Dealing With Rebates: Ever Get Burned?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/18+weeks+in+Amazon+rebate+hell/2100-1038-6058278.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/18+weeks+in+Amazon+rebate+hell/2100-1038-6058278.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e703</a><br /><br /></div><i>"When I knew what I wanted, I went straight to Amazon.com. I knew the shopping giant offered super-duper rebates for buying a cell phone with new wireless service (that's how I bought my last phone). Plus, I didn't have to deal with salespeople. The phone cost about $150. But Amazon offered a full rebate with the purchase of a new, one-year wireless contract for $39.99 or more. Choosing a carrier plan was fairly simple, given that only Cingular carried the Razr at the time, apart from my then-carrier TMobile. Staying with TMobile would have precluded the rebate. I bought the package on Nov. 28, 2005, and immediately applied for the rebate on Amazon's site. Then all I had to do was wait for that surprise check in my mailbox. I'm still waiting."</i><br /><br />Does that story sound familiar to you? It's probably happened to all of us at one point or another: being trapped in rebate hell. The reason why rebates are so common in North America is that the vast majority of rebates never get submitted - people buy the $99 with a $30 rebate and they forget to submit it, and the company with the $99 product laughs all the way to the bank. Sometimes though, as this article points out, even when you follow all the rules and jump through all the hoops, you're still stuck waiting for a long time. <br /><br />I've just recently had my first bad rebate experience: I'm meticulous about filing rebates, and have always gotten my money, until this incident: I purchased a Fujitsu N6620 (17" wide screen laptop) and there was a $100 USD rebate on it. I filled out the paperwork, cut out the UPC code from the box, and sent everything in a few days after getting the laptop. Some three months later, I received an email from the rebate center telling me that rebate could not be honoured because the UPC code was not submitted! I know for a fact it was - I went up and checked the original box, and there's a bit gaping hole where it used to be. I phoned the rebate center to tell them they had made an error, but it was to no avail: they informed me that it was a <i>different</i> company that received the physical rebate from me, and that my only solution was to go back to Fujitsu and get another UPC code from them and re-submit the rebate. I explained that I had ordered this laptop online, and that Fujitsu had discontinued this version of the notebook some 90 days after releasing it, replacing it with a Dual Core version. The rebate center could offer me no solution, so for the first time ever, I'm giving up on a rebate and admitting defeat. :? Have any rebate hell stories to share?

[Jerry Raia]

Sony did that to me once with a DVD drive. I got a notice back saying I had not submitted the UPC. I didn't pursue it. The rest of my rebate experiences have been fine except for the ridiculous long wait in some cases.

[edgar]

This Amazon one has "Class Action" stamped firmly across it. Its on all the coupon boards. I don't know if they aren't getting paid by the carriers, whether they, illegally, are just trying to wean the pople down to a budgetable expense or what.

Jason, I would contact the company you bought the item from, and Fujitsu directly. The heck with the rebate company - The staff is clueless - I think they're the jobs Direct Call Marketers took after the "Do Not Call" started and killed that industry.

$100 is enough for me to call them daily for 5 minutes while eating my lunch, until I feel they have spent more than $100 ignoring me. I did that with Comcast for 5 months. I was nice each time, and each time asked for a "supervisor". Finally, I got a letter from the regional VP with two $50 checks that can applied to my bill asking me to stop. And that was only for a $30 gift card circuit city was supposed to give me for signing up for Digital Cable through them. A month later I got the Circuit City card as well with an apology letter (form letter) saying that there was problems with the rebate system. I love how all theses companies blame a computer and consumers just say "Oh OK". Each ticket caused Comcast/CC to generate a help request number, each one generated a followup survey call and each one probably had to be purged or documented either automatically or by a person. Eventually my online file must have burst or something.

Now that I've sufficiently strayed off course - back to the topic. Amazon has a bad reputation on all of their rebates, not just Cell Phones. They're quite slow about it. In that Circuit City and Best Buy paid out settlements in the last couple years (and didn't AT&amp;T recently) should be a wake up call. Either they will drop rebates, or they will clean up the mess. I hope its the latter. A good portion of the public will still never send in their rebate paperwork, and the company can laugh all they want, those people don't deserve payment. But those like us that do follow the rules should get what the contract states we should.

-Edgar

[Rocco Augusto]

what most people seem to never do is, read the fine print.

on websites like amazon where they offer huge rebates on cell phones you do not get the rebate back until you have had service for 180 days with no interuptions in service. reason being, amazon.com is, what we call in the cellular business, an indirect dealer. just as the name implies they deal indirectly with the carriers. selling their services and handsets on new activations.

now amazon.com being an indirect does not get paid out until you have had service for a 6 month time frame (180 days). during that 6 months timeframe if you have interupted service at any time the company you bought the phone from will not get paid out. interupted service in this case is usually due to individuals making late payments or making no payments at all.

this is why when you buy a phone online from someone that is not the carrier 99% of the time you will read in the terms and condition about a secondary security agreement which basically states that if you do not keep service for the full 180 days that company has a right to charge you upto $200.00USD to make up for the price of the phone that they just lost out on.

same thing goes for rebates here. once you have service for 6 months and amazon.com gets paid out they will cut you a check. unfortunatly you should not recieve the rebate until then.

this is why i never "shop around" for the best price because in most cases when you read the fine print you find out to get that great deal you usually get screwed over in the process or have to wait a really long time to be eligable for the rebates. :(

-opti-

P.S. - interesting side not, almost 80% of mail in rebates never get sent in or get rejected.

[ina-nyminute]

In my case, the question should be;
Rebates, did I ever get one back.

Samsung comes to mind as the worst offender for me.
$130 rebate for a laser printer, and after repeated calls I finally gave up.

The only time rebates factor in my purchasing decisions is when they are instant.
In fairness the chain stores like Circuit City, Best Buy &amp; Office Max always come through with rebate checks for me.

[Kris Kumar]

I think I have received every single rebate check that I applied for, even one from Amazon.com for a T68i (that was a long long time ago, we didn't have Smartphones back them). :-)

I am guilty of not mailing a couple of rebate forms last year. But I have good excuses for why I couldn't send them in. ;-)

I like Staples.com, when it comes to rebates. They have an online rebate processing system. (https://www.stapleseasyrebates.com/) I don't have to mail any forms or UPC codes. Just enter the code on the receipt, fill your details and hit submit. 8)

[kerrins]

I had a similar experience with a Cingular rebate. Bought 3 phones all within a month of each other. One for my wife and mother and father. I thought I would take the $150 (3*50) rebate and buy myself a new Pocket PC phone. I read the fine print that said each needs to be mailed in its own envelope and the works. My problem is that I ran out of time and didnt' get a chance to copy everything before shipping them off. So months later I get the rejection letter because something was missing from this...and something from that...since I had identical letters I'm a little skeptical! So I can fix some of it and get only 2 of the rebate cards. OK, so I'm out 50 bucks still no big deal. I am happy to be getting a new PPC as soon as Cingular releases it...delay on release, another delay...finally my big day comes. I hand over the rebate cards to the clerk to buy them and they won't process!! Turns out they had expired in about 30 days or something! I was livid.

[Rocco Augusto]

I had a similar experience with a Cingular rebate. Bought 3 phones all within a month of each other. One for my wife and mother and father. I thought I would take the $150 (3*50) rebate and buy myself a new Pocket PC phone. I read the fine print that said each needs to be mailed in its own envelope and the works. My problem is that I ran out of time and didnt' get a chance to copy everything before shipping them off. So months later I get the rejection letter because something was missing from this...and something from that...since I had identical letters I'm a little skeptical! So I can fix some of it and get only 2 of the rebate cards. OK, so I'm out 50 bucks still no big deal. I am happy to be getting a new PPC as soon as Cingular releases it...delay on release, another delay...finally my big day comes. I hand over the rebate cards to the clerk to buy them and they won't process!! Turns out they had expired in about 30 days or something! I was livid.

the rebate cards should be good for 365 days from the day you activate the card. i get a lot of people that come into my store because the cards wont work and 99% of the time it is because they did not activate them. is it possible that this is the case here as well?

the store that you went to should have properly explained the rebate process and even went as far as making you an extra invoice so you would have one for yourself and one for the rebate. im sorry that the person that sold you the phone did not go that extra mile for you.

whenever youre sending in a mail in rebate though it is always wise to put in one rebate/upc/invoice per envelope to make sure there are no mistakes in the processing department. i usually go through i completely fill out the rebate forms for my customers, cut off the barcode from the box and make extra invoices and paperclip each rebate set together for my customers so all they have to do is go home and put each rebate into an envelope and mail it out.

i would call the rebate department and find out why the cards were not active and get them to issue you new cards since you never cashed out the old ones.

[Kris Kumar]

BTW...quick tip, I always scan/copy the UPC code and the receipt before mailing.

[Mark Larson]

I've been burned by Amazon. I bought two Motorola A630s from Amazon back when rebates were eligible on all lines of a family plan, and sent in the rebates after getting my second month's bill, everything was in order. I even photocopied everything i sent in. I sent everything in April 2005.

Months passed and while I was supposed to get the rebates in June, I didn't. Eventually, I moved in September and was scared that I wouldn't get the rebates. Phone calls proved fruitless, and I didn't even find my rebates in their online system. I was scared because in the fine print on the rebate, it said that the USPS don't forward rebate checks. Nice little scam they have there, I thought to myself.

So I went to the new tenants in my apartment and asked them to keep any mail for me as I was expecting some rebate checks. So they took down my number.

Nothing. Months passed again and finally, I called them in Feb 2006 and wonder of wonders, they said they had mailed the checks two days ago. I hurried down to my old apartment and asked them to again look out for my rebates. Eventually, a week later they arrived at my current address. They had sent them first-class.

So that's my saga. I did get the $300 back after 11 months, but I promised myself that I wouldn't buy anything with such a big rebate again.

This week I'm supposed to send out two rebates to T-Mobile worth $100 and one to Motorola worth $20. I guess stupid consumers never learn. :roll:

[Foxbat121]

Everytime this site post *deal* from Amazon.com (as recent as few days ago with T-Mo SDA), I have a feeling someone wasn't reading the fine prints. Like optikalsaint said above, not only you are required to wait for at least 6 months, for smartphone purchase, you're usually required to subscribe to an expensive data plan as well to qualify.

[jimfee]

I was burnt on a rebate from CompUSA on a Que QPS USB 2.0. CDRW and this was a landmark case. I got two of three rebates back but was robbed on the third which was a manufacturers rebate for $20. QPS at the time was going bankrupt and defaulting on their rebate offers. CompUSA became aware of this but continued to sell and advertise at the rebate price. Years later, I saw that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), actually found CompUSA liable for the reimbursement of the rebates. They were to contact those who were stiffed, but I never saw anything else about it.

So.... Maybe Amazon has a legal obligation if the manufacturer reneges on their rebate. Although the question at hand may be moot because they will just use the "we didn't receive it" excuse.

I have resorted to tracking large rebates like the $300(x2) rebate from Best Buy on my first smart phone the venerable Motorola MPX220. :wink: