Slashdot Mirror
OfficeMax Drops Mail-in Rebates
DrEldarion writes "Looks like OfficeMax is dropping mail-in rebates. 'Rebates were the #1 customer complaint we were getting,' said Ryan Vero, OfficeMax's chief merchandising officer. Hopefully other retailers will realize what a good idea this is and follow suit." The best part is that the discount is applied now at the register, so those of us who always thought that the rebates were a scam (or were too lazy to mail in the card) finally get some savings.
I just don't shop at places that have mail-in rebates. Period.
next time I buy ANYTHING that normally carries a rebate.......officemax will get MY business time to follow suit bestbuy or circuit city?????? btw also get rid of those idiotic PSP plans!
but a scheme.
those of us who always thought that the rebates were a scam (or were too lazy to mail in the card) finally get some savings.
Because not everyone will ask for their rebate retailers are able to squeeze more cash out of their customers.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
How stupid does a company have to be to devise a marketing practice that almost every customer who tries, hates and then continue to use it for what, decades?
.. are you paying any attention?
Hello, Staples, Best Buy, etc
How is this even cosmically, universally, and bullshitally news for nerds? TAAAAAAAAACOOOOOOO!!!!!! c'mon man... next thing we are going to see is that pink hello kitty panties are selling for a dollar in dollar for less...
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
This might have been news, sort of, back on June 30... http://news.com.com/OfficeMax+bids+farewell+to+mai l-in+rebates/2100-1047_3-6090290.html
Better to
I think that this is huge step in the right direction. It makes the cost after rebate a real cost, simplifies the process, and will go a long way towards customer satisfaction. I know that if OM has the same merchandise as a competing store, and I get the rebate at the register, I am going there. One more thing, if the rebate is instant, it will stop problems with rebates that are based on purchases of items in certain combinations. "I am sorry sir, but this rebate only applies if you buy x and y. Would you like to get y as well?"
My
Sometimes the way the prices are labeled, it can get confusing about it being 'after mail-in rebate'. This happed to me at Staples. Thought that the price was 29.99, it was 39,99 at the register. You had to look carefully enough at the print at the bottom.
The other beef with stores is that the register tape is so damned long? Why is it over a foot long when I bought a pen for 3$?
Grumble. Way to save the environment.
Shagz
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
In a country where rebates aren't found in the wild: Why is it hated so much? I can understand the inconvenience, but it seems I'm missing something.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Ah, marketing at its finest. This isn't even really news. Most major retailers have been very quietly phasing out mail in rebates for months, if not years. It's in the freaking article, if you read it. People are saying " should do this too", and if you look, they probably already have.
As it says, Best Buy did this over a year ago, they just don't have all the manufacturers on board yet. If you look in their computer department, most laptops have discontinued mail in rebates, and are either instant or normal price. Circuit City has the same thing, in almost the same way. Many of their home office electronics manufacturers are instant-rebate only now.
If you read the article, it just states that "Beginning this Weekend" they'll start to phase the rebates out. It doesn't specify when they'll end, or exactly what will be phased out first. Best Buy made this exact same announcement in 2005.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but people should try actually reading what's posted now and then. Then again, this is Slashdot, so what am I thinking?
Part of the whole reason for rebates was that many people never sent them in (I've seen numbers in the 90's showing about 5% of people would send them in). This allowed retailers to put a really low price on the shelf, but in fact make far more money for the item. Disregarding the outright fraudulent rebate scams, this practice wasn't fraudulent but it was obvious that the retailers are simply hoping that few people will actually send the documentation in to get the rebate.
With rebates taken at the register, expect them to be far more in line with a standard sale discount.
Do you have ESP?
I like rebates. Lower price than what a normal sale would be. They're hardly a scam -- if you're too lazy to take the 5 minutes to put the form together it's your own fault. I've done probably 50 rebates over the past few years, and only one of them did I never receive (though now that I think of it, it might have been from OfficeMax, so...). It's easy money for me at the expense of lazy people.
Now, if they're going to have the exact same prices, just without the mailing in, that'd be great, but I highly doubt that's going to happen.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
http://promomagazine.com/incentives/best-buy_04130 5/index.html (Karma whore link)
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 SU CK IT MP AA
Considering that they miss-micro-managed for years and finally closed up their local store 6 months ago, I don't think much of the last sputter of a dying corporations campfire.
--
Cheers, Gene
so those of us who always thought that the rebates were a scam (or were too lazy to mail in the card) finally get some savings.
Rebates are a scam, and any savings you've convinced yourself that you're getting are illusory at best. Rather than apply "discounts" at the register, why don't they just lower their prices. Of course, by doing it this way you simply feel like you're important because you got a "special discount."
Please. All rebates are is a way to play the float for a while with the customers' money, and if it so happens that the customer forgets to mail in the form, so much the better. Not that mailing in the stupid form necessarily means any thing: rebates are one of the reasons why I stopped shopping Best Buy (the other is because they habitually reshrinkwrap returned goods and sell them as new.) The last time I bought something at Best Buy I sent in the rebate form, along with the original proof-of-purchase because the instructions said that photocopies were not acceptable. I then received a letter politely refusing to send me a rebate, because I hadn't sent the original proof-of-purchase. Best Buy isn't the only outfit that's scammed me on rebates, which is why I simply don't buy anything with a rebate. Literally, unless it's a big-ticket item it is just not worth the time to fill out the damn form, cut out the Proof-of-Purchase, and then mail them to some "fullfillment organization" that will probably just keep the money anyway.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Oh, I forgot: please don't add taxes at the cash register, these little price stickers are for, you know, the price. Doesn't make a difference to me if it's taxes or the net price of the product. I want to know if I brought enough cash without trying to find out what the local tax rate is..
I thought rebates only worked out for the manufacturer because only some people actually care enough to send them in. Thus firms were able to price discriminate. If OfficeMax is automatically applying the rebate, then everyone's getting the discount. Maybe we should expect rebates to become less common or higher pre-rebate prices to compensate?
I so hope other retailers follow this. I hated all the hoops I had to jump through to get the forms filled out this morning....the extra copies made, the proof of purchase, the envelope, the stamps...
Since I pay most of my bills online, I think I use more stamps for rebates than anything else.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I've always recieved my rebates. Officemax, Staples, Newegg, anonymous motherboard manufacturers that went out of business. The people who have problems with rebates are either incompetent to fully provide all rebate information in the correct way the company states, or they're impatient and don't follow up if a rebate didn't go through - giving up like they want you to.
I bought a motherboard from Newegg that came with some pretty hefty rebates. Filled out everything correctly and mailed them in. A few months went by and I followed up by emailing and phoning the motherboard manufacturer to check the status and remind them that they owed me money. Waited another couple months while they supposedly remailed the check, but I never got it. Six months or so after the purchase date, I phoned up Newegg to harang them about the rebates I never recieved from the manufacturer that went belly up. They refunded the total of the mail in rebate value directly to my banking account.
It's not like I was pining on getting that money from the manufacturer everyday and getting insanely angry about it. I just went slightly out of my way to contact people a few times to insure that I got my check back. I bet most "normal" people just send them in and forget them, which is what the rebate people want to happen so they don't have to pay you.
Never had a problem with Officemax rebates having bought plenty of rebated DVDs and peripherals over the years.
I used to go to Office Max some weeks, leave with $100 worth of products and $100 worth of rebate forms. I pretty much always got every single one back, so for the hassle of filling out a few forms I was getting all sorts of free items (CD burners, surge protectors, mice, canned air, blank CDs, jewel cases, phones).
Now because of everyone else's bitching, those days are over. I don't know how the saving on other things are going to be affected by the end of the mail in rebate, but I know for damned sure they're never going to have an instant savings that leaves a dozen items in their store free for the taking.
The concept of mail-in rebates isn't a bad one. It works both in favor of businesses and in favor of more savvy/dilligent customers.
The real problem is that there are inadequate consumer protection laws (and enforcement) surrounding rebates. Stores and ads should never be able to put the after-rebate price in huge print, disguising the before-rebate price in tiny print in an effort to confuse consumers. And if a consumer mails in all the required pieces (UPC code, etc) to get the rebate, and the company either neglects to send the rebate check by their own deadline or erroneously claims the stuff the consumer sent in was wrong/incomplete, then the consumer should be able to contact some enforcement agency that will go kick the company's ass for lying.
I love rebates.
I've only failed to get two that I filled out properly and followed the rules on and failed to send in one on time and by the rules- so 3 failed rebates- one for $50, the others for less.
On the other hand, the rebates are often big since a large percentage of other people fail to use them.
I used to dislike them until I got a system down that made doing them automatic.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Rebates are like coupons and generic brands in that they enable retailers to sell the same product at two different prices-- a higher one that you can choose to pay if you want the convenience of not mailing in anything and/or the cache of a name brand, and a much lower one if price matters enough to you to make you clip coupons, mail in receipts or put up with ugly packaging. This is a good thing for everyone involved, because it gives people more options; people choose how much they want to trade convenience for $$, and the company can afford to offer much lower rebate prices because they know everyone won't pay them.
It might seem that with the elimination of rebates, everyone would get the original rebate price, instead of just a selected receipt-mailing few-- but what I suspect is that everyone will just have to pay a much higher sale price that's an average of the original off-the-shelf and the original rebate price.
what allways buged me about 'em was you had to send in your proof of purchace - then if you had a problem with the product later on you had given up your ace in the hole.
That and finding out you dind't get cash buy store credit (Bust Buy, D-Link router)
I bet they could have dropped mail-in rebates a lot sooner if the whole process had been patented and thet got sued. But instead, they spent a whole year trying to work things out with the suppliers to drop them? Well, at least now there is some positive results coming out.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
why not the *real* price to start with, cut the fuzz!
-m10
Sure it took a little effort: fill out the forms, copy what you mail in, wait awhile. But it was worth the wait.
I don't know anyone who was scammed, so I must chalk up this grousing to sheer laziness - the bitching of slackers who, like infants crying for the tit, scream "I want my 90% discount now !"
But so far, all we get from BB is words and no actions. How long does it take to just put the honest and true "what you pay at the register" prices on all products, and tell supplies "provide us with in-store instant rebates and discounts. We are not setting shelf pricing based on main-in rebates you may offer."
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I only buy products with mail-ins if the price without the rebate is still good. It really is a kind of scam. It works for the companies, of course, because they count on the added revenue that comes from the rebates being too hard to obtain, people forgetting to do them, etc. I ordered a Samsung printer from newegg.com (who I still order from and regard as a good company.) Samsung was offering a $50 rebate. So, I very carefully attended to the directions and followed them closely. I wasn't about to give them an excuse to not send the check. Got a post card from them that I submitted the documentation "outside the date range of the rebate." That's right: I sent it in TOO EARLY.
Rebates are a tax on stupidity and laziness. People fall for those schemes, which assume your time, effort, postage, privacy and personal information are worth less than the rebate amount. It's really sad to see people pander to a scheme that is clearly false and misleading advertising. It's good that OfficeMax finally dropped this scheme, but you know they only did so because they got tired of upset customers harassing them looking for rebate checks that never showed up. So don't think for a minute this corporation is listening to consumers' demands in favor of profitability. It obviously became less profitable to mislead consumers than not, so they dropped the program.
We don't really have anything like that here in the UK. What is the point of them? I know cynics will say that it's just a way to milk money out of the people who forget to send them in, but surely there has to be more to it than that? What's the reason given to consumers for their existence? It just seems like a totally bizarre way of giving a discount with as much hassle for both parties as possible.
Thats the only time brick and mortar stores can beat online prices. If I need something (and it isnt urgent or perishable like food) I get it online. I check Amazon, eBay, Pricewatch, TigerDirect and NewEgg. Even with shipping costs they cant match their prices. I can easily save $10 to $20 or more most times.
Rebate hassles and sales tax deter "runs" where everyone got all their friends to go to the store and wipe the shelves clean the first day of the sale. A $50 item that's free-with-rebates will run at least $0.39 + sales tax on $50, which amounts to $3-$5 bucks, enough to deter buyers who won't actually use the product.
With everyone getting the rebate, free items will fly off the shelves, especially in states that don't charge sales tax on the instant-rebate value, making a free-with-rebate product truly free.
Does OfficeMax have stores in Alaska, the land of no sales tax?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Few companies change the way they do business unless they see continuing as a money losing proposition. In a highly competitive market and a significant portion of savvy consumers armed with internet connected blogs and forums, the negative image of the rebate process was bad for business. I would guess that the people most likely to go through the rebate process are also most likely to complain about a bad rebate experience on the net. And if you don't mind mail order, it is easy enough to shop around and find the same or similar product for the same or even less than the after rebate price. Finally, since rebate and scam are, at least in the public mind, nearly synonymous these days, dumping the rebate scheme may be insurance against lost sales later.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Even if you get the money 'back' its still a marketing scam. Just sell the product for the real price and be done with it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I recently found a new rebate 'scam' when I bought an LCD monitor from Tiger Direct. To process the rebate, you go to onrebate.com. There I was given this choice: "Check By Mail," you receive your rebate check via 1st class mail within 8 to 10 weeks, or "No-Wait Rebate By Check." Here's the description of the no-wait: "OnRebate guarantees we will mail your rebate check via 1st class mail within 3 to 5 business days from receipt of all of your rebate documentation and approval of your claim for a small fee of $5.50 which will be deducted from your rebate check."
... on a $70 rebate, they'll cut 9 weeks off delivering the check for an 8% cut of the rebate.
Yes, that's right
As they say "We'll move your rebate to the front of the line! It's called the "No-Wait Rebate."
Pfffft!
IMHO, this is a sign of competition introduced by the competitive on-line market place. Many typical shoppers are realizing that they can almost always get products from on-line-only retailers that are equal in price or even cheaper than the so-called "price after rebate" at the Brick & Mortar retailers. Who wants to wait months on end to get a rebate check when you can realize the discount immediately by simply ordering the product? Rebate or not, where I live it is impossible to get competitively priced computer hardware from the B&M retailers. In my city, we have best buy, circuit city, comp usa, office max, office depot, costco, sam's club as well as numerous ma-and-pa shops to choose from, (what *looks* like a reasonable amount of competition) but the markups on major hardware components still seems to be excessive. The only reason a lot of these places are still making money is because of the stupid masses, who are gradually becoming less-stupid.
Since we're on the subject of going overboard with mail-in rebates, have any of you guys had the displeasure of looking through a Circuit City newspaper ad lately? The damned things are almost entirely just mail-in rebate catalogs. Let's hope they get a clue soon and drop these things.
;)
Not to mention my complaint about the flyer's usability problems, with the portrait-layout cover, causing the thing to disintegrate into pieces when you mistakenly unfold it and try to page through it from the "left"...
On the other side of the coin, Staples at least lets you file for the rebates entirely online. No mailing, nothing. It's not any quicker to get the stuff back in the mail, but at least it's significantly less of a pain in the ass to file for the things. And no, I'm not a corporate shill for Staples. Honest.
When it comes time to write off business purchases, the receipt that shows "$200+tax" is far better than "$50"...
It's been somewhat well-known on various consumer sites that OfficeMax has been looking for ways of reducing rebates on their products for awhile, especially after Staples came out with EasyRebates. This is only going to reduce the amount of money I spend at OfficeMax. Of course, that's a benefit for OfficeMax. Over the past three years, I have received back more in rebates and coupons than I have actually spent at the store (that includes postage and the like). It's really quite easy to get rebates if you know the game. You fill out a form, scan the paperwork you send in, and wait. In three years with 300+ rebates, I have had precisely two problems with rebates. Once, it was taken care of over the phone and the other time, I messed up a rebate for a $2 pen. I didn't even bother to pursue that one.
This is not going to be a benefit for consumers. They are simply going to take the money they spend on rebates and put 50% of it toward reducing prices and pocket the rest. It's free publicity for them and they get to make their balance sheet look better at the end of the year. I guess that's better than getting nothing back from a rebate, but it's not as if they're going to be offering their products for free instead of free after rebate.
made your clothes, your house, your car, and your computer, and virtually everything else you own or consume.
Please sell everything you own, and stand outside naked in the rain. Or admit that you really are willing to deal with "normal" businesses. Most black/grey market stuff is either cheap knock-offs, or costs less due to failing to reward everyone who created it, or by dodging taxes. I do not like taxes either, but they are the price we pay to live in a civil society. Suck it up and pay your fair share.
No actions yet, but they say it'll be done by 2007.
Taking a closer look at the site linked in the blurb (http://www.rebateroulette.com/), it's a rebate review site. Should be useful in determining which rebates to stay away from...
but those "normal" businesses make the sheets that bind us.
I am not opposed to paying "fair share", but you're missing the parent writer's point: this is much more than fair share. One of America's founding ideals was "no taxation without representation" - conveniently dodging the "who" of representation. Why are our cell bills so expensive and our VoIP bills getting tax? Lobbying telcos.
His point was: in reasonable countries (i.e., outside the US), quoted prices include all taxes etc., displaying the price that one would be paying at the cash register. The US practice is basically price obfuscation: they quote only a part of the price, since I can't buy the goods without the "extras", so the quoted price itself does not indicate anything. Considering how stuff is layered on top, some net prices may be even impossible to compare even if they are taxed the same. (Google "stealth inflation Pogue" for a more thorough writeup on this.)
There are a number of industries in Europe which try to advertise around this (airlines: "1 euro flights", if one ignores ~EUR60 of additional fees and taxes), and they always get fined by consumer protection agencies.
Well no shit. Because the dealer got the money. They had the paperwork.
...but I never could understood why american folks never raised hell about this whole rebate system. I mean come on, if I go in a store, I want to see 1). the exact total gross price which I have to pay for the thing when I get to the register, and 2). I don't want to see some fictional price displayed which has nothing to do with the amount of money you have to shell out at the register, but some hypothetical price you might arrive to after you sign yourself up into some company databases by filling and mailing in some paperwork. Like these companies would be some aiding organizations with no lurking motives, never using your data for ads, etc. If they'd be willing to give you the stuff cheaper, they'd give it cheaper. But they know exactly that most people will probably not send in the paperwork, so they don't have to pay you back that hypothetical difference.
This is just stupid. Deeply stupid. Yes, I've read all those opinions about how this is so good since they can get oh so many stuff for "free"... now come on, there's a joke I've known for a long time, sounds like this: "- How old are you, young prince ? - I'm 21. - Wow, and you still believe in fairytales ?".
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Obviously 90% of people on Slashdot have little experience with rebates and can't imagine that they wouldn't get one if they tried because it says so on paper. Please, if you don't know what rebates are IN PRACTICE, don't post that it isn't a scam nor moderate up someone who says that it isn't a scam.
Disclaimer: personally I like rebates and have never had a problem getting mine filled.
... $98. Sucks, imho.
Don't think for a minute that suddenly you're going to get that $50 rebate as a direct discount at the register. The principle behind rebates, whether you like them or not, is that only 10% or less of people are going to actually take the time to fill in and mail the rebate. So 100 people buy a $100 product with a $20 rebate, 10 people send in and the rebate costs the retailer/manufacturer $200. The r/m is not going to pony up more than the $200 they would spend on a rebate program, so if everyone gets a discount at the register instead, it's only going to be a $2 discount. So now, what used to cost the average person $100 is $98, and what used to cost me the rebate-guy $80 is now
No allowance here for the cost of running the rebate programs, but you get my drift (and they're not going to past those savings along to us anyway).
drink beer, and let the water run the mill
Itasca IL, 10 Oct 2006
Preliminary Q3 results for Office Max Inc. (formerly Boise Cascade Corp)
show same store sales down 3% -- although profits and volumes on target.
Baffled analysts are investigating recent complicated bookkeeping changes.
The company reiterates that every other single sales measure has improved.
I'd love to see these things done away with.
I'm still waiting for a check from a hard drive I bought back in 1997.
The whole thing is silly...
Why should I hand over my money to someone, and then beg them to give it back to me?
Sound like a game that only an idiot would enjoy.
I have worked for both Office Max and Office Depot. One of the many things Office Max prided itself on (prior to being bought up by some bigger company) was how they had nearly NO DEBT. It makes it easier to be agile and do things like removing rebates when you're turning such a healthy profit. Office Depot on the other hand was doing stuff like getting employees to by their own uniforms, store using materials so they wouldn't have to buy longer lasting badges and so forth.
filled out 2 this morning I so hope other retailers follow this.
If you keep buying products because of the rebates, companies will keep offering them. If you want companies to stop buying rebates, you have to stop buying products with rebates, even if it means paying more. Companies don't read your comments on Slashdot, they look at their profits. The only way that companies will take notice is if their profit falls.
What's that you say? You don't want to have to pay more? You'd rather get it at the cheaper price even if it means filling out rebate forms? Then stop complaining about them and do the extra work involved. You don't get free stuff for nothing.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can say that most customers who buy laptops that mess up, or other things tend to like the PSP. I'm sure most people here, myself included don't feel a need for one, but joe sixpack seems to love them. BestBuy has had plans to end rebates since 05, and in 05 they stated that they will be gone by 07.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Here we have a Slashdot article, that links to another article, that links to yet another article. That's one level too much indirection, I would think.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Several years ago we were rolling in freebies and good deals. I used to have to decide which store to be at when they opened, there were so many good offers. And I did get a lot of loot from OfficeMax, including plenty of Free After Rebate CDRs and other free stuff, as well as good low prices on other things. I have extensive records on my rebates. I have received ever single rebate on everything I bought through OfficeMax. Yes, occasionally it did take a call to a rebate center, and OfficeMaAx dealt with some really bad "services", but I got it all. Those unwilling or too lazy to do this, fine, but don't spread the lie that we'll "finally get some savings", we are loseing the savings big time.
The rebates had virtually died already at OfficeMax. In fact they had already started advertising many items caliming Savings with "No Rebate Neded". But I couldn't quite find the savings. One week that they were selling a "Gread Deal" on a hard disk (WD brand if I remember right) for $89.99 "NO Rebate Required", I got the same size hard drive for $29.99 at CompUSA after rebate, and it was even a Segate drive with a 5 year warranty, not a WD 1 year take-a-chance drive. I've seen this pattern over and over again. The rebates are vanishing, but the good deals are not being replaced by true deals in the form of low prices. Same for Best Buy. They have almost completely dropped rebates, and I have not found one thing to buy there since the week they announced their identity tracking personal information database wallet busting loyality cards. Rebates are gone, but good deal prices have not replaced them.
Yes, I didn't like paying tax on the unreal higher price. I didn't like waiting to get my money back and occasionally having to make a phone call or even two. I didn't even like paying for the stamp (there were days that I sent out ten or more rebate envelopes, it adds up). But I loved the free stuff, and I certainly would pay the sales tax on a stack of fee CDs or DVDs to get them. Those days are gone. I don't really know how the organizations justified the offers, but I took them.
I doubt that those of you who are saying that we are "finally going to get some savings" are really that stupid that you haven't seen the trends, or that you would say this without any evidence at all to back it up when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary (my above hard disk example is just one of many that I could post). I rather suspect that what you mean is "I was too lazy to send in the rebate or just passedup the deal because I didn't want to deal with it, so now I'm glad that no one else is getting the deal either".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
And you call that "No Problems Here"??? No wonder you're an AC.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No, it would be better to just pay the $75 and be finished with the entire transaction. ( that was the point of my post )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just be very anal and obsessive compulsive about how you fill everything out and you'll have no problems.
You haven't had problems. That doesen't mean others haven't. It certainly doesn't mean others won't in the future. One of the most common complaints is rebates that require the original proof of purchase. Sometimes the firm (incorrectly) says the PoP was never sent, and they won't accept a copy (which you might have saved, being prudent.) This has nothing to do with people not reading and following the directions.
Millions of people make this very complaint. Probably some of them forgot to send the PoP, but certainly not all of them did.
I guess it helps that I'm very anal and obsessive compulsive.
My. How self deprecating you are. You forgot arrogant.
You posted: I used to painstakingly photocopy all the materials
See, I dont care to painstakingly do anything for a service.
I want to walk in buy what I want and walk out.
Companies that want me to work for them be wary, I have an alternative and am sure I can find many products with a simple and enjoyable 'rebate' already built in. Thank you, OfficeMax. I now will drive to your store first, and then drive, literally, around the corner to check 3 other similar stores that carry many of the same products.
Now, if I can just get Voodoo to give me such a rebate on my next purchase. I can dream, no?
I've read many of the comments in this thread and can't understand this situation at all.
in the UK, the price is says is the price you pay.
even the US habit of not including taxes is BS. I can't see how rebates could possibly be anything BUT a total scam.
my uneducated guess is that the problem in the US is that individual states can't get things done, and the federal powers are all in the pockets of big business. you need total independence or total unity, the USA half-assed version is useless (for citizens).
Call your phone company. Those charges aren't taxes. They are passing on the cost of mandated services as separate items in your bill instead of folding them into the price like normal businesses do with costs of doing business. It is unfortunate that ALL of the phone companies do this, so you're stuck. Seems there is a bit of a market failure going on here.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I also must say I find it disappointing. I used to see free CD-Rs all over the place and a couple weeks ago I even got free DVD+Rs. People bitching though is driving up prices. I got 100 free DVD+Rs for $24.95 with a $25 mail in rebate. When I look for sales in the stores for instant rebates, the best deal I've even seen is $20 for 100. So lets say it costs me $2 after taxes/stamps/etc. with the rebate, which I've done the math, thats more then what it is, its closer to $1... The DVD+Rs now cost closer to 2 cent each compared to the usual 20 cents each for a good sale/instant rebate. If I'm spending 2 cents, I'm going to be much more liberal about giving out the DVDs and just giving everyone I know a video I made then if I have to pay 20 cents each.
Come on, lets put this into perspective. If you see a dime on the floor, you might not think its worth the effort to pick it up. If you see a $1 on the floor, you're much more likely to pick it up. I guess I'm a little cheaper then most people, I won't pick up pennies but I'll pick up any silver coin. Pennies just are too much hassle IMO.
I think that what you really mean is: "The USA was a good place to live, 15 years ago. But it's been getting steadily worse and really isn't a good place anymore." Plus, you could have mentioned that it is currently run by a bunch of bigots who seem intent on turning the rest of the world into enemies.
There are still good places to live - mostly small countries: Switzerland, Luxemburg... There's a mag called International Living (google for it) that runs articles on pleasant places to move to. Some of these places have high living costs - you need to get a job there to live there.
I'm too lazy to mail in the card; I think mail-in rebates are a rip-off; I don't want to pay full sales tax if I'm getting money back; I won't shop anywhere that uses mail-in rebates; I don't want to buy my own stamps; I don't want to go out of my way to find a mailbox...
There's an old saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I wish I could come up with a witty way to say "don't complain about trivial matters when you're getting a discount that nobody had to offer".
Rebates are a motivator to get people to buy products. I can understand if a rebate doesn't motivate you enough to buy the product, or if you buy products and are too lazy to mail in the paperwork, but complaining as if mail-in rebates violate some sort of basic human right guaranteeing discounted retail prices is just silly.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
vote Libertarian, then you won't have any taxes to worry about.
NewEgg doesn't do rebates. Oh sure, some of the products they sell have manufacturer rebates, but those apply to every new purchase, not just NewEgg. When you shop at NewEgg, the price they show you in BIG BLACK LETTERS is the actual price you pay. The "rebate" price is in a font about 1/3rd the height of the real price, and it's under the real price.
This is one of the things I like most about NewEgg. No rebates. No bullshit. I give you my money, you give me my shit. Fast.
I didn't like waiting to get my money back and occasionally having to make a phone call or even two. ... ...so now I'm glad that no one else is getting the deal either
Except, we are getting the deals. Online. Brick-and-mortar stores used rebates to try and compete with the low-overhead of online dealers like Amazon or NewEgg. Those $0.00 price tags were on items that made the company no money anyway... they're just to get you into the store, with hopes that you'll see something else you like and buy it as well.
If the brick-and-mortar stores are getting rid of rebates, they're going to have a very hard time competing with their online rivals unless they start having clowns and free hot-dog days. Or dropping prices. Frankly, I couldn't care one way or the other. I haven't bought an electronics item from a "real" store since 1995.
Convince me Rebates aren't mail fraud when there's two separate rebates I'm applying for, both go to the same street address in Detroit, one is through Best Buy that claims (on the online rebate info site for the item) that the rebate is good through a certain date, but ON ONLY ONE OF THEM the rebate submission has to be filed within 30 days of buying the product AND that they can void the rebate submission (for a late submission) without one single response back to the customer. Mind you, this is for a rebate that is still in effect at the store as I type this. At the store, it's "Rebate good through July 15, 2006" but in the fine print it's "30 days after you buy this, the rebate better be in the mail or else"
and the other item is for an item that has absolutely no stipulation on when you send it the rebate, so long as it's before a certain drop dead date, which follows the end of the rebate. No sliding scale of when they can cut off the rebate allowance.
To the same rebate management company out of Detroit.
One rebate is for $75 and one is for $100.
It's the Best Buy that allows for this extra rule that allows the rebate management folks to cut off more potential rebators.
No, this is tantamount to mail fraud on the part of the rebate management/retailers part.
The rules between rebates AREN'T consistant from rebate to rebate, and since we're sending all this correspondance through the mail, it needs better regulation. Why? Again,
"Late, incomplete, postage-due, or illegible claims will be rejected; their senders may not be notified."
In another case last year, Newegg sold out of the item that had a rebate by the time I was shipped the item. Guess what disspears from Newegg.com when they don't have anymore of that item for sale? Yep. Finding THAT particular form took days and days, contacting Newegg, the manufacturer, all that. It took two weeks contacting and recontacting the manufacturer because nobody at that place was actually responsible for that. What was the eventual reply? "Go ahead and send it with the form for the lower priced rebate, and they'll figure it out."
Guess what never came? That rebate! Who do I complain to? I have got nobody to complain to.
Someone, somewhere is making money by refusing rebate checks.
Until you've been screwed out of a rebate, you're not a believer.
I would certainly be happy to see the market move away from this nasty rebate trend.
In addition to all the subtle technicalities that have already been mentioned that cause many people to never get their rebates, there is another part of the scam that most people don't seem to notice.
Often, you must forfeit your right to return an item in order to get the rebate. Most merchants allow you to return merchandise within 14 to 30 days for a full refund as long as it is intact in the original packaging. Look close at the rebate deadlines. I find that most of them are so short that you must mail in the rebate within just a few days or maybe a week or two of the purchase date. However, they require cutting out the original UPC code from the box or packaging to send in with it. Of course, once you have done that, you either will not have the option of returning the item for a refund or, at best, will be charged a 15% or 20% re-stocking fee.
If the rebate does not give you more than 30 days from the purchase date to send it in, then you know it is a deliberate scam.
It would seem to me that Office Max just got a whole bunch of people to flock to their stores to see what could be had 'rebate-free'. I'm betting that for one clever reason or another, most of the big ticket items are still pretty heavily reliant on mail-ins. I'll also bet that at least some of the mindless shopping masses walking into OfficeMax will quickly forget what they went in for, and will walk out with one or a few items they otherwise wouldn'tve purchased. PR mission accomplished.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
Hows about we stop buying a bunch of crap we really don't need? No rebates for crap that's gonna sit around on my desk and make my house look like the set of Sanford & Son.
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
Rebates are good if you are organized and disciplined.
:/
I've only ever had one go missing, and i could live without the 8 dollars.
This will surely end up costing me more
About time they did it... glad to see they have no reason to deny rebates now. Can't wait for black Friday! OT: wasn't this story already posted before? Q: Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete got out. Who was left? A: *REPEAT* Pete and Repeat were in a...
OK lets do some real simple math. Buyer: Printer = $200 - $20 instant - $50 rebate = $130 end cost (+taxes, etc) Oh but I hate rebates so I want it for the $130 out the door. Now to brake it down why you had to pay the $180 out the door with a $50 rebate and not $130 out the door. Store: Printer cost from supplier $175, cost to run the store for the day $1000 (employees, utilities, lease, etc). So if we only sold printers for $200 that cost us $175 we make $25 each sale. So to beak even for the day we would have to sell 40 printers a day. Now with the sale we only make $5 on the printer out the door so that would make us sell 200 a day to break even. Oh but the rebate! Rebate: $180 - $50 = $130 Store: $130 - $175 = $-45 So the store just lost $45 by selling the printer for less than it had to buy it from the suplier for. So if each sale nets a loss, then it can not ever recover its costs and thus cant pay the bills. But with the Rebate system, the Store can earn intrest on the $5 they still made durring the sale. This will help offset the loss they will take for having a 'good deal'. But most times they will never fully recover the cost. It is in a sense, a loss leader, to try to get you into the store to buy other non-sale items. Now most rebates come from the supplier not the store. Most stores have instant savings or instant rebates. Thus the -$20 sale price, that is the store putting it on sale to a point that they still make a lil money on the sale and hope to get your buisness. So when it is the store having the huge rebate they have to have a way to recoup the costs. In the end you will not see hardly any huge great deals with a no rebate system. Why would I want to in a sense pay you to shop my store and walk out with a printer? We are here to make money not give things away. So if the extra money sits in the bank and earns intrest so we hope to still make a proffit while at the same time selling you an item for less than we bought it for, what is the harm in that?
Defense is about a quarter of the federal budget, or about an eighth of the total government (state and local spend roughly equal to the feds). If we could cut that eighth by half, we would be spending about as much as those non-war-mongering Europeans. Of course, then no one would be there to protect them...
Yes, government is wasteful, but not THAT wasteful. In any case, most of the waste occurs before they get your money (because you and everyone else bends over backwards to avoid having to pay, which is a waste of time and resources that goes unaccounted). I would be interested in knowing by what standard you judge our society corrupt - I would argue that it is one of the least-corrupt societies in history.
campground in Chicago, me and my gf my have a good time on our vacation there. Buying used stuff does not mean that you are escaping the companies...you are just one step removed, and still dependent on them. I am willing to bet that you used 50 items containing or produced with products from my company in the last week, even though you probably have no idea who we are. Actually, your computer and car almost certainly contain several such materials.
Strange that I never have a problem with "hidden fees" - which inevitably means "I was too lazy to read fees". Yes, you pay taxes at a hotel...where do you think the water comes from? the streets? the cops?
that, people quickly unlearn what the taxes are. Quick question - what is the sales tax in your state? Now, what is the gasoline tax? Odds are just about every middle-school student can answer the first one, but few people can answer the last one. European governments need to hide their ridiculous taxes, so they bury them in the price.
If you think someone is actually selling flights for a euro, you DESERVE to get scammed.
Too many are. I have never had a problem with BJ's online rebates. No receipts to mail in, no UPC's to cut out. Just fill out your info at their website and wait 2-3 weeks. Of course, those rebates were for only $5 so even if the rebate never did come in it would be no big loss.
Now mail-in rebates are another story. Those who say that only morons who don't fill the form correctly, don't get the rebates are lucky. Those who fault the consumer for not hounding the company to get their rebate must be unemployed.
A couple of years ago, I bought an HP monitor with a $50 mail in. I sent all the stuff in and kept copies. The fullfillment company had one of those online tracking sites, so I would check it from time to time. I saw the status go from received to processing and there it stayed. Eight weeks came and went and my rebate was still "processing". Now it was coming on 3 months, so I gave the customer service number a call. Calls were accepted only between the hours of 8 and 4 and calling after 3:30 was futile since I would be on hold until 4:00 and then disconnected. I finally had to make time to call during my lunch and finally got through after about a 20 minute hold time! Did I mention that I was wasting my lunch time with this. Apparently there was some data entry error on their end.. The rep had me confirm my info while he re-entered it. I would receive it in 2-3 weeks. I finally got it. Four months after I had made my purchase and after I spent roughly an hour making several calls. If I had not called and spent time out of my work day, I would not have received it.
My other experience was with Tiger Direct (crooks). It was for a $30 rebate on ram. I submitted all the info and of course made photocopies. I filed the copies away and sent the rebate off. Once again, I tracked the rebate online this time through ONRebate. After about 10 weeks and still no rebate, I e-mailed the onrebate support. No answer. So I called. Again we have the limited call times and of course waiting until after work means that no one will answer and I will get disconnected at 4:00 on the dot, so again I have to make time during work to call. After a 25 minute hold time I get in contact with a rep who states that I did not receive it because I did not send the UPC. This is of course bullshit, I have the photocopy to prove that I sent it. He says no problem, "just fax it attention to me" and we will take care of it. So now I have to get my stuff together and find a fax machine. I fax it and then nothing. I get no replies via e-mail and the status has not changed. I make one last call after work and am unable to get through so at this point I figure $30 is not worth this aggravation so I let it go. I know that I will never buy anything from Tiger Direct. If any of you are contemplating buying something there with a rebate don't do it. Read around. You'll see that I am hardly the only one who did not get a rebate from them. What they are doing is illegal and they should be prosecuted.
So please, those of you who say only morons don't receive rebates, please explain what I should have done differently. I am glad that Office Max is phasing out rebates. It is a crooked business and I have little doubt that fulfillment companies throw out a percentage of legitimate rebates in the hopes that most consumers will provide little or no resistance.
Those who actually file for and receive their rebate checks would beg to differ. You certainly can't get rebates successfully if you're stupid and lazy. Rebates are really a tax on those who choose not to be penny-pinchers.
People fall for those schemes, which assume your time, effort, postage, privacy and personal information are worth less than the rebate amount. It's really sad to see people pander to a scheme that is clearly false and misleading advertising.It's only a scheme (and mail fraud) if the processor doesn't hold to their end of the bargain (get my info, confirm I'm not filing more than once or whatever the limit is, ensure the UPC and receipt are included and correct). Filing a rebate should take no more than ten minutes; for a $10 rebate (once I recently filed for) I'd have to assume my time is worth nearly $60/hr before deciding that the rebate isn't worth my time. $10 for 10 minutes worth of work is very good compensation. Those marketing companies already have my personal info and I can't retract it, so moot point. The only time it's misleading is publishing the after-rebate price larger or before the at-checkout price; I fail to see how any advertised rebate is "clearly false...advertising."
It's good that OfficeMax finally dropped this scheme, but you know they only did so because they got tired of upset customers harassing them looking for rebate checks that never showed up. So don't think for a minute this corporation is listening to consumers' demands in favor of profitability. It obviously became less profitable to mislead consumers than not, so they dropped the program.I think failure to uphold the deal has been more exception than the rule. Only once did I have to haggle with a rebate company for an error on their side, and quite a few here on /. have had no problems over the years. If you don't do things like write clearly, clearly circle the date, item, and price on the receipt, clip or tape the UPC (and verify it's correct to begin with) to the paperwork, you are giving the processor outs for delaying or denying a rebate.
The people who demanded that retailers stop offering mail-in rebates are the lazy ones. You want the lowest possible price without having to do anything, and at the same time criticize those who are willing to do something extra for a lower price. How does that work?
I have no intention of trying to collect another mail-in rebate. It's a pain, I'm lazy, and, frankly, I don't really want to tell these companies my contact information. So, if I see an item that's, for example, "$100 (after $20 mail-in rebate)" the message I get is that the company feels people won't buy the item at $120. $120 is too much. They want people to buy it, thinking it costs $100. But since I'm not going to send in the rebate, my price will be $120. Even if I would have considered $120 a fair price before I saw the rebate, I now think of that item as overpriced at $120. So no sale.
-- dR.fuZZo
There comes a point where you have to buy either service or cheapness. When you buy something cheap expect bad service. It may not come as a suprise that companies budget the quality of customer service they give their customers. It comes out of your purchase price. If you want more service, pay more to the good place than the one working out of a warehouse/garage somewhere.
Also we should should weigh our option of being cheap. Consider the following:
You cheap because then you can buy more things at once to become happy.
(Also means you dont have to work as hard in life to get the things you want.) It ends up making you unhappy (and unproductive in your life) because you refuse to pay more for good service
Maybe if you weren't so cheap you would be happier and more productive! Then you can improve your life so you can afford to buy the amount of things that you want to keep your material lifestyle going. Then if you arent so unhappy you wont go home and (verbally) abuse your loved ones and yourself.
Or you can just face the fact that your lifestyle itself is flawed.
90 days my hairy white arse. I'm still waiting for my $150 for a product I bought in January. I reckon it would be a laugh to mail the CEO a big shit sealed in an envelope. Would this get me my rebate? Nope. But it would restore balance in the universe....
sustainable living
Thanks for the surprisingly timely processing of my $100US rebate on the printer, via Future Shop. But if you're going to continue asking people to mail stuff in, how about instead of requiring them to cut fairly sizeable rodent doors into both ends of that nice box, you tuck a little piece of paper with the UPC (or two, if it's THAT crucial) into the owner's manual, and let them send that in instead?
Has anybody tried using Certified Mail to make sure that the rebate company gets you submition? Do they even allow this, or do they just block it in their terms?
Why does it take so long just to put honest prices on the products? Don't they have a list of what the prices are? I bet there are even new products coming in during this time.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They may have certain contracts that don't expire until then.