This isn't meant to be directed towards one company in particular. Its more for the whole rebate system. But here's my story:
I bought a D-Link DI-524 wireless router from Futureshop. It was on sale and had a $20 rebate, so I bought it. The employee who sold me it said something along the lines of "Have you had much luck with these rebates? Because mine usually take months and sometimes I never get them!". I should have taken that as a sign.
I waited 2 weeks to make sure the router was working properly before I cut out the UPC bar code and mailed it in with my properly filled out rebate form in early September 2005. October and November pass with no activity. Finally in mid December I get a post card from D-link telling me that I bought my router outside of the offer date! I'm thinking, "How could Futureshop have printed me a rebate form when the offer had already expired?". So I came storming into Futureshop (or at least thats how I felt in my mind). And explained my problem to a very nice employee at the Courtesy Desk. She called D-link personally and, after about 45 minutes of talking, determined that my rebate receipt was dated 12/09/05. Futureshop prints their dates in the form of Day/Month/Year. D-link read it as Month/Day/Year. So they thought I purchased the router on December 9th 2005 instead of September 12 2005! So they reissued the rebate claim (or so I'm told).
So now its the end of January and I'm still waiting for any indication that I will get my rebate. I'll keep you posted.
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3 comments:
teehee
I feel for you...
My theory with mail-in rebates is to not buy the thing unless you would have paid the price without the rebate. Then mail in the rebate and if it happens to arrive, it's like a bonus!
Keep bugging Future Shop about that one though. They need to take responsibility for the mail-in rebates because they advertise the cheaper price in their flyer (and then put the part about the mail-in rebate in tiny letter).
Rebates are a scam! I agree with Steph. If the original price is reasonable, then purchase the item and treat the rebate as a bonus. Most companies are really hoping that you don't bother with all the hassle. They should just discount the item right off the bat. But of course they are counting on people to just forget about it.
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