Mail-In Rebates: A Scam

do you guys have much success with mail in rebates?

I never seem to.

I buy the item for $X less the ticket price (because I believe the store when they tell me that there is a mail-in rebate which I will receive $X off the ticket price).

I take it home, open it up, cut out the UPC code thing and then mail it in.

Months later I receive nothing.

I started photocopying my UPC codes and keeping track of these companies. I started calling the companies who claim to send me $$$ for the mail-in rebate and the answer is always the same:

"We didnt recieve your mail-in rebate".

Wtf?

And when you try to resend it in they say they will only accept the original UPC code.

So you are screwed either way.

Isn't that a scam?

Do any of you have a similar problem with mail-in rebates?

 

I've never received a rebate.

Rebates are like cockteasers. They promise you something really good, get you excited, and then never deliver so you have to end up getting with their friend.

 

I usually get them when I mail them in. My problem is I often don't get around to mailing them in.

 

rebates are shit for me, I don't buy things where there are mail rebates, occasionally i do and give the rebate to my girlfriend if she remembers to mail it in.

They know people forget to mail them in, they do studies on it and come up with some average which the can afford to offer as "rebate" knowing exactly how many people will forget.

Sometiems you mail it in and it doesn't make whatever, made up deadline they come up with or it needs like a special recipt, the bar code, etc

 

I've had good luck with them, the few times I've remembered to send it in.

 

I generally have stopped buying from stores that heavily rely on rebate promotions (CompUSA). Fuck them all!

 

When I was younger I worked at a rebate fulfillment center entering the forms into the computer.

If you send what you're supposed to send, you get the rebate. If you're too stupid to follow directions, you don't get anything. And yes, they purposely make the directions hard to follow because they know people are lazy

 

I bought an 80 gig hard drive last year on sale for $80 from compusa. They had 2 rebates for a total of $55.00. Sent em in, got my rebate check, the hard drive was $25.00

 

I tried to get a rebate once....and got the check.

 

I dont even know what rebate is, therefore never used it.

 

I bought a $300 cell phone that had a $150 rebate from SPRINT. Yeah, I never received it.

Assholes!

 

You buy a computer from me. I say you can get money (rebate) back if you send a form/proof of perchis to the company after buying the product. You send to the company, and they give you money, ie a check, knocking the price of the porduct down even more.

 

Oh right, good marketing. Surely they take the rebate into consideration when setting the price so you can buy the same product cheaper somewhere else.

Thanks for the explanation.