The rebate runaround

ONE THING TO remember about rebates: If the manufacturer really wanted you to have that price, it would have offered a discount instead.

Complaints about deadbeat rebates are a longtime staple of The Gripe Line, but I have noticed of late that my rebate file has been growing even faster than usual. Given the state of the economy, that should come as no surprise. Consumers are more anxious to get the best price when times are hard, so they apply for more rebates than manufacturers are used to seeing. So the manufacturers in turn are quick to resort to all means fair and foul to get out of redeeming any more rebates than absolutely necessary.

One reason for my rebate file’s newfound girth is a recent Microsoft rebate offer on upgrades to Visual Studio .Net. The deal is certainly a tempting one for customers with Version 6.0 of Visual Studio, Visual Basic, or other Visual development tools: a $300 rebate on the upgrade list price of $549. With the prospect of getting more than half their money back, no doubt the rebate has spurred many customers who might otherwise have hesitated to upgrade. But there’s one little problem.

“When I opened the box, I found the rebate offer requires that you send the box top from the old package,” wrote one reader. “I purchased my Visual Basic 6 more than four years ago, and I sent the original box top to get the Visual Basic 6 1998 rebate. What does Microsoft expect me to do now? I think this is a catch-22, because you have to send the current box top to get the rebate and so you won’t have it for the next one. Microsoft didn’t disclose these terms in any ads or on its Web site.”

Many other readers were in the same boat, either because they had used the box top in other rebate offers or because they’re not into hoarding pieces of cardboard for years on end. What bothered most was not that Microsoft would ask for some proof of purchase beyond having the program on their hard drive, but that the requirements were so narrow and so hidden.

Readers who tried contacting Microsoft to see if other proof of ownership would be acceptable got mixed results. Some were told no, some were told the manual cover or jewel case insert could be substituted, and others were told just to send what they had and hope for the best. And, of course, some found they could make no human contact at all for answers. A Microsoft spokesperson informs me that in lieu of the box top from the 6.0 package, the company will accept the first page of the owner’s manual with the SKU number or the insert from the jewel case with the product key as proof of purchase.

Mindful that this is not a $300 discount, we’ll have to wait and see who gets a rebate check from Microsoft and who doesn’t. At least we know Microsoft has the money if it decides to pay up. With a lot of rebate gripes, it often looks like the stated qualifying criteria suddenly change because the manufacturer runs low on cash. Or, as we’ve seen previously, it may be the rebate fulfillment house that wants to renege on as many rebates as possible.

I’ve made it a practice the past few years to ask rebate gripers to try to identify which rebate fulfillment house is sending out the checks. This led to an interesting coincidence when two reader e-mail responses arrived within minutes of each other. Although the readers were complaining about two different rebates, both said the address for the fulfillment house in question was in Coppell, Texas. This turned out to be the offices of Parago and its RebatesHQ.com subsidiary.

As I studied my rebates file, it soon became clear that almost half of the complaints I received involved RebatesHQ.com. The RebatesHQ-related issues involved a variety of companies — Hewlett-Packard, Roxio, Ameritech, PNY Technologies — and all the major computer outlets. The complaints themselves were the typical rebate beefs: Readers were told they had not sent receipts or bar codes that they were certain they had, or that they’d missed the cutoff date when they’d mailed it in with time to spare, or that the manufacturer hadn’t released the funds yet.

“Frankly, I think there is something illegal with this,” wrote one reader who’d had two different PNY rebates invalidated by RebatesHQ.com. “In both cases I had kept documentation to prove them wrong, [but I] had to spend a lot of time and energy getting them to admit they were wrong. They know most consumers do not keep copies of their submissions and are hoping that they continue to get away with this and no one will do anything. I’m not sure if this is a negative reflection on PNY or the company servicing their rebates.”

Had I discovered the wellspring of all rebate woes? Maybe, maybe not. Parago/RebatesHQ.com is obviously doing a lot business, so it figures there would be a certain amount of noise about them, just from people who don’t realize they really did send the wrong bar code or made some other error. Plus, RebatesHQ.com is more up front than most fulfillment houses, particularly in allowing online tracking of rebate status. If it was willfully withholding rebates customers had coming to them, why not hide in the shadows a bit more?

Parago officials say they have no incentive to withhold money from qualified rebate recipients because the client manufacturer pays Parago the same amount either way. The company acknowledges however that the client is the one who sets the payout rules — if the manufacturer doesn’t provide the money, it can’t send out the rebate checks. So perhaps the problem isn’t with RebatesHQ.com but with its clientele.

So we’ll have to give Parago/RebatesHQ the benefit of the doubt for now. In time it may prove a good influence on a sometimes shady business. As for Microsoft, the company will no doubt do everything in its power to keep its customers. And if you’re ready to buy that, I can get you a discount.