Newsweek article about rebates

[Bacinator]

Thanks for article link, exit88.

 

[SilverEdge]

Excellent article...certainly explains why the rebate phenomenon is becoming much more prevalent.

 

[rasputinj]

Excellent article, I just sent my infomation last week off to Attorney Natalie Finkelman Bennett , about trying to get the rest of my 8250 rebate from last November.

 

[Athena]

«How to explain Office Max and similar retailers offering "double" rebates, both manufacturers and their own. Nothing else than an attempt to torture you into giving up filling all the papers or to make a mistake with UPC.»

FWIW, the second rebate is generally funded by the manufacturer too as an inducement to the chain to buy more. They are much like coopertive ad programs where the manufacturer pays for newspaper ads that include its product

 

[dakels]

What kills me is the one rebate per household... WTH is that? Why should I be limited to buying only one product? Don't you want me to buy as much of your stuff as possible? I bought 5 Panasonic DVD players at Xmas with a $20 MIR on each. $100 back right? WRONG "One rebate per household" and it was written on the rebate I got AFTER making the purchase already. So basically I decided to be a good loyal consumer and buy 5 of the same product from the same manufacturer and they screw me out of $80. But of course that's the point... $80 went to their bottom line, not mine. Too bad they just screwed themselves out of my lifetimes worth of purchases. And yes maybe it was partly my fault for insisting on seeing the rebate form beforehand, but that still doesn't excuse a shady practice.

BTW I am also still waiting on a $40 rebate from CUSA for a maxtor drive I bought almost 6 months ago. 6-9 weeks my a$$. In most purchases, I'd rather pay $120 flat instead of $150 with $50 rebate. Rebates are teh suck. I must admit though rebates are good for one reason, they drive final costs down below what they would normally sell the product for because they factor in the fact that many people won't get their rebate. A company may not be able to afford selling a drive for $60, but they can afford selling it for $120 with a 60 rebate because after factoring the non payed rebates, they probably made $80-90 per drive average.

 

[rockyct]

Originally posted by: dakels
What kills me is the one rebate per household... WTH is that? Why should I be limited to buying only one product? Don't you want me to buy as much of your stuff as possible? I bought 5 Panasonic DVD players at Xmas with a $20 MIR on each. $100 back right? WRONG "One rebate per household" and it was written on the rebate I got AFTER making the purchase already. So basically I decided to be a good loyal consumer and buy 5 of the same product from the same manufacturer and they screw me out of $80. But of course that's the point... $80 went to their bottom line, not mine. Too bad they just screwed themselves out of my lifetimes worth of purchases. And yes maybe it was partly my fault for insisting on seeing the rebate form beforehand, but that still doesn't excuse a shady practice.

They don't want people going to the store buying all the products with rebates to then later resell them. Items with rebates help get people into the stores, which is a big reason for having rebates. They don't want to run out too fast of the items, so they limit it to one per a person usually. However, they should mention that the deal is 1 per household, which they do sometimes.

 

[MontyBurns]

Plus, the more products you buy, the more likely you probably are to actually send in the rebates. And the whole point of rebates is to have some people not send theirs in.

 

[cyberia]

Originally posted by: razor2025
So, you see THAT's the whole problem with this rebate thing. ...

You people are missing my point. I am not trying to solve any "problems with this rebate thing". I only made a point on how I avoid getting my panties in a twist over nothing. I am making my point again: If a before-rebate price is too high, I will not bother with it. I will only participate in a rebate deal if the deal is decent even without the rebate.

Period. You are welcome to agree or disagree with my point. However, any major "problems with this rebate thing" are beyond the scope of my post.

 

[ValsalvaYourHeartOut]

Originally posted by: rockyct

Originally posted by: dakels
What kills me is the one rebate per household... WTH is that? Why should I be limited to buying only one product? Don't you want me to buy as much of your stuff as possible? I bought 5 Panasonic DVD players at Xmas with a $20 MIR on each. $100 back right? WRONG "One rebate per household" and it was written on the rebate I got AFTER making the purchase already. So basically I decided to be a good loyal consumer and buy 5 of the same product from the same manufacturer and they screw me out of $80. But of course that's the point... $80 went to their bottom line, not mine. Too bad they just screwed themselves out of my lifetimes worth of purchases. And yes maybe it was partly my fault for insisting on seeing the rebate form beforehand, but that still doesn't excuse a shady practice.

They don't want people going to the store buying all the products with rebates to then later resell them. Items with rebates help get people into the stores, which is a big reason for having rebates. They don't want to run out too fast of the items, so they limit it to one per a person usually. However, they should mention that the deal is 1 per household, which they do sometimes.

EXACTLY. If they didn't limit quantities on rebates, you'd have a bunch of unscrupulous Anandtechers running into the store buying out all the stock.

Valsalva

 

[Lanyap]

Originally posted by: ValsalvaYourHeartOut

Originally posted by: rockyct

Originally posted by: dakels
What kills me is the one rebate per household... WTH is that? Why should I be limited to buying only one product? Don't you want me to buy as much of your stuff as possible? I bought 5 Panasonic DVD players at Xmas with a $20 MIR on each. $100 back right? WRONG "One rebate per household" and it was written on the rebate I got AFTER making the purchase already. So basically I decided to be a good loyal consumer and buy 5 of the same product from the same manufacturer and they screw me out of $80. But of course that's the point... $80 went to their bottom line, not mine. Too bad they just screwed themselves out of my lifetimes worth of purchases. And yes maybe it was partly my fault for insisting on seeing the rebate form beforehand, but that still doesn't excuse a shady practice.

They don't want people going to the store buying all the products with rebates to then later resell them. Items with rebates help get people into the stores, which is a big reason for having rebates. They don't want to run out too fast of the items, so they limit it to one per a person usually. However, they should mention that the deal is 1 per household, which they do sometimes.

EXACTLY. If they didn't limit quantities on rebates, you'd have a bunch of unscrupulous Anandtechers running into the store buying out all the stock.

Valsalva

LOL, AnandTechers do that anyway. They just use different addresses.

 

[lookin4dlz]

Originally posted by: trinitroDynamics
I think this part of the article was most interesting:

As rebates multiply, the practice could have implications that go beyond customer satisfaction. Tax attorney Sandy Botkin says many of his small-business clients are confused by how to treat rebates when they file taxes. If a real-estate agent buys a $150 printer for her office but gets a $50 rebate, can she deduct the whole $150 on her Schedule C? Or should she declare the rebate as taxable income? The rule, accountants say, is that a taxpayer usually should deduct the after-rebate ?net cost? of $100. But ?a lot of people are writing off the whole thing and ignoring the rebate... not because they?re trying to cheat the government, but because they don?t know,? Botkin says. He thinks rebate forms should explain that only the net purchase price of business expenses is deductible.

Actually, according to the IRS website & confirmed by IRS customer service (as of 2002 at least), rebates are not considered income & shouldn't be reported as such. I guess Sandy is incorrect...

 

[ChiefBrody]

I have sending in rebate forms for 10 years like religion, and have never had a problem; not one. The article said the rebate companies expect everything to the letter. Ummm. This is not that hard. Demographics on the form, bar code, reciept. If you have Word, you can print the rebate address with barcode to assure it gets to the right place.

For the ambiguous ones, where there are two rebates for one product. Simply ask the store to clarify. Then take the person's name, ID# if he has one, time and date and time of the call. Advise him, if you don't recieve your rebate exactly as he stated. You will be back to collect from the store, and that you are taking names.

The only thing now is. There is so much crap out there for 'free' after rebate, it's not even worth a trip to the store.