Clipped from a different topic:
Yeah, that’s what I want to know.
I despise buying rebate products!
What rebates didn’t come?
Wireless network adapter - Lynksys
DSL modem - BellSouth
USB memory stick - SanDisk
Widescreen LCD monitor - ViewSonic
System Mechanic 6Pro - Iolo
I’m sure there are more… 
I’ve received every rebate I’ve ever submitted the paperwork on. Just lucky, I guess. (It can take a while, though. I think the longest wait was about 6 months.) Still, I’d rather they just discount the price by the amount of the rebate.
Yes, but the theory is: sell a million. A half million actually qualify and get the rebates. Many are $20 or more… you do the math.
Yeah, last September I had to buy my kid a fancy calculator for his pre-calc class (he just dropped the class this week, it was so hard for him) and at the same time, I purchased a little lipstick drive so he could do his projects at school and at home. Both had “huge” rebates but which involved the original purchase receipt, a a 16" long register tape form to fill out, plus the UPC. In Dec. I got one of the rebates. By that time, I couldn’t evenfigure out which it was for. I probably spent over a half-an-hour preparing the rebates and making copies in case they never came. Lost those. A complete scam to get me to buy. hate it hate it hate it.
Got three cell phones last summer from Cingular. Huge hassle filling out the rebate forms, UPCs, etc. Separate rebate forms for the three phones and a bluetooth. Oh, I got the $300 rebate. In the form of EIGHT Visa Gift Cards that were neither credit cards nor debit cards. Had to go online to validate them separately. Some merchants couldn’t/wouldn’t even process them and if I didn’t use them up exactly, I had to remember exactly what was left on them. I still have two kickin’ around with trace amounts of cash left on 'em, but that’s okay. They expired on 12/31/06. Hate em hate em hate em. I used two of the $50 ones to buy the stuff mentioned above that had rebates.
I did the rebate thing once. ONCE! When it fianlly arrived, the $20 rebate said something like redeemable as credit on your next purchase (this was at Staples). Now, if the price is right, I may go ahead and buy it anyway, and never file for the rebate. Otherwise, I aviod rebate offers.
If my memory serves me correctly, I have received only one of the last three rebates that were due me. I was careful to fill out the forms and include all items as instructed. I consider rebates a dishonest way of marketing and doing business for there is a strong financial incentive for corporations not to honor their rebate agreement. It is so easy to disallow a claim for a reason that they are not required to reveal. Maybe I didn’t dot my “i’s” hard enough. I will never know. I can imagine the corporate instructions for ways to invalidate rebate claims. They know that the consumer cannot spend much time and energy investigating a $20 rebate claim. After all, the aim of corporations is to maximize profits and not to give away money, even money that they agreed to pay.
However, large corporations that use rebates as a marketing scheme are no different from other corporations that require a claim for a “money-back” guarantee or other such promises at the point of purchase. They deliberately make it next to impossible to comply with the requirements of the claim application. Insurance claims are another problem with regard to the consumer being able to receive the money that they are rightfully entitled according to the original insurance policy. Katrina claims for property loss is a good example of this. It is very hard to make a large company pay any attention to your complaints. They simply ignore you, while in the meantime you go without receiving a suitable settlement.
US postal employees are instructed to ask every customer whether they want insurance to protect the value of the items that they are mailing. The problem comes when you try to file a claim for a lost item. I saw that I was going to have to do $100 worth of work, including multiple trips to the post office to stand in line, in order to submit the claim for the lost $100. Now, when the postal employees ask me whether I want insurance, I politely tell them that after my experinece with the post office, I now do my own insuring. Rather than pay the post office a fee for insurance, I keep the money in my pocket and assume the risk myself. I don’t have to fill out any forms or answer pages of stupid questions if I have a loss. I pass my cost on in the form of the increased cost of the item that I am shipping.
Wow, I’m surprised by all this. As much as I hate the hassle of rebates, I’ve never had any trouble getting mine processed. And I’ve done quite a few in the last few years, for a variety of different products. It can take a while, but I always get a redeemable paper check in the mail. I guess I’ve just been lucky.
I think it was sincere in the beginning, then the probability bean counters figured out the savings by complicating the request as Doug described above.. I used to get rebates easily but I don’t trust the process anymore.
Gift cards, as I mentioned before, are really popular with corporations these days because of the chance they won’t be used or expire. Win-win, as they say.
Same here. I was warned once that a particular provider of a certain bit of goods wouldn’t send the rebate, so I made sure to mail it to them in a Certified/Registered delivery envelope. I had the rebate in a week. 