After purchasing my last piece of computer hardware, which offered a rebate, I firmly decided to never go through that hassle again. The entire point of the rebate is to save the manufacturer money, not you. Rather than lowering the price, which guarantees everyone wins, they offer a rebate fully realizing that a significant portion of buyers will either neglect to send it in, or worse yet, will be denied due to some asinine detail in the fine print, such as what happened to me. That is why I am buying my new Ethernet switch from mwave.com rather than newegg. Find out the dirty details by reading further.

My last rebate was denied because my address on the rebate application was a P.O. Box. Furthermore, I had to send in the barcode and receipt from the drive I purchased. When the drive failed two weeks later, I had a great deal of difficulty getting it exchanged without having a receipt, and having destroyed the packaging. The rebate required the barcode be cut from the box and mailed in also.

On the rebate form, a 12-digit serial number was required. Nowhere on the product or the package could I find a 12-digit serial number. The closest match was an alphanumeric code of 9 characters and the product model, which was three letters followed by three numbers. When attempting to fill out the form, below the red print warning “complete all required information or your rebate may be denied” I struggled with their nonsense.

Did they make it as difficult as possible? Did they include a good deal of fine print so they would have plenty of excuses to deny the rebate? One can only speculate, but the evidence supports the gut feeling, a rebate is a real pain in the rear.

Here’s why manufacturers offer mail-in rebates instead of instant rebates or lowering the price:

1) They know a certain percentage of the rebates will go unclaimed.
2) They know a certain percentage of the rebates can be denied due to some technical detail, i.e.: the fine print.
3) They are able to collect statistical information from the returned forms, thus saving them further money in acquisition of that information on their buyers.
4) They build a direct marketing database from the information you provide, so get ready for some junk mail or spam!

Manufactures and retailers most frequently use third party companies to handle the rebate process. When contacted directly in regards to a problem, the retailer or hardware manufacture offers the excuse, “but the rebates are handled by another company.”

In the past I have successfully received rebates from products purchased by manufactures such as Plextor, Enlight, Compaq, and a few others. In other cases, I had to follow up and “remind” the rebate company to fulfill their obligation. And finally, in the case with a few of the rebate fiascos I ended up short changing myself by losing my valuable time and receiving nothing, even after following up. There’s really not much you can do when your rebate is denied. What are you going to do, hire an expensive attorney? The Better Business Bureau is ineffectual, so forget that route.

A firm policy has been set forth, no more rebate headaches! If I see a product, which is sold with a mail-in rebate offer, I simply won’t buy that product from that distributor. Yes, even if the product is a good deal without sending in the rebate, I will still avoid the purchase. This pretty much eliminates most of the products sold at Best Buy (a store I like to call Worst Buy).

Instant rebates are fine. However, if the product is being sold with a mail-in rebate, then pass it by. Always pass it by. Send a clear message to the vendors, and the manufactures. You are on to them. You know their mail-in rebate “savings” is actually a scam to save them money, not you. If they see a trend develop, then the mail-in rebate rip-off trend will start to lose traction. Consumers must be wise, and use the power of the purchase to send a clear message, “hell no to the mail-in rebate.”

Here is a good example:

I needed to purchase a 16-port Ethernet switch today. I go to my usual first stop, newegg.com. Alas, I see a switch I know well, and know to be reliable. It is the trusty and fair priced D-Link DSS-16.

Stop! Too bad newegg.com is selling it with a $10.00 mail-in rebate. The item at newegg.com is $59.99, and will be $44.99 after the mail-in rebate, so they claim. In all actuality, after adding my time filling out the asinine form, postage, and then the hassle following up, the switch becomes very expensive indeed. Rather than just ignoring the rebate offer I decide to browse to another online hardware seller, mwave.com, which is quickly becoming my new favorite first stop for hardware.

Well, look here; mwave has the exact same D-Link switch, without the mail-in rebate, and for less money.

Compare:

newegg.com, D-Link DSS16+ price:
$54.99 and after rebate: $44.99

mwave.com, D-Link DSS16+ price:
$44.84

Prices as of May 24, 2006.

In this case I was able to get the exact same switch, for less money, and completely avoid the rebate hassle! However, even if it had been a few dollars more, that money is less than time and hassle I could potentially have to invest in a rebate. Furthermore, I think that $10.00 is pretty cheap for my information which will go to advertisers just drooling to kill some trees and send me a bunch of junk mail.

Ask yourself, what is your time worth?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.