[MadDog]

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba How is this not fraud? It's like printing free money, most people won't return the rebates and of thsoe that do you can likely reject the majority of them, but you stil get the extra advertising power of a cheap price.

I totally agree. I stop buying the product just because it appears cheaper with rebate. In fact, I will avoid the merchandise with rebate because it's most likely a fraudulent marketing act.

 

[vwap]

For those of you whining and complaining about the length of wait, the ghetto process and rules, there's a reason the manufacturers (and retailers) make it so hard to get a rebate in the first place: They don't want to pay it out.

Why isn't it just an instant rebate? Because they're betting on people forgetting to submit the rebate or not complying with all the terms of the rebate. There are also a lot of people (and corporations) with a higher value of time than to bother with
"petty" rebates. This way, the manufacturers/retailers get the full price, and only have to pay out a smaller amount in rebates, than if an instant rebate was in place. An instant rebate they'd have to pay to everyone.

Essentially, this is price discrimination. While there's no way to find out an individual's willingness to pay for any given item, what the manufacturer/retailer CAN do is implement this mail-in-rebate scheme. The more difficult it is to obtain, the fewer people will do it. If a person's value of time outweighs the value of the rebate, they won't do it. If someone was only willing to pay the after-rebate price, then they'd do it.

It's all about the bottom line...

 

[Earwax]

Quote:

Originally posted by fredpb I also have been ripped by "rebates". I don't buy anything based upon rebate savings.

Me too.


[ oops, I think I just joined Team Useless Poster - Oh, well ]

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by Earwax [ oops, I think I just joined Team Useless Poster - Oh, well ]

E-mail me for more information on the member dues

 

[myself, aka me]

Do these member dues have a mail in rebate?

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by myself, aka me Do these member dues have a mail in rebate?

Well, as long as you submit the proper information with the original rebate form, there is a $25 rebate, bringing your annual membership dues to $5 for the first year. If a rebate form wasn't included with the membership package, please e-mail me through the boards with the following information, and I can get your rebate processed:

Full name
Birthdate
Date of acceptance into T.U.P.
Member number
Social Security/Tax ID number
Home phone number
Home mailing address (no PO boxes)

In addition, I will also need a credit card number to process the membership fee. VISA, Mastercard, AMEX, and Discover are accepted.

Thanks!

 

[wallijonn]

Mcafee Virus Scan 8.0. $30 rebate, $20 rebate. Bought at Fry's. They give you 15 days to submit rebates. Forms say that you can send both rebates to one address (must supply an original CD of a former product). All forms, original CD (GuardDog Firewall) and receipt copies were submitted. Just how are you going to supply two UPCs? Why, just include a copy with the original in the same envelope.

Too bad McAfee can't follow their own rules. I expect that they'll screw me out of the other $30. I received their nice little postcard saying that the $20 rebate can't be honoured because the original UPC wasn't submitted.

I will not be paying $40 for a renewal. I have been using McAfee since version 3, and presently have Version 6 on my WXP machine. Their Version 8.0 uses auto updating / notification. So you never know if you're up to date. Ever have to get an update by supplying a password? Guess if you change your email or forget your password you won't get updates. You had better save the original email notification if you download from internet.

I just hope that there are some better anti-virus companies out there in a year. And no, I won't be going Norton either. I think McAfee owns Norton Anti-Virus.

Time to file a complaint.

 

[Edwood]

Make a photocopy of your receipts and rebate form. Mail certified if it is an expensive rebate.


I just got a $100 rebate check back from Costco. Took about a month and a half.

That's pretty fast as far as rebates go.....

-Ed

 

[Jeff Guidry]

Would you have bought this item if the rebate had not been offered? If not, it's probably not something you really needed.

You always have the option of buying your desired item from someone not offering a rebate.

Clearly rebates are not much more than a marketing gimmick. Now that you know, don't bother buying anything offering a rebate.

I have gotten all rebates I have ever sent in returned. The most recent is about $60 from buying 4 Monroe struts.

 

[daveman_84]

I have almost always gotten the rebates back, but, I don't trust it if it makes or breaks the deal. If it's a big rebate, I'm not going to base my purchase on that.

 

[averydonovan]

I have only sent in one rebate, and that was a $100 rebate on my Motorola V60c Verizon phone a year and a half ago from RadioShack. I did get it eventually, about 2 1/2 months later. But I didn't buy the phone because of the rebate and I was amazed that I actually got it. I have never bought a single product because of a mail-in-rebate since I know they are just a way to legally be able to advertise a lower price than the item actually costs. I think it should be made illegal to advertise the price after mail-in rebate for any product since given the way most companies handle mail-in rebates most consumers can never expect to see their rebate come back, which basically makes the advertised price fraudulent.

 

[tyrion]

I can't stand rebates. I generally try not to figure in the rebate into the cost of an item. The manufacturers punish you for trying to redeem a rebate. Having said that, I have successfully collected rebates in the past. Probably close to 50% of the time. When I have been unsuccessful, the reasons varied. Sometimes I simply didn't get it out in time. No one to blame but myself on those occasions. Other times I simply never recieved the rebate and found it too difficult to find out why.

 

[EightyEight]

I got my money everytime i sent out rebate forms...it usually appears at your mail box when you completely forgot about it...like 4 months late...

 

[wallijonn]

Well, when you spend many hours helping people getting rid of worms, and you get errant emails saying that you have a virus / worm / trojan, and seeing as version 6 didn't advertise as isolating you from worms, it was a calculated risk. This is one reason why I went with fastmail.us; they scan the mail for viruses, worms and trojans. So in that case, yes, it was mandatory. I thought that it was strange that I was using their online / web compose function and getting virus warnings; but I was also attaching MSWord attachments, and even though my McAfee antivirus didn't find anything, I figured that it might be a worm. So I bit.

If I do not get the $30 rebate I will be requesting that my original Guard Dog CD be returned. Wanna bet that that ain't gonna happen?

BTW, if you use Yahoo mail, (or sign into EBay for that matter) always use the secure login feature.

 

[petery83]

I've been pretty successful with rebates from Memorex, Maxtor, and Logitech, but about a month ago, I got screwed out of a $50 rebate by Western Digital for a hard drive (which also happened to fail a few days ago)...too bad I didn't photocopy or scan it, since I was in a hurry to get it to the post office (it was the last day to postmark it).