A pox on rebates and those who perpetrate them

The BBQ Pit
1

When selling something, why ask that the buyer cut off the corner of the box and send it, along with a copy of the sales receipt, including a photo of their dog, and a recently used teabag, just to get back $5 within 28 weeks?

I imagine the torturous procedure is intended to discourage applicants, but doesn’t that fall under the deceptive practices portion of consumer protection legislation?

Like coupons-I wish the bastards just sold the product at price $x and eliminated all of this horseshit. But that would be too simple.

2

While I agree whole heartedly you must understand when you reduce the price to have a special promotion sale everyone gets the discounted price while with a mail in rebate most people can’t be bothered because it is a hassle and many people just say it’s not worth the time. Hence they can now have the sale without selling at a reduced price and a lot less people will get the discounted price. Genius really, a sale where they lose less money by not having to reduce the price. Now if we could only remove the balls of the magot who came up with this deceptive practise, or at least make it illegal but that will never happen.

3

Yes, the procedure is specifically designed to:

a) get more people to buy the product

b) make it something of a hurdle to get the rebate.

These companies have actuaries working on rebate calculations. They calculate complicated graphs and tables mapping the amount of the rebate against the likelihood of people filling out and returning the rebate. I’ve never seen one of these analyses myself, but one assumes that the higher the rebate, the more likely people are to go through the motions of filling out the form and returning it.

The companies want to set the rebate at a level that will encourage more buyers, but will not eat into their profits too heavily.

As for the whole “deceptive practices” thing, my guess is that, as long as they are up-front about the rebate procedure, and as long as they honor rebates that are filled out correctly and returned on time, then they’re fine.

Of course, you hear plenty of horror stories about companies that do everything they can to avoid paying out on rebates. Not sure if anyone’s ever been prosecuted for this sort of thing.

4

That reminds me, I’ve got to get some in the mail this week.

5

Perhaps I am just lucky, but I’ve almost never had any issues with rebates on products. Once a company said they wouldn’t honor it, but a threatening letter got them to send it, and another time, it was my own stupid fault for putting in the wrong receipt, but otherwise I’m about 28/30.

6

Maybe, like Raygun99, I’ve just been lucky: the last few mail-in rebates I’ve taken advantage of were easy to send in, and I got my checks within the allotted timeframe. Obviously the effort has to be outweighed by the amount of the rebate, but generally I find it doesn’t take more than 10-15 minutes to collect everything required. A giant rebate isn’t required for me to spend 10-15 minutes. :slight_smile:

Most recently: I bought a new cell phone this time last month, and the $50 rebate check arrived two days ago. Sure, I had to cut off a corner of the box lid, but the store provided a copy of the receipt for me and the only other thing I had to do was fill out the rebate form – and the only personal info required was my name and mailing address. Minus the cost of a stamp, I think the effort was definitely worth the $49.63.

7

Damn, people - whatever happened to not buying products that are sold this way? I think of such products as being like defective ones, that you have to send back to get something that works. I think of them as costing more on the assumption the rebate doesn’t work, or based on my extra time. And I generally feel angry towards companies that do this. It happens much less often that rebated products get me as a customer. Vote with your dollars!

8

Well, as a general principle i sort of agree with you, and i often curse the morons who ensure that we continue to get telemarketing calls and spam by responding to such crap.

But the fact is, sometimes the rebate deals can be pretty good, and they can be hard to pass up. My partner and i have only ever used rebates a couple of times. Once was for her laptop computer, which had a regular price of $1000, but for which we found a deal that had $250 in rebates (2x$100, 1X$50), making the final price of the computer $750.

We’d both always been wary of rebates, but our rather meager finances meant that we decided to give it a go. She was very careful about filling out the rebate forms properly and sending them off in time, and all three rebate checks came on the same day, about 3-4 weeks after she posted off the claims.

9

I got a sweet deal on my current laptop because of rebates, $300 off a $1300 computer. I don’t see what’s so torturous about cutting off a barcode and making some copies of receipts. It took me a half hour tops to package up all four of them. If you hate the process that much, don’t send in the rebate.

10

I hated rebates when I moved to the US (they haven’t taken off in South Africa, and hopefully won’t), simply because they eat into my “buy something I need and then it’s sorted out” world view.

But I guess it’s just market segmentation, much like coupons or Toyota vs. Lexus. They want to sell X at $60, and feel there exists a population that will be willing to pay this, but that means they make no money off the population who would refuse to pay more than $40. So introduce a $20 rebate! People who were willing to pay $60 and don’t care that much will be less likely to jump through all the hoops for the $20. You get the sales of a $40 item and sometimes the profits from a $60 item.

It all comes down to what I think my time is worth. Generally, I’ll fill in rebate forms because it’s not really that hard to do, and I’ve never yet had a rebate less than $40. But I would never look at supermarket coupons, because I’ve got better things to do than cut out bits of paper just to save 50c here and there. Someone with less income may find coupons worthwhile, and someone with more may not find rebates worthwhile.

11

I just lost out on some rebates due to my own carelessness. Back in January I bought the Tax Cut software along with the state program, which promised a $5 rebate on the program, plus a rebate of the cost of the state program, plus a rebate of the cost of electronic filing.

I did my taxes and then set all the receipts and rebate coupons away until I could get around to dealing with them. I figured there was no hurry, because tax season goes until April 15th, and I knew that the purchasing window was at least until then.

Two days ago, I dug out the stuff and got ready to send in the rebates. Then I read the fine print that the postmark has to be within 30 days of the date on the receipt.

AAAARGH! A pox on myself and the evil rebaters.

12

My peeve with rebates is that you have to pay sales tax on the rebate. That is, as far as I know, you pay sales tax on the price including the rebate, and you can’t write off to the state and ask for part of your sales tax back because you got a rebate on the price.

13

I just bought a pack of 24 ultra-fine point Sharpies this morning with a $5.00 rebate. I was only going to get a few Sharpies. But then I saw that I could have ALL the Sharpies! And who doesn’t want ALL the Sharpies? And for $5 off!

[Staples Shill]I’ve already submitted the rebate online at Staples.com, which is much better than wrangling receipts, filling in microscopic blanks on poorly-printed forms, and cutting Proofs of Purchase out of adamantine packaging materials, isn’t it?[/Staples Shill]

(Sorry, Napier. Can’t pass up a good deal. On Sharpies.)

My husband, on the other hand, is the rebate-offerer’s wet dream.

What do I do when I get something with a rebate? The second I get home, I make sure the product works, then fill out the rebate stuff, and put it in tomorrow’s mail. It’s usually not that hard to do, and it’s not going to get any easier or less time-consuming if I put it off, now, is it?

But what does he do? Wait until the last minute. Except that usually by the time the last minute rolls around, he has forgotten about it. Then three weeks later, he realizes OHMIGOD he forgot to do the rebate! Oy vey! The rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth!

The next time he gets something on rebate, I ask in the store, “Are you going to remember to do the rebate?” He sighs, very put upon, and snaps, “Yes, I’ll remember to do the rebate.” When we get home, I suggest gently, “So, darling, why don’t you take care the rebate stuff?” “No. Can’t do rebate. Busy . . . Must . . . brush cat’s teeth.” “Would you like me to do the rebate?” [Testily] “No, I’ll do the damn rebate, just not right this second.” “Whatever you say, dear.”

This is exactly what the rebate offerers bet on. My husband blames only himself. He harbors no ill will toward the company for overcharging him. And yet he paid much more to the company for the product than he had to. (I think the biggest one he forgot was something like $200 on a computer. Now I insist on doing the rebate myself right away if its more than, like, $20.)

14

I did the same thing, and on the same product, FBG. It doesn’t say anything about the time limit until you open the box, which I didn’t do until I was ready to do my taxes. And I’d bought another rebated piece of software with it specifically because it was rebated, and that’s expired too. Seems like pretty false advertising to me.

I’m going to send them in anyway, but I don’t hold up much hope of gtting my money back.

15

I couldn’t disagree more. I will often buy products with rebates (often stuff I would never have bought otherwise), and I always send in the rebate forms correctly and eventually get my check. It’s all about being diligent enough to follow directions and get everything sent out on time, and patient enough to wait for the check.

I usually get spindles of 50 or 100 CD-Rs from Office Max that end up being free or ridiculously cheap after rebates, and I got a $30 rebate on a $100 printer/scanner/copier I bought at Best Buy over a year ago. I even scan the Sunday paper for ads for the best rebate offers, and make special trips to seek out those deals. I either think of rebates as getting a belated discount, or paying full price for something and then, by the time I get the check in the mail, I’ve forgotten about the rebate and consider it a gift of “free money.” I love 'em.

16

I’ll send off for rebates right away, but otherwise I’m very forgetful so my biggest problem is remembering what rebates I’m owed. As it’s perfectly plausible that some companies haven’t sent the cheques and I never followed them up, I recently decided to write some web accessible tracker for myself. Since in addition to being forgetful I’m also lazy, I ended up just looking around for one already made, and downloaded this guy’s program. It’s Windows only, and accessible only locally, but other than that seems like a fine program. Overkill for a 2$ rebate on a bottle of glue, but certainly acceptable for a 20$ hard drive rebate.

And my logic is like mhendo’s. More people forgetting to send in rebates means bigger rebates for people like me. :slight_smile:

17

Some rebates are set up so that you actually get the item(s) for free. I recently bought a wireless Belkin router from BB for $10 after a $60 mail in rebate.

My aunt knows how to play the rebate game and she had recieved things for free. Usually a combination of in-store and manufacture rebates and coupons.

18

Same here, and I frequently do the free-after-rebate deals, on things like CD media and such. I only missed the postmark date on one – all others I’ve sent immediately, and always gotten them back. The only exception to this is a poorly advertised special from Staples that I’m still trying to get them to honor (the way it showed in the ad) – other than that, theirs are usually the fastest, especially now that they do most with the “Easyrebates”, which are online submissions only (no bar codes to mail, etc).

19

I think of it as a contest of wills.

The company is essentially saying, “We’re betting $X that you’re a lazy-ass bastich who can’t send these three simple things to us.”

When you do those three simple things and get your rebate, you’re essentially responding, “Boo-yah, suckers! Cough up the Benjamins!” :smiley:

20

I find rebates to be a hassle, but I understand why they are used. However, your wording on this gave me a good chuckle. I’ll make sure to include a teabag in my next rebate mailing.