That’s pretty bad. Businesses all-around are pushing off payments as long as possible, even in business-to-business contracts. And if a government agency is involved anywhere in the chain, expect the time to double.
Thank you for your correspondence regarding when I may expect to receive my rebate. Since in your advertising you said [insert appropriate quotation here], I must advise you that this delay is unacceptable. When you send it, please include interest at the rate of 1.5% per month on the unpaid balance, compounded daily until the date you cut the rebate check; I will assume any loss of interest while the check is being delivered, presuming you send it by first class or priority mail. Thank you for your consideration.
This past November I submitted a rebate request for a motherboard I’d bought. In the first week of April, the status website at last reported that it had been processed and mailed; I could expect to receive it within three weeks. I was curious to know from what part of the country it takes a mailed letter up to three weeks to arrive at my city, but nonetheless— the deadline came and went without my receiving anything.
I called the customer service number, steeling for a runaround, and was frankly shocked when I a) got through to an actual person b) after only a couple of minutes hold time, and she was c) a native speaker of English who was d) quite friendly and e) said she they would mail out another check immediately. Thus giving me no chance to vent my pent-up aggression, so I kicked a dog instead.
A couple of days later, I received two checks with sequential check numbers. After a brief moral struggle, I called and talked to the same friendly woman, who said it was “really weird” and asked me to destroy one of the checks. Which I did, after making sure the other one cleared the bank. And that, my friends, is the end of the story.
Later I’ll tell it again, but from the dog’s point of view.
It just makes good business sense. In 14 weeks, you will have forgotten all about it. If not, by the time you deal with the hassle you will have missed some crucial deadline and no longer be eligible for it.
Many people never mail in for the rebate but it allows them to claim a lower price. I just got a rebate after about 2 months , I had given up hope on getting it.
That’s the problem with you liberal Xtians, 'Carp. You don’t understand that some problems require a more dwarvish solution, by which I mean a solution involving an axe being buried in the offender’s skull.
I’m kind of curious to hear his version. I’m imagining something like “Arf arf arf. Ouch! Arf arf.”, but funnier.
Re: the OP, I’ve found that companies employ the ‘under promise, over deliver’ credo when it comes to rebates. They usually wait long enough that I have pretty much forgotten about it, but then it arrives and checking the calendar I see that it was only a few weeks, much less than what they promised. I figure they account for every possible delay, vacation, system crash, terrorist attack and force majeure, to avoid being sued by some nutcase when they promised a two-week turnaround but it took 2 weeks and 3 days.
What?!! You want a mail-in-rebate turn around time of less than a month?
Why, if we had that then eveybody would start using them! And from a business perspective that just ain’t profitable to the bottom line.
My favorite is a place around here that sells bags of top soil. They’re $1.29 after a 60 cent mail-in rebate. I mean, I know people buy a bunch of them, but it boggles my mind wondering how many rebate forms I would have to fill out, or if they would let me fill out just one…
Instead i went to ACO hardware and got them for $1.33 on sale. The 4 cents wasn’t worth the rebate hassle.
It’s actually good that rebates are such a hassle. If they were simple and everyone did them properly, companies would not find them as lucrative. As it is, the companies know they’ll have a large percentage of people who will never do the rebate. Thus the company can offer fantastic rebates knowing they’ll never have to pay all of it out.
So it’s good for you since you are the type who fills out the form and makes sure you get the rebate. All the lazy folks who never send it in, don’t fill out the forms properly, and never follow up subsidize your rebate.
This is why I advocate pyramid schemes and mugging little old ladies for the companies I do business with - the extra profit generated by these activities helps them keep prices lower for the legitimate side of the business.
I wonder if the 10-14 week window isn’t so that they can’t push any rebates that are redeemed off into the next quarter. So they have a rebate offer and sell a bunch of product and get to record the full price on their books until the next quarter, when they take a hit on all the redeemed rebates.
I think that mail-in rebates should be outlawed, or at least very strictly regulated. A gas card is useless to someone who doesn’t own a car, for instance. If the gift card is only redeemable at X-Mart, and there’s no X-Mart within a reasonable distance of the consumer, then it’s worthless. And what if the consumer just plain doesn’t like X-Mart in general, or the local X-Mart in particular?
IF we allow mail-in rebates at all, then they should have the following laws applied to them[ul]
[li]The rebate must take no longer than ten business days to get into the customer’s hands. Yep, that’s about two weeks. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days for the form and check to go through the mail, each way.[/li][li]The rebate must be in the form of a check or money order, or (if a debit card) it must be usable at any place that takes debit or credit cards. It cannot be restricted to one chain of stores, for instance.[/li][li]The customer must have the option to receive a lower rebate at the register, something like 50% to 75% of the rebate. If the mail-in rebate is one dollar, then the customer should be allowed to choose an immediate rebate at a lower rate, so the applied rebate would be 50 or 75 cents. This would allow the customer to choose whether he’d like some savings now, or more savings later. It would also prevent a lot of non-fulfilled rebates.[/li][li]The rebate form should not require anything more than the customer’s name, address, and what item was purchased. Every marketing question must go on a separate form (household income, who the item was purchased for, etc.). Customer phone numbers may not be asked for. WORKING company customer care phone numbers must be printed on the warantee.[/li][/ul]
I’ve sent in my share of rebate forms, and the hoops I’ve had to jump through are ridiculous. Now, I won’t consider the rebate price when making my buying decision. I’ll still send in forms, if I do buy an item with a rebate, but I certainly don’t hold any hopes of actually getting the rebate fulfilled.
The reason rebates came into being is because we had price floors on merchandise. We no longer have price floors, and we should do away with rebates.
