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1300 Unopened Fry's Rebate Forms Found In Dumpster
blackmonday writes "The Consumerist is reporting a find of 1,300 unopened rebate submissions in a dumpster belonging to Vastech, a rebate processor hired by Fry's Electronics. Vastech's management blames it on a bad employee."
Bottom of the barrel wage earners working an admittedly unglamorous job tosses a few out. Where's the crime? Who's going to prosecute? Which State regs apply?
Rebates are a racket, always have been. I know from experience because I admin'd them years ago for a peripherals manufacturer.
Back to work!
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Personally, I keep an Excel (well, oocalc) spreadsheet of all my rebates, what, where, how much, when sent in, when to check, when received, etc. It's quite helpful. (Wow! I just added up my `how much' field -- $1723.)
You'll find items on Newegg or Zipzoomfly often have rebates. However you'll notice it's never a rebate from them, it's from the manufacturer. Manufacturers like to run promos sometimes to try and get people to buy their brand. Well, you can't fault the providers for helping you know about this and how to take advantage of it. You'll also notice, at least in the case of Newegg, they list the primary price as the actual price you pay.
Just don't go getting mad at the wrong party.
I've posted this story before so I won't go into a lot of detail, but my brother (the anal retentive one in the family) against my advice bought one of those too good to be true CD-R spindle deals where the rebate is just about as much as the purchase price of the spindle pack.
Months later and after much friendly teasing from me without even the hint of a rebate, my brother got angry and filed a small claims suit against them that was ultimately successful. After maybe an hour or two of research and an afternoon at the courthouse he received his rebate along with all of the expenses incurred in pursuing his claim. I was actually surprised at how simple the process was and effective the outcome.
My point is, there are ways you can get that rebate without incurring any cost to you.
This crap should be illegal.
In my country, Denmark, it is indeed illegal. From what I understand, I am glad it is so.
Did I mention that we have never had your problem with telemarketing either? Or that email and SMS spam is strictly illegal and swiftly and harshly prosecuted?
Or that we actually have an efficient and respected state department which looks after consumer rights in cases like deceptive marketing and defective products? For example they recently went after Apple when Apple refused to repair faulty macBooks.
Sometimes, more and more frequently lately, I am glad I don't live in the US.
I think words like "CEO" and "employee" are pretty out of context here for good old Vastech. I think the words we want are "hey you" and "that guy that's that other guy's cousin."
OT: Vastech? Did they used to sell Vaseline or do vasectomies or something? Did someone tell them, "hey, rebates man, that's where the REAL money is!"
Limina.Log
Mail sometimes gets legitimately lost.
Given the expenses incurred when applying for rebates, I have made it my policy not to buy into rebated items unless the list price matches the normal list prices of no-rebate stores. Another reason I rarely bother hunting for rebates is that they are often precursors to price reductions and new product introductions. For technology products, I generally consider them as blinking and screaming "End-Of-Life / Discontinued" tags, indicators that I should avoid buying the stuff or at least be particularly wary.
I have applied for rebates only twice ($15 on a $40 DI-524 and $45 on a $100 Audigy 2ZS) and got both back 2-3 months later. In both cases, the counter prices were already lower than other stores and in line with what I considered to be a fair price so I did not care too much whether or not the rebates came back... but I certainly would have made it a point to make it known to as many potential customers as possible if they did not.
Wow, I'm surprised at all the horror stories about the rebates. I'm sure some of them, maybe a lot of them are true to an extent.
However, I've sent in hundreds (Close to 300) of rebates over the past 3 or 4 years, and I've had exactly 6 come up with problems, which were resolved with a call to the company or to send in copies of my rebate submission.
One company in particular, which I'm not sure what name they use, though, so they might actually be part of the retailer itself, as opposed to a rebate company proper, has been the lions share of problems. They claim part of my submission was not included... Well, I always keep copies, so I know what is included and what isn't, but on more than on occasion, they claim they got the receipt, but not the UPC or something... the funny thing is, the submission has the UPC and receipt on the SAME PHOTOCOPIED PAGE... so it's physically impossible not to receive one without the other... yet they claim it is so. Obviously they try to scam some people... Either way, once I send them in another copy of the SAME page, they send me my rebate.
But, I digress. My point is that out of the nearly 300 rebates I've sent in, a very small percentage has ever given me a problem, and a large part of that very small percentage has been from one company in particular. Otherwise, I've always received my rebates without hassle, even if it takes 4 or 5 months for them to arrive.
There's a program out there called "Rebate! Rebate!" that keeps track of your rebates. I don't have a link, but it works pretty well.
I like rebates... kind of a pain to send in, but they do offer some really good/incredible deals now and then and are worth the effort, so long as you follow the requirements exactly, which usually isn't that hard.
My biggest pet peeve with rebates (other than not receiving them) is that in Ontario, we have 14% sales tax. And we have to pay sales tax, and don't get it refunded on the amount of the rebate. This can add up to quite a bit ($14 on a $100 rebate for those who can't do math). Whereas if they just take the rebate amount off the extra purchase price, then you don't have to pay the tax.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.