Bob (but not THAT Bob) wrote:
RichA wrote:

John wrote:
I know that the institution of rebates is meant to rip you off so I'm
quite anal about paying attention to the details and ALWAYS sending in
the rebate with delivery confirmation. The delivery confirmation at
least minimizes the "Sorry, we never received your rebate" or "Sorry, we
didn't receive your rebate in time" excuses.

I read the rebate forms several times looking for the "gotcha's". I know
I go through way more trouble than I should for $20-$50 but it's the
principle. They make it as annoying as possible to claim a rebate so
that most people won't bother. I'm the one that bothers.

I send in my rebate to Canon along with all the rebate form, purchase
receipt and I cut out the UPC code from the box and put that in the
envelope. My new tactic is to use wide tape and tape the UPC code to
the rebate form.

I checked on my rebate status just now.

Error(s): An original qualifying UPC was not included

Yep. No matter how hard I tried, Canon still managed to screw me over.

Since they want "an original" qualifying UPC", my copy won't suffice.

Canon, the next time I'm in the market for a product I'll remember this
incident.

Mail-in rebates are always a scam. Why do they do them? Because
people buy based on this.
50-80% never claim them.
Rebates take 8-12 weeks and often are never delivered, another 50%
forget about them.
They force you to call someone to fix the problem or ask where your
rebate is 16 weeks past due delivery time.
At the end of it all, according to various business studies, only 3% of
rebates are ever paid out. So, they can boost sales with what might
amount to a 0.5% overall discount paid.
It is business genius.

I get every damn rebate I file, so I'm saving money at the expense of
illiterates/incompetents - so what?

No problem, I'm just pointing out the differences between mail-in
rebates and instant rebates.
Having automatic computer verification of rebates at the time of sale
would increase payouts massively, but the companies don't want that at
all. Meanwhile, there is also the chance with instant rebates your
name and other information wouldn't be sold to a 1000 different
databases months afterward....