I'm just curious to what the general feeling is about rebates and gift cards.

I recently purchased several items "on sale" only to find several hundred dollars of that purchase was through a mail-in rebate that has turned out to be a disaster.

It seems like companies are trying to pull a fast one on consumers.

For one, companies are pushing rebates instead of instant savings. This seems to have made the companies money through several avenues:

1) People never send in the rebates

2) People lose the rebates

3) People send in the wrong information or are told so, and they don't have copies of the information

4) The companies simply don't send the money back to the customer.


Now on a similar note, companies are changing the rules on gift cards. And this also is to the benefit of the businesses. Gift cards now must be redeemed for the full value or you lose the money. And gift cards now have time limits.

So this again makes the company money by:

1) People never use the gift card.

2) People must make a purchase for more than the card, just to get the full value.

3) People hold on to the card after the expiration and they lose the money.


Ok, my question is:

Do you think consumers will eventually get fed up with rebates and the way they are using gift cards?

If so, do you think the companies will accomodate consumers and adjust to make it better?

What is your personal feeling about rebates and gift cards, and do you go out of your way to avoid places that advertise sale prices only to use mail-in rebates?

Is this coming to a head or will people continue to follow along the same way?

And have you heard of any news or media talking about people fed up with these items?

Lots of questions . . .

1. Well, I never cared for rebates in the first place. Give me a discount when I buy the darn thing, or just set the price where it should be. I have mailed in one or two rebates (with the usual receipts and stuff) and have never been cheated, but I still don't like them. For one thing, I know the company is just using rebates as a way to get my personal information so they can mail me junk mail. I avoid them when I can.

I had no idea limits were being placed on gift cards in the way you say. That sounds pretty bad. Let me make sure I understand you. Do you mean if I give Aunt Martha a gift certificate for one hundred bucks at the local MegaStore, she won't get her dollar back if she uses it to spend $99.00? If so, that stinks. If you mean something else, let us know.

So, yeah, I think people would get fed up with this sort of thing.

2. Some will, some won't. Smart companies know that the best way to make a profit, over the long run, is to have happy customers.

3. As I indicated above, I don't like them.

4. I suspect things will continue about the same as they are now. Maybe a small but significant minority of consumers will reject the things, which may change the way some businesses offer them.

5. I haven't heard anything, but it's worth thinking about.

http://www.rebatehelper.com/ Thought you might find this interesting. It is the creation od AD's own creator MIKE.

As for the whole rebate and gift card thing. I like the gift cards--until I heard about the time limit deal--which is describable in only strikable measures here at AD.

REbates -- if honored aren't a bad idea. At least for the consumer. A straight cut to the price would be better but I would guess companies can still make the profit and by taking so long for the rebate to be honored not lose any profit.

Generally though, if the store has one of those "value shopper" cards --- I don't shop there--either put it on the price itself or don't waste my time.
I hate having a wallet an inch thick because of all the other cards I have to carry--atm, credit, insurance etc.... and I refuse to have little plastic cards on my keychain making look like some voodoo priest's fetish.

My dream is a computer chip I can implant in my thumb that holds all of my info and I can just swipe. I hate cards.

A note about the expiration of gift cards as I understand it:

Gift cards have an expiration because they appear as liabilities on the companies bottom line. In effect, the company has collected money today for an incurred cost later. That incurred cost is a liability on the balance sheet.

If cards did not have expirations, then those liabilities could linger forever, which is an accounting nightmare. Thus, they have expirations (usually a year or two) or else they decay over time (lose a percentage of their value after x number of months).

Rebates are another matter. I think rebates are a mixed bag. The thing is, a rebate will usually drop the price of an item below the level where you could get it anywhere else. Why? Precisely because the company knows that not everyone will process the rebate. So the real cost of the rebate (averaged for all sales) is less than the full rebate amount per item. So if an item has a rebate, make sure you take advantage of it properly.


Do you think consumers will eventually get fed up with rebates and the way they are using gift cards?

If so, do you think the companies will accommodate consumers and adjust to make it better?

What is your personal feeling about rebates and gift cards, and do you go out of your way to avoid places that advertise sale prices only to use mail-in rebates?

I think gift cards are a great concept. Not only are they great for gifts , they are great for budget planning. Going to spend $500 in groceries next month? Get gift cards in advance and you know that you'll have the money for food. Want to budget you dining out expenses? Buy TGI Fridays gift cards ahead of time. My church uses them as a fund raiser. They get 3% of the gift card value each time I purchase one and I get the full amount of the gift card. If I buy enough of them, they rebate a portion to me (via reduced tuition for my kids).

christopher, your post made me shiver a bit. LOL See, I went to a fundamentalist Mormon high school in the early 80s, and we were taught that the scenario in the book of Revelation, in which nobody could buy in the marketplace unless they bore the "mark of the beast," was likely to mean having a tattoo or a computer chip implant. My religion teacher warned me about people like you ... LMAO.

As far as rebates -- I've never bought rebated merchandise, but if the savings were significant I might. I certainly wouldn't buy something that offered a rebate if I wasn't planning to use it. And while I do think it's a little deceptive to imply that the customer will actually save money at the point of sale, only to offer a rebate, I can't say I would actively avoid stores that do so.

On the matter of gift cards -- I think stores have responded the best way to years of abuse at the hands of gift certificate recipients who bring in a certificate for 25 or 50 bucks, buy a pack of gum with it, and pocket the change. Department stores aren't in the money-laundering business. LOL If you don't like the rules about gift cards, then strain your brain and buy a real gift (which the recipient can then return for cash, but oh well. LOL)

For the most part, no. We still pay by the minute for cell phone calls and long distance. We still pay "destination charges" on automobiles (how can I buy the automobile if you don't physically have it?). We still pay taxes to fund the Spanish-American War, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, or so I've been told.

Let's face it. As a group, Americans are lousy consumers. We have much more power than we recognize, but we perpetually fail at putting our money where our mouths are.

In some industries-- or rather industries that cater to a certain clientele-- there will be changes in rebates. Some companies are actually improving their rebate programs. For example, Staples has created their "Easy Rebate" system. You can file your rebate online without submitting any paperwork at all, and it is very convenient. I've only submitted one Easy Rebate, and I am yet to see a check. It has been 4+ weeks. But the rebate was easy to file...!

Why has Staples improved their rebate program? I have no idea really, but I would speculate that it is because their customers-- mostly businesses-- told them that they don't like rebates. Dell had caught on to the same concept a while back when they would offer instant discounts to small business customers, and mail-in-rebates to home customers. The prices worked out to be about the same, but the home customers had to wait a few months to get the discount.


I could probably type all day about my opinion on rebates. Sad, I know.

My opinion on rebates boils down to this: If the item is not worth the price before the rebate, don't buy it. It is not worth the time and energy you will most likely need to waste trying to get your $10 rebate on some blank DVDs, or $3 off a bucket of paint.

My rebate success rate is nearly 100%, and I've done dozens of them. I have had to fight tooth and nail for some of them, though. The fighting rebates are almost always the ones where the item has multiple rebates, usually totalling more than $100 or more than half the cost of the item. Some are just shady companies.

There are several companies I do not do business with-- some retailers and some manufacturers. I refuse to purchase products Soyo or Belkin. Their rebate processing companies were absolutely terrible when I had to deal with them, Soyo in particular. Avoid Soyo rebates at all cost.

I refuse to purchase anything from Tiger Direct. They continually advertise manufacturer rebates (like rebates by Soyo) that have such a poor success rate that they would have to be fools to not be aware of it.

When you want to buy an item that includes a rebate, do some research first. Look at the form. Look for a website address, and check that website to see if you will be able to track your rebate online. If you can't track it online, skip it. Look for a phone number for the rebate fulfillment company. If they do not have a phone number, then you are stuck dealing with them through email, and your success rate will be greatly reduced. Do a google search on *company name* rebate scam. Look at the results, and read about the problems that other people have had with the manufacturer/rebate fulfillment company. If you find a lot of people who were burned, skip it.

If you decide to purchase a product with a rebate, make sure you document, document, document. Pay a little bit extra to get delivery confirmation on the rebate submission. Make photocopies of every piece of paper you submit. Make a photocopy of the envelope. I've even gone so far as to take photographs with the individual pieces to be sent, to prove they were all included.

My last tip: If you're burned by a manufacturer rebate, you should pursue the rebate money from the retailer that sold you the item. They advertised the rebate-- they are ultimately responsible for making sure that you get your money. The FTC said this, more or less, in their March 11, 2005 press release regarding CompUSA and rebates.



Nope, beside places like Tom Martino's Troubleshooter.com, or on The Clark Howard Show. They're kind of geared towards it, though.

Mike