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Best Buy Working Towards Ending Mail-in Rebates
chibbie writes "Best Buy is finally working towards ending mail-in rebates by 2007. Rebates will still be around, but you will be able to file them online, and receive your check much quicker.
I guess this means Best Buy doesn't hate their customers after all."
I worked as a contractor to establish this system for Best Buy. The end goal is that eventually they'll be able to submit rebate information directly at checkout and skip the process of mail-in forms or going online.
Staples has been doing the online rebate thing for a really long time. They call it 'Easy Rebate', and it really is easy. And it is going to take BestBuy 2 years to implement it? Give me a break. They are just trying to appease the FTC.
Note: I worked there previously and I left because I got a better job full time.
I noticed while there that it wasn't so much the best buy rebates that people had problems with. I worked customer service and we regularly offered to fix a problem with a rebate right there in front of you if you had a problem and recieved a rejection letter from best buy.
However the big problem was the 3rd party rebates. (AKA when you have more then one rebate for a product). The rebates that went through individual companies usually seemed to come back unfullfilled. So while everyone gets upset at the company the problem exists all over. These third party rebates are often given at all retailers and aren't exclusive. Best Buy won't honor them because they are not theirs.
I don't see how they will fix the third party rebates. As long as the companies offering them don't care then it's going to be a problem.
I know the store I worked in went out of it's way to make the customer happy as long as oyu didn't jump down a rep's throat (because it's obviously their fault *sarcasm*) the moment you step up to the counter. The reason was we wanted return customers. Often there were times that people walked out screaming they would never shop here again to cause a scene. Next week I'd see them back and have to help them again and they were quiet as could be (kinda amusing to me). So while people say they will stop shopping at a store I find not many hold themselves to that.
There exists some positive integer N that you are the Nth person to read this signature.
Rebates must be an American thing... In NZ, I've never heard of this sort of craziness. If the vendor is offering a discount on their product, they do it through the retailer, like you suggest. It seems that for some reason, Americans accept the idea that they should pay full price to a retailer, and then snail mail in a piece of paper to get a cheque back in the mail that they can then cash ? I can only imagine how much paperwork and paper handling has to occur to complete that process. I never use cheques in this country, and I don't know many people who do, because everyone here accepts eftpos or direct deposits into their bank account. I guess I'm just used to avoiding paperwork.
My last purchase at Worst Buy was about two years ago. I bought a HD that should have been $60 after rebate. My local store had the same HD for sale at $70 ... no rebate, no gimmicks, just $70. Long story short, I decided to "save" the $10 and go to Worst Buy. Well, I never got the $40 rebate and I paid $100 for the HD. So I lost $30 and Worst Buy lost a customer for life. Mind you, that wasn't the only rebate I got screwed out of -- just the last one.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
In sane, civilized countries, like Finland for example, this practice is blatantly illegal.
Over here you cannot advertise a discount, unless it is based on an actual retail price that the product has actually been sold for prior to the discount in the same store. Failure to follow the law carries steep fines.
Yes, there are ways to 'milk' this as well - say, sell some product for a few weeks for an inflated price, then drop it to a 'big' discount, but in general scams like the one you describe do not happen over here. Mostly discounts are 'real' discounts - companies clearing out excess stock to make room for new stuff. Or just outright advertising stuff cheap *without* silly '50% off' stickers. You can sell cheap to pull in people, you just can't claim it's 50% off some imaginary 'retail' price that has no basis in reality.
It's funny - I always hear these stories about people never getting their rebate, but I've probably done 50 of them over the last 8 years and have always received the rebate. Large or small amount, it doesn't matter who the vendor was, etc. I've always gotten them.
:)
The one time I had a problem was a free computer game offer, but even that arrived eventually (it might've been 6 months, but I did eventually receive it, and when I called to check on it after waiting 6-8 weeks, they explained the delay and gave me a new expected ship date).
Personally I don't have a major problem with Best Buy. I generally don't go to them for computer hardware, though; I've got a Microcenter nearby for that.