Many of you are familiar with the situation: You buy an item advertised on discount, provided you send in a copy of the receipt and the product UPC. Problem is, once they leave your hands, there is no compulsion for the rebate provider to actually receive your submission.
The stores and companies conspire to provide rebates with full intention of not honoring the majority of them. Some customers simply do not follow through, yes, but when the rebate centers have everything you need to prove that you submitted anything whatsoever, the loss is yours alone. Also, you are not given any of the interest which has accrued between when you buy an item and when you receive the rebate, which is usually upwards of 6 weeks. Your rebate is in effect a free short-term loan (with the greater possibility of being indefinite).
Another important reason to ban rebates is that the UPC is needed to return a faulty or defective product. With the UPC firmly misplaced by another party, you have no recourse should the product not live up to its name.
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Admittedly the mail in rebate is pretty much a scam but with a business oriented government how can you expect legislation banning it to be enacted?
Dreaming here; but I would like to see an Ethical Oversight Committee Federally instituted to monitor business practices. The committee members would be legally liable for their decisions and must show supporting research and documentation for their reasoning processes. I'm kind of surprised the Government doesn't already have something like this. If they do, what can we do to make it stronger and give it teeth?
What we can do is to recognize mail-in rebates as a scam, and treat the companies accordingly. Unfortunately, I still get sucked in some times. More than once, I've been screwed by the fine print involved with rebates.
It's a scam for retailers to avoid having to pay out to everyone - the lazy never mail-in the rebate, and lose out. The clever buy from cheaper stores...
Go here to file complaints, they have done things in the past:
http://www.ftc.gov/
Just make a copy before you send it in, genius. They can't argue with it in any kind of situation. Most sentient beings learn this the first time they don't get a rebate back. Would you like me to come over and explain fire sometime too?
No need. I'm a genius, remember?
Yeah, I've been pretty lucky I guess. I've only been screwed out of a $10 rebate. I called and bitched becuase they lost my UPC and I didn't make a copy because I never had a problem before. They prefer to have your original, but some still take copies. If you "forget" to send the original them, you can read it off to them, or they will accept copies too. It's a scam for in-store sales since you get jipped on tax, that's why I buy more things online now, especially since there's a ton of great deal sites. I almost wonder if they have a deal with the USPS, I spend a lot of money on stamps sending out rebates :-p