I read this article and it confirmed my suspicion about rebates. WHEN CASH BACK MEETS BACKLASH
Despite savings, rebate hassles can outweigh the reward, some say
"Office Max, which discontinued rebates at its stores this summer, found that less than 1 in 4 of its customers went through the process of getting their rebate. Another survey sponsored by the Promotional Marketing Association saw average redemption rates of about 1 in 5. "
This despite Office Max being one of the easier ones. I bought a lot there once and requested the rebates online. The money did come eventually, so I was happy when that happened.
But still think it’s deceptive when they know most people don’t actually get them, so I’m glad they are being dropped.
Rebates are indeed horseshit, yet the offeror continues to bank on (literally and figuratively) a certain percentage of the market buying based on the after rebate price, and not following through, not saving copies of their paperwork, and being sufficiently anal to call 6-8 weeks later and ask “where’s my damn money!?”
I’m glad they are doing away with them. I used to work at Office Max and not only was it difficult to actually get any money back but more than once I had people buy a product, send in for the rebate, try out the product and find it defective, try to return it and be rejected because the item had no UPC code. You can’t refund or exchange an item that has already been submitted for a rebate.
I think that rebates should not be legal. They’re basically fraudulent, to my way of thinking. If rebates are offered at all, then they should be able to be instantly redeemed in the store. As it is now, there’s too many hoops to jump through, and even if the consumer dots all the Is and crosses all the Ts, all too often the rebate just doesn’t arrive unless the consumer nags the fulfillment company about it.
I used to work for OM, too. God, how I hated rebates for this very reason. People would go total apeshit over advertised products and think they’re getting one hell of a fantastic deal. A typical ad would present the price like this:
$9[sup]99*[/sup]
[picture of product]
[sub]*After mail-in rebate[/sub]
Then they’d get all pissy beause they didn’t see the fine print. We’d also get people who would call or come into the store and ask about the status of their rebate, like we could do anything about it. I’m glad to see they’ve done away with this bullshit deceptive and bothersome business practice. I just wish they had done away with it while I worked there.
I had no problem with them. Filling out a rebate form was never a hassle; if you don’t send it in, it’s pure laziness, using the difficulty as a lame excuse. Usually is was nothing more than cutting off the UPC code (takes less than a minute), filling out the form (maybe a minute), addressing an envelope (less than a minute), and stuffing everything into it. So in about three minutes, you have it all ready to mail. How is that a hassle?
I won’t particularly miss them, but people shouldn’t blame rebates when it’s really their own sloth that’s the problem.