In addition to the very good reasons listed above I’ve always thought that the companies offering rebates are keen to have your personal data as well. Its valuable info which can be hard to come by but by filling out the rebate form they now know your address, phone number, and more.
Submitting the rebate online probably helps their overall costs.
Here’s the way I think it plays out:
[ul][li]Lots of people don’t bother to send in rebates at all. Even if it takes a few minutes. So it doesn’t matter to them if the process is easy.[/li][li]A significant portion of those who do send them in approach the whole setup with the mindset of “winning” the transaction like Spartydog and I do. So it doesn’t matter to us if the process is hard.[/li][li]You have to pay someone to open envelopes and do data entry if you make people mail the rebates in, whereas an online system may cost more to set up, but has nearly 0 marginal cost if designed correctly.[/ul][/li]
There are lots of other factors, like how willing people are to give out information on the internet, and how likely they are to write something illegibly enough that the rebate department can claim to not be able to decipher it, but I believe that the above points are the most important.
I was going through this rebate crap at Sears with major appliances. Having been through the rigamoroll before with rebates generally, I find that the rebate paperwork often asks for product information that is not readily available or easily identifiable on the packaging or on the receipt. So, I decided to purchase the products and fill out the rebate paperwork with the sales clerk before leaving the store.
This was a good idea because even the salespeople had a hard time finding the right “product code” to write in the proper box.
There was also a card among the rebate paperwork that listed several rebate plans labeled “A” through “F” with a different description for each plan next to the appropriate letter.
I qualified for rebate plan “C”. So, I circled the letter “C” on the rebate form and the description of the plan next to that letter to indicate which rebate I was seeking. The sales clerk told me that was not sufficient and she pointed to a little box in the corner of the rebate form. I was supposed to write the letter “C” in that box. She said the company was rejecting rebates that were non-compliant where the consumer had failed to write the little letter in the little box, even though it was painfully clear from the face of the document which rebate I wanted. I bet that by the time I would have figured out that I messed up, the time would have have run out to claim my rebate.
:mad:
Anyway, I got my rebates. Fill out the rebate paperwork with the sales clerk before leaving the store.
There are metric carloads of tiny rebates available on household items, too. When I cashiered in a drugstore in the early 90s, we always had a dozen rebates going for shampoo, another dozen for lotions, hair spray, detergents, etc.
I had a tiny second income from all the reciepts left by folks who didn’t want them. Since you can’t be expected to cut the barcode out of a hairspray can or dish soap bottle, it was merely a matter of copying the bar code and sending in the reciept and rebate form. I was so all over those $1.19 checks!
Maybe this isn’t appropriate for this forum so I won’t be insulted if the mods delete it:
MacMall (the Mac side of PCMall) ripped me off for over $200 on rebate of the purchase of a G5. I submitted a follow-up dispute and they ignored it. I will purchase more Mac computers but they won’t be purchased from MacMall or PCMall. I will let them spend money on sending me catalogs that will immediately hit the trash.
Again, it’s a game. I’m a sore loser.