Honest mistake, or did they try to juke me?

[Spirochete]

I recently bought something from Office Max on a rebate. I jumped through all the hoops collecting and mailing all the required materials, only to see that my rebate had been disqualified due to "missing UPC sticker". I sent them the following e-mail:


My rebate status claims no UPC sticker, but I did send one. It may have been easy to miss, since it was stapled to the receipt and application. Do you people ever voluntarily honor any of your rebates, or do you just invalidate them automatically, hoping nobody complains? A company that won't honor their rebates is not one I wish to do any further business with, nor recommend to anyone else.
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They sent me back the following:



Thank you for your rebate inquiry. You are a valued officemax customer. We investigated your case and we are pleased to inform you that we have updated your record. Your rebate submission is now valid. The rebate check should be mailed in the next 4-6 weeks. We apologize for any
prior inconvenience.

We appreciate your participation in this promotion. If there is anything else we can do to assist you, please contact us at [e-mail]. We are always happy to help.

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Why do I get the feeling they do this a lot, keeping the rebates of all who don't call them on it?

[fishnfla]

1. your hunch is correct

the consumer advocate guy in the Orlando Sentianl has reams of complaints about OM and their rebates, its kind of a running joke

[Deja Q]

2. Maxtor did the same thing for me... and given the AMOUNT of their promo,

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS,
it's obvious they were cheatin'.

[skygazer]

3. Rebates suck

And I agree with you - the hope of the company is that most people won't pursue them. As a matter of fact, I bet a lot of people don't even bother sending them in and then when they do, they either forget about them or don't get aggressive enough when they're hosed.

My last rebate purchase was my monitor for which I was due a $50 rebate. It took me over 8 months and a series of emails, faxes and phone calls to get it but I finally did. I doubt many people are willing (or stubborn enough) to do that.

[KaliTracy]

6. sounds like when I was fighting with an insurance company. I can't

tell you how many times I was "transferred" to another person and then disconnected...

[skygazer]

8. I am extremely stubborn

Especially when I know I'm right (and I'm ALWAYS right :) ). Seriously, I will not give up when I feel like I'm being taken advantage of and I WILL get satisfaction!

I went through the insurance company thing once too. Very frustrating. But I prevailed in the end. :headbang:

[KaliTracy]

9. Good for you!! I'm stubborn too -- on the day I had Enough, I was

ready to drive up to their headquarters in Columbus (I was at work in the Dayton area) -- they did give me a supervisor...(at that point I was just trying to get the Insurance company and the Drs office to talk -- they were playing phone tag for 4 weeks) we were denied -- but I DID win my appeal!

this was for my infant son, though -- so I was a mama with a mission.

[brainshrub]

4. Rebates are a scam.

You'll get your money. Only a small fraction of customers bother writing letters like you did.

When I see a rebate, I tell the store manager I will NOT be buying that item. An item with a rebate means you can find the same product online for far less money and paperwork.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. Exactly

Consumers need to say no to the silly rebate game. In fact, consumers need to say no to any business practice they find objectionable. If enough of us do, the practice will go away.

[Left Is Write]

10. I hate rebates.

If you can offer the item for the rebated price, just do it. Don't make me collect a bunch of papers and forms to mail in to get to the rebated price.

[Bunny]

5. The same thing happened to me with Norton anti-virus that I bought

through Staples. I jumped gracefully through all the hoops, cleverly making copies of everything before I sent the rebate in. Sure enough, they e-mailed me to tell me that I didn't complete all the steps, and therefore my rebate was denied.

Au contraire, I replied. I sent them copies of their own instructions, clearly stating that only one of the two possible Proofs of Purchase need be submitted. I complained that this smelled funny to me, that I jumped every hoop, and if they thought I was just going to give up they'd better think again! We were talking about a $30.00 rebate here!

Sure enough, I then received the contrite e-mail, confirming that I had in fact successfully completed the rebate requirements, and my check would soon arrive. And it did, in about 2-3 weeks.

I think they try this with a lot of people, expecting that at least some of them will not pursue it any further.

[Enraged_Ape]

11. I've never had a problem with CompUSA's rebates...

but, yeah, it is a tremendous pain in the neck to assemble all of that paperwork. You almost feel like you need an attorney at your elbow to make sure that you don't get the short end.

[necso]

12. I think that it is getting worse.

(And this is a deliberate strategy employed by big businesses, I would guess.)

A few years back, I received nearly 100% of my rebates (back in the the internet boom days). Then I would miss one here or there. And then I started to have to fight some rebates. And now I am maybe doing 60% (and got screwed on two out of the last three bigger ones).

And while they used to (sometimes, at least) send you a card when you were denied, now a lot of stuff is done online -- with a calendar window. So after waiting to check on the status of a rebate until it is overdue (which can be months), you can find that not only can't you protest the denial, but that all the info is simply gone.

This is a "bean-counter" type of strategy -- show some improvement "on the books" (in this case, maybe only that the relative percentage of rebate-fulfillers drops), no matter what the true cost. And since rebates are part of a trade-off to sell more product (at lower profits per), then not fulfilling rebates is to take advantage of the illusion of a sale, while not really offering the lower price. In short, it is a scam and probably a crime.

But this sort of mentality is fairly pervasive in business. "Product" people don't fill the top ranks anymore. Bean-counters, marketeers, looters, salesmen, big-names and other characters of generally parasitic nature do.

[lpbk2713]

13. I was screwed by Western Digital on one of their bogus rebates.

A few weeks after I sent in the required documentation they sent me a post card saying that I had sent in my paperwork too late. Hell of it is, the postmark on the post card they sent me to tell me I was too late was even dated before the expiration date of the rebate offer.

Obviously Western Digital does not care anything about a customer's repeat business. I'll never buy any of their products again.