I got back a small rebate ($20) from AT&T Wireless, and it came in the form of a temporary debit card (like a modern gift card, except for looking like a credit/debit card, with numbers and everything).
What are the economic advantages to AT&T of doing this as opposed to a rebate check? I can think of some possibilities, but most seem offset by an accompanying disadvantage (plastic is more expensive than paper, for example).
The cynic in me thinks that checks are much easier to convert to cash than cards, and so they figured that many people would just throw the card into a drawer and forget about it. I’m still bitter at Walgreen’s for not sending my card.
Did you get a card you can use anywhere you wish?
Isn’t that a given? I mean the OP would have to be kinda dense to ask the Q if the card could only be used to pay AT&T charges.
Oh shit.
“Anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.”
I know I received a card once that could not be “overdrawn.” So I basically had to charge an item to the CENT to get full use out of the card. Over the MILLIONS of cards AT&T probably issues every year, this $1.26 or so would probably add up to a sizable savings. If they run their cards the same way, that is.
The card I got from AT&T expired just 3 months after I got it. I can see how a lot of people wouldn’t get around to using the card before it expired. I think I still had around $5.00 on mine when it expired.
Isn’t that illegal in CA? Gift certificates and gift cards can’t expire anymore. Is a rebate card a special case then?
No it’s not a given. Remember you called Leaper dense not I. You’re implying I think Leaper dense, and I don’t.
They know that cash can’t be used to buy services the way a Visa card can. They hope you forget about some of the cash on the card. The processing of the check may still make it more expensive than a card. They can drop a card in a labeled envelope and they are done worrying about it. Checks can be altered and are. Checks can take a long time to finalize the transaction to where the funds are not moving through the banking system. Depending on who processes the transactions in the end, they can know what people do with the money. Like do they spend it back on the issuing company, or did it go to one of their subsidiary companies.
I think that’s a good point. If you get a $20 gift card, you’ll end up spending about $15, then throwing the card in your desk and forgetting about it. That’s a lot of money saved for whoever issued the card.
Some lucky consumers in a few states are protected from the cards being drained by fees before they use them, most are not. Our state still didn’t pass a law prohibiting it, even though an attempt was made by a few legislators in 2007. It’s one of those things I feel companies shouldn’t be allowed to do. I’ve seen it happen with a batch of still unused cards the church had for parishioners. They were sold by a company based in California, so the cards were protected by the California law, and the issuers had to credit the cards back the fees.
A clerk at Borders Books insisted my gift card expired and in the nicest way I told him he was full of shit. “Money doesn’t expire. Please call your supervisor.” He did and I won.
And no, Harmonious, I didn’t imply you dissed the OP. Relax.
Because if they issued checks I wouldn’t have the pleasure of listening to fifty people a day bitch about their rebate cards.
The official line from AT&T is that the cards are more convenient than checks (no trip to the bank needed), they are more secure for the company than checks (can’t be altered), they are more secure for the consumer than checks (personal banking information doesn’t go back to AT&T), consumers enjoy the prestige of using a card instead of cash (no really, they actually make us say that).
And you can use the full amount of the card without finding a transaction that correlates to the penny. If your purchase is for more than the amount of the card then pay the balance over the card amount first and run the card as the last transaction.
Has anybody brought up the reality that more interest bearing cash stays in the accounts of the rebater longer if a card is issued. The interest off of an account backing your $20 rebate card isn’t much if it takes a few weeks longer to draw out but consider 2 million $20 cards and the rebater is definitely getting a nice cash flow advantage.
Every rebate card I’ve received is usually not emptied until near its “expiration” while rebate checks have been deposited and cleared within two weeks. That’s on the average a month longer that the rebater keeps my money in his account.
one possible gimmic might be that over a whole buncvh of cards it costs them less. You can’t exceed the card but you can spend under. For example, they give you a $20 card. You buy things totaling $19.37. That leaves $0.63 cents on the card which might never be used or useable.
Does AT&T keep the money until it’s used? With a company that big, I’m not sure, but in a small business, if you want to give away that type of gift card, you would send all the money to Visa, they would print out the cards and send them back to you to distribute. Once you have the cards made, you (the business handing them out) never see the money again.
Oh, and when I looked into it with Discover is was REALLY expensive. At least for short runs, I didn’t look at the larger runs.
Personally I find checks a royal PITA. I am practically cashless in daily living. So personally I would prefer a card. It probably takes 20-30 minutes out of my day to get to an ATM or credit union branch to deposit the check. 5-10 minutes if I deposit it by mail, but then there is always the worry of if it gets lost. So I am one of the consumers who would in fact prefer the card. Here are my thoughts on why it might be better. I don’t discount the more nefarious reasons, though.
Depending on the customer base, there might be a significant population that doesn’t have bank accounts. No doubt they’d prefer the card. Teenagers and immigrants are two populations that use a lot of phone service and don’t use a lot of bank services.
Also, for businesses it is a pain if checks are issued and not cashed. It depends on why the check was issued, but for some benefits-related checks I know we actually had to track people down and reissue them due to some fiduciary responsibility issue.
With the prevalence of fake checks in marketing (credit card offers, phony sweekstakes), that may result in consumers being less thrilled to get checks as rebates.
Also, with cards someone gets the information of what the money was spent on. That might be of use for a market research purpose.
That’s good, I’ll bet that has alot to do with it.
The Big Thing with a lot companies today is to track individual consumer spending. This is very valuable info that they turn around and sell.
So AT&T sends you a card, they know your name, address and who knows what else. You spend the money at store X. Now “they”* know that a particular AT&T customer likes to buy things that X sells (they might even know the item itself). Bundle all the data up from you and thousands of others and you have info that is worth $$$.
Hence things like “loyalty” cards. (Which means I avoid shopping at such places. Hardly creates loyalty in my mind.) Now Target is sending out a “coupon” card. Buy something on the list and get a few cents off. But, now they know who bought what since the card is bar-coded (“so you can’t use the card twice for the same item” of course), etc.
I guess just collecting an immense amount of data from credit card users just isn’t enough. The cash users are messing up their stats.
Data, data, data. , , $.
*“They” are probably an affiliate of the card issuer. AT&T itself probably “only” provides the personal info to the affiliate which then combines that with the data from the card issuer to form the customer profile.
Good inputs ftg. Thank you. But did you notice that Harmonious Discord called the OP a total moron for asking the original question? 