Interesting viewpoint on rebates... opinions?

[rimshaker]

This thread might end up being locked, but I think it's totally relevant in this forum.

Does it bother anyone to pay full price for something up front, yet wait anywhere between 6-12 weeks for the rebate check? .. if it ever arrives sometimes.

Linky

 

[habib89]

i refuse to believe

 

[GRIFFIN1]

People that don't link bother me.

and the main thing that I hate about rebates is that I have to pay the full sales tax.

 

[Slogun]

Originally posted by: GRIFFIN1
People that don't link bother me.

haha, true.

For me, rebates are better than full price.

If you don't like rebates, then don't buy the item.

I don't mind waiting if it all washes out in the end.

I buy upwards of $2000 on my credit card each month. I get to pay for most of the stuff I buy 30 days later and since I pay in full each month I pay NO interest, ever.

So rebates work just fine for me. An outright sale is even beter though, of course

 

[xerocool]

the worst is when the rebate never comes. i mailed 2x $100 rebates for hyundai lcd monitors i got from frys and i never got the money back. this normally would've bothered me but i was reimbursed for the money because i had bought them for my workplace. does anyone know what to do? i mean, they say make photocopies and whatnot, but should i also get some sort of reciept verification? what do you guys do?:brokenheart:

 

[vegetation]

Originally posted by: xerocool
the worst is when the rebate never comes. i mailed 2x $100 rebates for hyundai lcd monitors i got from frys and i never got the money back. this normally would've bothered me but i was reimbursed for the money because i had bought them for my workplace. does anyone know what to do? i mean, they say make photocopies and whatnot, but should i also get some sort of reciept verification? what do you guys do?:brokenheart:

That's not the worst case. The worst is when they shoot you down for some bogus reason, like the UPC is invalid, didn't include the receipt, or some other lame reason. In this case it's quite obvious they received your rebate form but just lied about what was in it.

 

[chynkboi]

rebates on the other hand let you use coupons to make deals... so there is a good side

 

[quincy2002]

If you're willing to spend the time, then rebates area good deal. Everybody has a threshold on how many hoops they're gonna jump through to get a good deal. Sure, everyone would love cheap sale prices without rebates, but that doesn't happen much.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: rimshaker
This thread might end up being locked, but I think it's totally relevant in this forum.

Does it bother anyone to pay full price for something up front, yet wait anywhere between 6-12 weeks for the rebate check? .. if it ever arrives sometimes.

http://www.emulators.com/secrets.htm#Rebates_are_not_sales!

"Free after rebate" deals, on reasonably expensive consumer-electronics items, are outright scams, IMHO. In those cases, at least, the company actually calculates ahead of time that they will not have to honor 100% of the rebate claims. If they start to find that they are getting more rebate requests than they calculated they would have to honor, then they start strategically denying them for bogus reasons. Therefore, the original rebate offer was outright fraudulent in the first place. Sure, *some* people may recieve their rebate properly, but then again, so do people in pyramid scams. Those are illegal too, for a reason. "Free after rebate" should also be illegal, for the same reason, IMHO.

Look up the examples on the ftc.gov web site, about Okie Corp./Prime Peripherals, and others, such as Cendyne. The people running these scams, are really just akin to pump-n-dump stock scandals, except they get 3rd-party OEM mfgs and retail stores to foot the bill for them, while they bail with their golden parachute plans, when the "jig is up".

You know it's true.

Btw, I can't get to the linked article, sorry.

 

[Slogun]

Well the link works fine.

I've never not-gotten a requested rebate.

 

[rimshaker]

Originally posted by: Slogun
I've never not-gotten a requested rebate.

Wait till you log in a couple thousand dollars worth of rebates... you're bound to lose at least a couple here and there.

 

[nutxo]

I lost a 50 dollar rebate because a store substitued once, the store said it was valid, the rebate place said it was valid, it came back refused and when I called they said it didnt matter, it was to late to resubmit anyways.

Many rebates are a scam, like good guys who quite often would be full retail AFTER the rebate. I dont trust em.

my 2cents

 

[Steven the Leech]

I stay away from rebates. I usually add in the fact that the rebate will not come and thus makes the item too expensive, I usually do a low price search. I have not received many rebates, I sent off, and get pissed just thinking about it!

 

[Ionizer86]

I believe without rebates, stuff would be much more expensive. Rebates make you pay what I consider "usual" price and give you a chance to get my $ back.

For example, why buy a 120GB Seagate drive from Newegg for $120 if I can buy it for $120 at Compusa and have a $60 rebate for me to fill out? (My numbers may be a bit off, but the point is there).

Personally, I know they're a lot of work, but otherwise, the only usual way to get stuff that cheap is if something is on clearance. And yes, I get about 90% of my rebate $ back.

 

[Noirish]

they are counting on some people don't send rebate or they reject you on the smallest detail.

 

[InfiniteSadness]

Am I the only one who found this article horrible? Exactly what point is he trying to make? That he doesnt like rebates? If he wants to talk about "frauds" and "scams", then talk about the companies that don't honor rebates. You'd have to be really living under a rock to find store using rebates as "news." There are so many obvious false, biased info in this I won't even get into it. I will however keep in mind his particular disdain for bestbuy's long line and the body odor that accompanies it and fry's *gasp* fluctuating sale prices.

 

[Slogun]

Originally posted by: orangel
they are counting on some people don't send rebate or they reject you on the smallest detail.

Never been rejected thus far, but yes, the fact that they count on a lot of people not sending them in makes it work fine for the rest of us that do.

Same with buyer protection plans. With the thousands I've saved with never buying them, I can buy a completely new washer/refrigerator/printer/etc when the rare one goes bad after the warranty expires. The stores make money on the multitudes of people who buy the warranties and never use them.

The stores are in it to make profits, they make a litttle less profit on those of us who are shrewd.

Am I the only one who found this article horrible?

Yea, the article was very one-sided and biased.

 

[rimshaker]

I sorta don't understand his utllimate argument against rebates either.... i mean, for example, no way in hell some BM store is gonna offer a decent laptop for $500 out the door. Like that Toshiba at BB. I dunno, maybe i've just gotten used to the idea of rebates after all these years of doing them.

 

[Salvador]

Whenever I look at a deal, I look at what is involved as far as rebates. If the deal is pretty decent before rebates and excellent after rebates, I'll bite, but if the deal relies too heavily on MIR's, I most likely pass.

Sal

 

[Bob151]

blah, blah, blah.....

Rebates are great sales promotion tools and accounting tools. They know that a certain percentage of their buyers will forget or incorrectly submit a rebate that can be disqualified. That is extra money to the manufacturer (or rebate origonator).

Additionally, they are great tools to "hide" income as I understand, though I'm not a CPA. I understand that the rebate origonators have to withhold funds from income to cover the expense of rebate reimbursment and processing fees. The longer Niagra Falls, or whomever, takes to submit a bill to the rebate origonator, the longer that rebate origonator can have an expense on the books and cash on hand. A nice way to smooth out the peaks of good years and bump them to a following year.

The adds from major retailers (Staples, CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot, Office Max, etc....) identify if rebates are involved. If you don't like'em, don't buy'em.

 

[Devistater]

If you dont get your rebates, you check the copies of all the stuff you sent in (you did make copies like the fine print on the rebates says you should right?), then call them and get them to send it. Even if they are picky, if you bug them they usually send it. As for cendyne, they went out of freaking business. Yet staples still honored the rebates for the cd drives that I bought, they sent a little card saying that even though they were not obligated to do so, they were paying cendynes rebates, and I got a check from them.

What I do (thanks to a suggestion from one of the other guys here) is make up a separate envelope for each group of rebates, put on the outside how much and what company/product and a date when I should call them if I haven't gotten the rebate and put all the copies of stuff inside. Keeps things organized.

If you are a rebate hater, fine. You can pass up stuff like the 200 gig 8 meg cache hard drives for $99, no problem for me. Leaves me more chance to buy the really good deals. And there are good deals for you if you are a rebate hater. For instance if you dont want to get the $20 (after rebates) 52x Burner Lite On drives, newegg has them for under $40 shipped, retail package.

To each his own, if you are a rebate hater, more power to you.

As for the article, its kinda whacked. There are laws in some states requiring stores to state rebate amounts in all the ads and showing actual walk out the door price. And mostly companies comply with this in thier advertising (in general the advertising for the big chains is same across country, easier to make all the advertising have the rebate prices instead of separate ones for each state), so I dont understand what all his talk of fraudulent advertising.

 

[kof]

I love rebates - that's why I'm at AT.
I research the prices
I never pay up front more than what would be a similar "great price" elsewhere
Usually I am not paying tax
I don't USUALLY buy what I don't need
Notable exceptions are often due to double rebates. I've gotten a free scanner a 120Mb Hd for $10, this year.
There are undoubtedly three or four other consumers who are "financing" my purchases by paying inflated prices, not sending rebates in properly, etc. But that's their problem.

 

[Pingping]

The article is one-sided -- only speaks about the negatives.

Rebates are a hassle, and you need a lot of time and patience to get them. Everybody knows that, so you get what you expect.

 

[RMSistight]

Rebates are always a risk. I've done a lot of my own hw and research and have never been duped except for one rebate that ..well...two rebates.

1. That damn Soyo $35 rebate for the CigarPro that never came in. I even have copies of it but they still state it was an invalid UPC code when the rebate receipt and the UPC digits clearly matched.

2. Fry's Storix 64MB rebate for $35 also. I've been waiting since April and still no word.