a dentist, so he did. He's one of those anal retentive types that keeps, files and remembers everything. Which is a good thing if you're a dentist, I suppose.
and thank god for it.
It seems the American customer is finally getting sick of filling in those forms.
In Australia we have seen the change of business models in recent times.
There is a lot of companies now just offering the best price, when you pay cash. (Or EFTPOS), no cheques or credit cards here, they incur fees.
If you pay cash you'll always get a better deal, well in Australia anyway.
I have bought all my white goods, air conditioner, digital tv etc for cash and definately saved noticible coin.
Checkout http://www.goodguys.com.au/ as an example of a very successful business that has inherited pay less on cash model.
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!
Honestly, can you really call "follow the directions" a marketing ploy? While there are some problematic rebate programs, in general I haven't seen something outright deceptive. The majority of problems I've seen are from people who didn't bother to read the directions on how to submit the form, and subsequently were denied. That, to me, falls far short of being a ploy.
It's something that always bothered my quite a lot in the states. The price next to do the product is not what you pay. Taxes should be included in the price. Doesn't matter how that you know they will add it, it still makes it look cheaper than it is (why else would anything cost $9.99 instead of $10?).
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Point is, they're not all just horrible ripoffs designed to fuck you in the ass. Get overyourself and take off the tinfoil hat.
Okay, you got me. I'm blinded by my rage towards Best Buy. However, they are designed to fuck me in the ass - that is where "fucking in the ass" involves taking my money.
It's a business, do you think they ever have my best interest at heart? I'm talking corporate policies that are made behind closed doors that revolve around numbers, not people. It's not that insane to think that they try to think of ways to make money. Is it?
And getting over myself... I'm not taking it personal. It isn't just me they are trying to "fuck in the ass", it's you too. You know, sometimes it's a real deal... but caveat emptor. If it sounds to good to be true, it likely is. All that jazz. Besides, I don't shop there.
I bet right now however that the Seagate ST3120026A (yeah, this one for less than $70) will come down to that low $49 price pretty soon, two weeks tops. Do you think Best Buy makes it a practice to sell items at a loss?
Maybe they stopped rebates because they realized they were paying people to shop there... get real.
Get your Unix fortune now!
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!
I actually work for company who processes rebates (#2 in this business). We all work incredibly hard to get people their rebates and process (many) millions of them every year.
If you have to mail your forms and the forms are received and they are valid, you will get your rebate, there is nobody intentionally holding on to your money. If there is a problem, you will be notified and you can always contact our customer support to get it resolved. I can guarantee you that we have VERY dedicated people trying to resolve such issues, and I know it since I work side by side with them every day.
If you are tired of sending mail, you can just go to shop to (for examples) Staples. You don't have to send anything by mail anymore if you shop there. Just come to their easy rebates website, submit your name and address and you will get the check and soon even direct deposit as Staples announced this week.
The reason why the rebate process takes so long is actually not technical, one of the mai reasons is policy of manufacturer and retailers. Often the retailers need to protect themself from people who try to commit fraud, buy products, apply for rebates and return them. Mostly due to this reason you have to wait to get it.
Screw that - class-action suits are a scam in and of themselves. Very few of the complainants see any compensation of real value, unlike the lawyers that file the suit.
Go down to your local courthouse and file a small-claims suit instead. It doesn't cost much and you'll see a lot more money if you win.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
You are kidding right?
I've talked on the phone with, and exchanged letters with, many Best Buy workers on the reward issue. They simply don't have me in the system (it's actually my gf, but neither name is there).
And otherwise I'm serious. I just don't shop at Best Buy - Circuit City and others are just as close to my house. I just don't do business with companies who's policy makes being a customer hard work (my local Wal-Mart can attest to that fact).
And no, I'm usually the one who doesn't complain about the bosses' demands.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I wonder how much the USPS (and the rebate fulfillment companies) are going to lose from this.
This isn't meant to belittle your economic situation, but:
Have you gone to different banks to see what their checking account policies are? There are banks who will set up free checking accounts if you enroll in direct deposit. I don't know if any minimum balance is involved.
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?
I have also encountered problems in the past with rebates where the company sends back a letter saying the copy of the receipt was illegible or whatever. It is frustrating.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
I've mailed in a lot of these and have yet to get anything back. Now, when I goto buy something, I base my purchase price on what is listed. When the sales staff tries to tell me about the mail-in discount, I offer to trade them the receipts for 75% of the mail-in rebate's value in cash. None have ever taken me up on it.
Money talks and BS walks. If it was real, then they could do it in the store.
Staples Easy Rebates - Online entry of rebates, you have your check in about a week to 10 days. Fast, quick and easy to use.
Two years is the same as never. Next year it will be two years. The year after that it will be two years. And then it will be quietly forgotten.
Best Buy loves selling your supplied demographic information (and it's generally correct and up-to-date is you want to get your rebate). And rebates never have to make it home. They get your demographic info whether or not they deign to honor your rebate request.
Since rebates are interstate commerce (in almost all cases), there needs to be Federal law to protect consumers from rebates designed to make it so the consumer never receives their rebate.
Yes and No. Class actions may not benifit the victims as much as the lawyer's but it sure does hurt the company's. Class action's are an indispensable tool to keep company's in line.
We buy alot of stuff (often via Slickdeals.net) at tremendous prices, and typically involving 1+ rebates. I'd say we submit about 20+ rebates a year. Failing to receive a rebate is a very rare occurrance -- maybe 1 a year. What used to happen, before we became more careful, is that we screwed up in various ways: waited too long, failed to follow instructions, etc. But when we've done everything right on our end, we pretty much always get the rebate.
So, no, it is not a scam, in our experience.
The purpose of a rebate is to allow for a flexible price, while not _appearing_ to. A business, in general, can optimize the amount of money it makes by charging a given person the maximum amount of money that person is willing to pay. Ever see Tin Man? I love the exchange:
Q "So how much is this car?"
A "How much have you got?"
or something like that. With a rebate, only those people who most want the low price will go to the trouble. The price after rebate is set so that you hopefully don't _lose_ money when people return the rebates. The margin comes from the people who don't return them. Classic. I don't see anything wrong with it (unless the business fails to make a profit -- but that's their problem).
Here's another mechanism a business could use to implement flexible pricing (which you may not like as much) how about if you had to haggle for everything you buy?
Clerk: "This here one's a real _beauty_ of a TV. Best they make!"
You: "How much is it?"
Clerk: "How much have you got?"
If stores were required to post the out of pocket price in bold this would all come to a stop....VERY quickly.
Sigh... someone at their fulfillment center decided they needed the money more than I did and entered my rebate information to get sent to them. Lovely.
Had to end up filing a complaint with the better business bureau to get it fixed. They finally are going to resend it to me - just last week in fact.
This couldnt happen sooner (rebates ending).
It's too expensive. Seriously.
Poor people have to pay bounced check fees, late fees, alarmingly high interest rates, frequent car repairs, etc., etc.
I remember a time in my life when, after I had paid out all of my bills, if I had $5 left in my pocket, I was doing well. And then to get slapped with a $30 bounced check fee, it was an outrageous amount of money that had a cascade effect on my finances. The following month, something else would go unpaid because the banking fees were taken off the top of my next deposit. And heaven help you if you wrote a lot of little checks that processed after the first one bounced; you can rack up a few hundred dollars in bounced check fees for less than $10 of actual spending.
The middle class, for the most part, doesn't pay bounced check fees. Well, ok, it still happens to me every now and then, but it is very rare. Think about it, though... One of the largest and most profitable revenue streams for these mega corporations comes from assaulting the poorest people in America. It seems criminal.
I cringe when I see these check cashing retail stores, because they're such a ripoff... but at least they're upfront about ripping poor people off, unlike the banks.
I kind of like mail-in rebates. I've never NOT gotten a rebate back--maybe I'm a master form-filler--and it always seems like a getting money in the mail when I get the rebate back.
I guess that sounds kind of stupid. But I likes it.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
On three separate occasions I purchased 128M sticks of RAM from Best Buy when they had a mail-in rebate that made them free. I sent in the rebate all 3 times and got a cheque all 3 times. I also got 2 free wired 4-port routers from FutureShop in the past using mail-in rebates. I prefer instant rebates but mail-in rebates will do when the deal is really good.
Meh.
I work for BestBuy and I doubt that this is ENTIRELY true.
Because, in addition to manufacturer's rebates, BestBuy always offers our own "BestBuy Rebates" in order to lower down the price even more. And I suspect that when BestBuy says they are eliminating all rebates it means only the ones offered by our company. I think the manufacturer's rebates will continue to be there for years to come.
thousands of dollars with rebates. Anyone who can't handle this procedure is either lazy or stupid, it is just too simple. And people who act like they "don't have the time to be bothered" are trying to convince themselves, not everyone else. That's too bad, there are a lot of reasons I don't shop at Best Buy often, now there is one more.
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?
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!"
... Just buy the stuff online, where the "rebates" are already factored in.
I'm still waiting on several rebates for a number of years, this is really a scam, and I haven't bought anything at Best Buy, CompUSA, or any of these other places for years...
(anything where the tax is less than shipping, I go with J&R, where tax is more than shipping I go online)
Yep. It was a Best Buy exec a while ago that called us "devil-customers"!
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http://forums.firingsquad.com/firingsquad/board/m
I see this as effectively raising prices for those of us who send rebates, since it will eliminate segmentation. Segmentation is the concept of getting customers to pay as much as the are willing to for a product. Here's a great article on Joel on Software on pricing. I don't see how best buy can offer the same deals after rebate, w/o rebates since they are eliminating the surplus from the folks that don't send them in. I'm also a bit skeptical of the 80% figure.
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.
Hey - I dig the MIR. I get things for free or nearly free using it as a tax dodge:
1) Buy a wifi gateway for $80 and write it off.
2) Send in the MIR personally and get $50 back tax-free.
This makes the drive nearly free. The $80 cost me $56 in post-tax dollars because of the deduction (roughly 30%). The MIR gets me $50 of that back in post-tax dollars, so my effective cost for it was $6.
(Technically, I should have received the rebate as income and taken a hit to make up for it).
But I agree that they are still a big hassle.
CompUSA has failed to send more rebates than anywhere else I've shopped, no contest. I stopped shopping there for a while, then bought a PNY video card when the after rebate price was cheaper than Newegg. The rebate processor swears I didn't send in the UPC barcode, even though there's a hole in the box that says I did. CompUSA says it's not their problem, it's PNY's, and PNY doesn't list any way to contact them. So, screw you CompUSA and PNY.
Best Buy has been pretty good since they started printing out rebate receipts rather than making you hunt down the rebate coupons, but still, very good riddance to the damn things.
I buy way more stuff via mail order than I otherwise would because of crap like this.
In most cases, you're not getting the discount you think you are (if you aren't also calculating the tax you pay on the full-price item + your stamp to mail in the MIR, etc.), and if your CPA is telling you that you can claim the tax on the after-rebate cost, he's wrong, and he's putting you in jeapordy (or risk of an audit).
Be careful how you approach these MIR incentives, they could put you at risk, if you file them incorrectly.
Why is it a scam? They claim that you will get $N back if you mail in some form, causing the price to be $N less. Then they go ahead and send you the $N.
Some people are claiming rebates are a scam because the rebate companies don't actually send you the $N, even when you follow the agreed-upon instructions. If that happened, I'd agree it was a scam. But in my experience, that doesn't happen. Hence, it is not a scam. Apparantly _annoying_ to many people, but not a scam.
The thing that many seem to be conveniently forgetting is that ending mail in rebates is going to end the ability to get certain items for free after rebate. The talk that they'll just lower the price at the point of purchase is all well and good, but Best Buy is not going to stock enough of an item to be able to give one away to every customer who wants it.
OfficeMax, for instance, often will have a whole section in their add of items that after rebate you can get entirely free. I've always gotten my rebates back from them. I can't recall the last time I paid for a CD-r. Or for disc cases.
I think it should be illegal to advertise the price after rebates. You must advertise the full price, and if you like you can mention rebates later.
It seems like a sensible thing to do.
If Best Buy changes their policies and drops MIRs there's no way they can offer all items for the rebated price. That price depends on a decent percentage of people not claiming their rebates and may often be under cost.
If someone opens up their weekly pile of flyers and sees BB selling widget X for $190 and Circuit City selling it for $200 - $30 MIR many (including myself) would gladly spend the requisite 5 minutes to save $20 (in a few months). I have a feeling a number of people would be with me on that and the extremely uneducated or unobservant consumer would just see the lower price in CC ad and bite it hook, line, and sinker.
I like CC stores more and more anyway. They're building a ton of new places that are all clean, decently organized (BB is starting to feel like WalMart), and the people are usually on par with BBs.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Staples EASY rebates are much better than MIR's. That is what probly BEST BUY is planing on doing in 2 years worth of time. Cause I know myself and many other would rather do it online than to mail it in. And so far I have gotten all mine back and in record times. Seems many stores are just tring to play catchup to Staples now. I see something done at staples then lil while latter something real simular shows up at one of the other guys.
describing how its a total scam?
What he describes is very basic economics. You do everything you can to charge people what they are willing to pay. This is why we have, say, different models of car. Some people will pay $15,000 for a car, some will pay $45,000. Does the second person feel it's a scam that he paid 3x as much? The car didn't cost 3x as much to make.
Some forms of price discrimination are illegal. Some are perfectly normal. As long as everyone gets their rebates if they mail in for them, there's nothing scam about it.
What nobody on Slashdot mentions, of course, is that there are a lot of people trying to scam the companies in this situation, too. Remember people who would buy, mail in, and then return, so they get the rebate without making the purchase? They require proof-of-purchase because people will mail in for 2 or 3 rebates on one item.
There are several things the company gets out of mail in rebates. They get more sales, they get some people who don't claim the rebate, and they get interest on your money for a few weeks. They know that systematically denying rebates will get them dragged into court and will lose way too many customers to make it even a consideration. The only reason they would deny rebates is to prevent fraud against themselves.
Sorry, my tinfoil hat is at the cleaners.
Let's hope they do better than Blockbuster did with that "No more late fees" crap.
Rebate processing centers count on lying to and screwing people by simply not sending out their checks. Frys is well known for this. People who buy their Colunbia walkie talkies will NEVER receive their rebates. NEVER!
Yet Frys and others still sell their walkie talkies and advertise the rebates, knowing this is true.I've done a quite a few rebates in the past year or two and got virtually all of them. I think i'm missing a $4 one, but all the big ones came through fine (sometimes after the odd phone call).
Sure, everyone (myself included) thinks the rebates are a pain, but without them all that means is that Best Buy will be effectively charging you MORE. Do you really think they will lower their prices to match the price-after-rebate that they currently offer? Our local supermarket pulled the same scam - they advertised "new lower prices everyday" ala Wal*Mart, but prices were really higher since they stopped offering shoppers-club discounts. (Example - Slim Fast used to be something like $7 but was discounted to $5 for cardholders every day for over 2 years, so effectively the price was $5. Now, with new "lower" prices, the cost is $6 which technically is lower than $7 but no one ever paid the $7 to begin with)
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.
Ok, but why use a bank? Use a credit union instead and you will not have to worry about those fees. Credit unions also tend to have slightly better savings rates....if that's what you are into.
We received a really funny phone call from a drunk Idaho women that thought she was calling Best Buy. She was having some problems with a best buy in-store rebates. Go here to listen: http://forums.dealcatcher.com/m_316229/mpage_1/key _/tm.htm%23316229
Online Coupons |
http://forums.dealcatcher.com/m_316229/mpage_1/key _/tm.htm
Online Coupons |
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.
Huzzah for no rebate forms! No more waiting for my money! Good riddance to jobs...?
This is a great thing for Joe Average, Super Consumer. No longer will he not get his rebate because he failed to read the instructions on the form. No longer will his rebates need to be processed by someone. No longer will he need to call someone to complain about his missing money.
I used to work for Best Buy's rebate call center. Sure, these things were a pain to us trying to deal with as much as they were for the customers. The problem is that if the rebates are removed so are a large number of jobs. The call center is located in my hometown, it's far from a sprawling metropolis and I know for a fact that the loss of Best Buy's business is going to be significant. A lot of good people are going to be out on the street within this 24 month period simply because people can't be bothered to fill out their address once or twice and toss it in the mail.
Well, if B.B. wasn't honoring your rewards program, you definitely should give them a call and look into it. But honestly. I've had their "rewards club" thing for the last year now, and practically every month, I get at least a $5 credit coupon in the mail from points I earned on misc. purchases.
(In fact, I originally became a rewards member only because I bought a big-screen TV from them and it was worth enough "points" on the program that I got more than double the money in credits back that the program cost to sign up for it at the time of the TV purchase. I ended up using that $50 or so in rewards credits to get a leather laptop carrying case I wanted for about $5 total.)
I will say, though, Best Buy has been going in the wrong direction recently. The changes to the rewards program (mail-in rebates issues by B.B. themselves subtract from the credits you earn in the program, for example!), make them look less attractive to shop at. And maybe it's just the stores around here, but I never really see those "red tag" type specials on a discount table like I used to? That used to be the #1 best reason to drop by Best Buy and look around. You could get some truly good deals on returned/opened box products on the discount tables or scattered around the shelves. But now, they seem like they try their best not to ever put something like that out - and if they do, the "discount" sucks... Like it'll be missing power adapters, manuals, cables, and everything, and will only be 10% off.
I'm actually amazed there are enough unconnected/extremely impatient people aroung to keep these stores afloat as is. In my experience, buying online + overnight shipping (17 hour purchase to delivery window) cheaper once the item prices goes over $100 while two-day shipping is cheaper across the board.
It boggles my mind that people continue to pay a 40% retail markup for anything more expensive than a DVD.
"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." And how much time,energy, and cost have you spent in doing so? And how much time, energy, and cost does the retailer spend in processing the rebate (if they actually do at all). Save that cost and give the consumer an even BETTER price! From a business cost standpoint, the whole idea is ridiculious. Just give the customer the savings at the point of sale and be done with it. From a customer satisfaction standpoint it is frustrating and equally ridiculious. The only rebate progam I have ever used was an instant dealer rebate on the purchase of an automobile. I simply will not deal with "mail-ins".
It's being taxed more than you effectively paid on the purchase. I agree it's dumb that they advertise a price, yet you pay a higher price as well as the taxes upon that. Rebates are stupid.
You may rejoice that all of the rebate deals are ending. And I certainly didn't like waiting to get my money back or paying extra sales tax that I would never get back. But don't lie and say that now we'll get those deals up front at the register when there is absolutely no indication of that and no reason to believe it. If you want to say "I was too lazy to send in for the rebate and I'm glad that no one else will be able to get a rebate either now", that would be honest and I could believe it. But don't do Best Buys job of telling lies that now prices will be lower when we've alread seen that that isn't happening.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Associated Press ran story that Tony Blair was courting Margaret Thatcher
I'm sure there are plenty more where those came from.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Crap Buy has terrible customer service. It's no wonder many of their customers have rebate problems. Why will it take 2 years for Crap Buy to eliminate rebates? They should be able to make the switch in less than 6 months.
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.)
Probably not retail. That would explain the undercut, which suprised me I admit.
It's well known that customer service isn't the primary factor in consumer choice. The biggest factor is price... as long as a store offers the cheapest goods, they can treat their customers like camel dung and the customers will keep coming back. Oh sure, they'll complain, but they will return. Plenty of examples to support this, Best Buy being just one of the worst.
I cleared nearly $2500 of rebates last year, and only have one or two outstanding that have yet to be cleared up (probably with a quick letter to the local AG). The key is to be creative, tenacious, and to track everything. A program like Rebate! Rebate! helps a lot, but you can accomplish the same things with a PIM or spreadsheet. It also tells me that I only spent around $200 more than I received in rebates. Finally, FatWallet rules.
Da Blog
"Can it be that we're finally nearing the end of one of the most hated marketing ploys of all?"
Do you mean promise something a couple years in the future and then never deliver?
Doesn't sound that bad.
Get your Unix fortune now!
State sales tax is collected at the time of sale on the full amount of the purchase, but that's hardly a big deal if you're paying $150 for a hard drive and getting $80 back. And then you put stamps on two or three rebate forms so it's like only getting $75 back. Not a bad deal.
As to 'claiming the tax', I'm not sure what you mean. I pay income tax to the feds, not sales tax. Sales tax is paid at the time of sale. Are you suggesting that the state might audit me for paying sales tax on $150 even though I got $80 in rebates?
I am wondering when was the last time I bought stuff at BB or CC. It appears, it was during last november when people line up at 3:00 AM, I think it's some thanksgiving or something though I dn't remember who I was thanking. And, the deal I got that time wasnt the best anyways.
As much as I have hated, I wonder if we can really do without retailers. Is it possible, even in the internet times, to do away with retailers altogether? For (somewhat) geeks like me, it may be possible, but what about folks who are just stepping into digital age, like my neighbor who bought a 5 year old apple (against my advice)? Can he possibly do without BB or CC?
All I'd be happy about is if/when they couldnt/didnt advertise a price lower than that which they actually require someone to fork over to leave the store with the item.
I used to work at Office Max, and they had the rebate game going on also. The secret to getting the upper hand in that game is paying attention.
Most of the time there is a "substitute" item in case they run out of the item advertised. Ussually this "substitute" is made by a different manufacturer, and therefore the rebate won't apply. So what you do is check to see if there is a substitute. Hope they run out of the advertised item (they usually do) and then purchase the sub. Since it's not eligable for the refund, they simply sell it at the reduced price.
I got a $149 DVD burner for $59 cash, and instead of a Mad Dog (never heard of them before) I got a Pacific Digital (actually a Lite On), so I got an even better product without having to fill out forms and wait.
Obvously this won't always work, they may not run out of the original item, or have a substitute, but I've done this quite a few times at several retailers including Best Buy, Comp USA, and Circuit City.
Tommy
Open Source for Open Minds
I don't think it's the price point that the manufacturers are after in this case. Any good MBA can see that rebates are a good way to get excellent market research on your product. It's been a challenge in recent years to get this data. In Canada stores use tactics like the HBC Card (like an air miles card) or the Shoppers Optimum Card. Basically its a card that lets you collect points on the things you buy to redeem for free stuff, etc. As everyone knows it's just simply so that manufacturers can see who is buying their product, and that is worth a lot of money to big business.
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1 Buy crap at best buy 2 Mail in Rebate 3 Get $$$$ 4 Return crap 5 Profit! wonder if there are any people doing this on a large scale? or if the real reason is that legislation would eventually come out banning it anyway?
Absolutely free checking accounts for business or personal. No deposit requirements, no minimum balances, no strings.
socialized medicine
Who do I have to blackmail to get some representation around here!?!?!?!?
I agree, the situation is ridiculous.
If you paid cash (or if you've paid by a check which has cleared), you deserve to be refunded in cash, and the retailer should make every effort to do so. How many $20 bills does a Best Buy store receive in a day? They shouldn't have to give you their stock of $1/$5/$10 bills, which they need for making change, but they don't need tons of $20 bills, nor the occasional $50 and $100 bills they get. If they don't have enough cash at the customer service counter, they can collect larger bills from the cashiers.
If there really isn't enough cash available to refund your money, they should offer to give you what cash they can and a check (on the spot, not weeks later in the mail) for the difference. Or they can offer to have the full cash refund available the next business day when you return for it.
This has nothing to do with whether or not one ought to have a checking account. (For the record, I have several.) This is about sleazy refund policies by a huge corporation who wants to take advantage of the "float" of keeping your money for a couple months longer than they deserve to.
Meanwhile, people with checking accounts who dare to try to take advantage of just a day or two of "float" are now going to start getting burned by checks being cashed instantly, now that Check 21 is the law -- even though the bank will still put a 2-5 day hold on any check you deposit! Why is it that individuals who take advantage of "float" are viewed as trying to cheat the system, yet the system itself is allowed to do the same and worse, and everyone turns a blind eye to it?
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
I work for the largest rebate fulfillment processor in the US (GFS/Young America) in our Tempe, AZ office. I can't speak officially for our company, but I can give you the facts based on my 1 1/2 years of working for my employer.
I back up the other person who works for one of our competitors. Lots of thought, effort, and programming time goes into every offer we handle to ensure that every qualifying consumer will get their promised rebate in a timely matter. We don't make the rebates, we only process them as the client requests us to and some are more strict than others in their requirements. Make sure you read over what the offer is requiring you to submit and if you have any questions then call up the customer service number beforehand to clarify anything. If you don't receive your rebate in time or it is not what you were expecting, then you need to call our customer service.
As much negative press that companies get about rebates, people don't know that they're usually getting the better end of the deal. I've seen lots of offer change requests come across my desk from the clients requesting to extend submission deadlines, allowing photocopies of submission materials, and lots of other additional changes that weren't on the original offer form. In other words, they're actually helping you and trying to make sure that *more* of you will qualify for your rebate.
Personally, I hate rebates and will highly prefer any product without a MIR over one that does. I know I wouldn't have a job if rebates didn't exist, but I still don't like them. I admit that lots of advertising is misleading since the post-rebate price is the one prominently advertised... sorry to break it to you, but the company is in business to make money and low prices attract consumers. If Best Buy gets lots of complaints about rebates then it's their own fault for the misleading advertising, but it's also the fault of the consumer for not being smart or observant enough to read the fine print below the sales price that shows the price breakdown.
In short, a large part of the industry *is* really trying hard to make sure rebates are easier and more fair for everyone. It would definitely hurt us and our clients if Best Buy did try this, but ultimately it is up to the individual manufacturers whether or not they will keep doing rebates or not. Lots of the larger companies like SanDisk, Hewlett-Packard/Compaq, and Linksys get a lot of their rebate submissions from Best Buy stores, but there are lots of other stores like CompUSA, Fry's Electronics, and Circuit City that sell their products as well. The stores can ask the manufacturers to stop rebates, but they can't force them stop. I doubt rebates will completely go away, but rather will continue to change and evolve into something similar to the Staples EasyRebates program.