Comments on: Ban mail-in rebates

By: Ted Landau’s User Friendly Blog » Blog Archive » ScanSnap S300M: The magic continues

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:59:27 +0000

[...] Ted Landau’s User Friendly Blog « Ban mail-in rebates [...]

By: joeschmeaux

joeschmeaux — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:26:10 +0000

I have mixed feelings about rebates. Certainly, there should be regulations about accountability. They shouldn’t be able to deny rebates unreasonably. However, I think rebates can be a good thing.
The fact that a certain percentage of people won’t follow through is what allows rebates to be big. When CompUSA was around (as a big box retailer), they had the most amazing rebates. I got many items (hard drives, bluetooth headsets, keyboard and mouse, UPSs, etc) for next to nothing, or in a few cases, free except for tax. Indeed, I checked the weekly ad diligently.
Rebates allow smaller retailers to appear to be more competitive (as the manufacturer’s rebates are usually available to all retailers, but not all consumers consider this), and they allow lower income people like me to be able to afford things that we wouldn’t be able to otherwise afford. I’ve been fortunate not to have had too much trouble receiving the rebates, but at least among the posters here, I seem to be in the minority.
On the other hand, seeing that many people get screwed by rebates, and that regulation could be difficult and costly, I wouldn’t be opposed to outlawing rebates, even if it would result in smaller discounts (because no one could fail to file for his rebate, manufacturers would go broke offering the amazing deals they’ve traditionally offered).
BTW, if I had been denied a rebate because of it being illegible because I had affixed a legible address label to my rebate form, and there was nothing printed in the rules that the form had to be filled out by hand, I would have contacted the appropriate attorney general’s office. Fraud is fraud!

By: kenzoida

kenzoida — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:36:27 +0000

I stay away from MIR like the plague…there’s no rules, vendors make up silly requirements to get you to fail so they can pocket your money. You get screwed with a product you didn’t really want at a much higher price than if you had just forked out an extra buck or two at a competitor’s store.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:41:04 +0000

I have always had good luck with rebates. I cannot recall ever being turned down for one. That being said, though, I won’t buy something I’ll never use even if it’s free after rebate and if the price paid in the store is higher than what I would be willing to pay for that item without the rebate, I still won’t buy it because if the rebate should fail for any reason, I will then have overpaid for it and would have been better off buying a competitors product for less money.

By: Stoney

Stoney — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:50:33 +0000

I once had a rebate denied because I filled out the form with a ballpoint pen. (The fine print said to fill out the form with a pencil.) I am not making this up.

By: Tom Williams

Tom Williams — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:25:06 +0000

I agree with all the comments that I read above, except that one about they were good…
Has anyone tried to find out what happens to the tax dollars that are out of place when this happens. If you do get the rebate, should you get a refund of the extra tax that you paid at the time of purchase. Or heavens forbid that someone pockets taxes that have been overcharged?
In store rebates always give you the “rebate” after taxes, I understood that you should only owe taxes for what money you actually spent…
Makes me wonder if “rebate” has another meaning,Like “being screwed”. Would the goverment allowing this type of questionable issues to exist have anything to do with “TAX” issues. And as far as advertising, I think that they already invade our pivacy beyound what people should allow…
I do not buy anything from telemarketers, etc.,etc,.etc,…

Tom Williams, From the middle of Texas

By: gopher

gopher — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:57:05 +0000

I’ve even gone as far as not to get bonuscards from grocery stores and pharmacies. If it really was that cheap:

1. They wouldn’t waste your time trying to give you one. Time is money.

2. They would always offer it at that price.
3. They would not need any personal information, you could just get a card based on name and nothing else. Giving away personal information is tantamount to saying, phish me, and steal my identity. No thanks. The spam is not worth it. It wastes paper. It fills the mailbox. It fills your trash bin. It hides your bills. It wastes your time in trying to sort the bills, personal mail, and actual rebates. It is one more thing to trash the moment you receive mail. No thanks!

By: -hh

-hh — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:36:14 +0000

Here’s a quick follow-up to what I just referred to above:

Original at:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.digital.slr-systems/msg/14e40e929f808bb7?dmode=source

“…TCA Fulfillment stands behind these rates. If you are using another fulfillment company, add 20% to these redemption rates.”

Rebate Award
$5 $10 $15 $20 $25 $30 $40 $50

Retail Product Price

——————————————————————————–

$5 15% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
$10 20% 30% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
$15 20% 25% 35% N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
$20 20% 30% 30% 35% N/A N/A N/A N/A
$25 20% 30% 30% 30% 40% N/A N/A N/A
$30 15% 25% 30% 30% 35% 50% N/A N/A
$40 15% 25% 25% 30% 35% 45% 40% N/A
$50 15% 20% 25% 25% 35% 40% 40% 50%
$75 N/A 20% 20% 25% 30% 40% 40% 50%
$100 N/A 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 30% 45%
$150 N/A N/A N/A 15% 20% 25% 25% 40%
$200 N/A N/A N/A 10% 15% 20% 25% 35%

“Compiled from rebate redemptions during the period of 7/1/98 - 6/30/99 based on sales of consumer electronics in retail stores…”

[/QUOTE]

The way to read the above chart is that the rebate value is the X axis, the product price is the Y axis, and the percentage value listed is the rate at which the rebate gets paid. For example, a $40 rebate on a $50 product only gets paid 40% of the time.

-hh

By: -hh

-hh — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:31:15 +0000

I loathe rebates, but do occasionally do buy a product with one.

What some posters in these rebate discussions don’t realize is even if they personally are very good at faithfully tracking their paperwork and get 100% success, the reason why rebates exist is because other people DO NOT.

The reason why rebates exist is specifically because the redemption rates are so low…typically below 50%, according to some “rebate service providers”.

From a legislative perspective, the way to get rid of rebates is not to outlaw them, but make the company using them have to make a public accounting as to what percentage of their rebate-eligible sales actually result in rebates. Note that this isn’t the percentage of requests, but of sales…this way, if a consumer buys a product and never submits a request, it still counts as a black mark against the brand.

Once there’s a requirement for public accountability reporting, the companies will figure out in short order that the extra sales aren’t worth the bad press that comes from poor redemption rates. From there, things like instant rebates at point of sale will happen, so as to avoid the black eye.

-hh

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:29:41 +0000

Ban mail in rebates? Just what the world needs, more laws…
You posted the solution early in your article:
“Don’t buy anything based on mail in rebates.”
Add to that, “Tell stores why you won’t buy from them” to put some pressure on them to stop the practice.