More Games Rebate Baiters Play

It’s time once again for the umpteenth installment of our rebate bait-and-switch chronicles — the gimmicks companies use to keep from having to pay off on their rebate offers. As always, readers are finding that vendors have a few new tricks up their sleeves.

“Here’s a new twist for me at least on issues with rebates,” wrote one reader. “I bought a D-Link cable modem for my son last month with a $20 rebate. Last week I received a rebate check but when I got out my saved rebate forms, I discovered it was only for $10, half what it should have been. I called up the fulfillment house, WebRebates.com, and after being on hold for a while, they agreed I was right. They said I had a choice of them putting a stop-payment on the check I received and they would send a new one, or they would just mail me a check for the other half. Of course I chose the latter — half a rebate in-hand is better than a promise for a whole rebate later. But how many people would remember or notice that the check was not for the right amount? Most people are just happy to get a check at all.”

Another method vendors are increasingly adopting to shortchange customers is to send a rebate card rather than a check. “AT&T recently offered a phone via its website with a $200 rebate,” wrote another reader. “The rebate came in the form of not one, but two prepaid ‘credit cards’ whose value totaled $200, and which expire three months after they were issued. If the rebate came in the form of a check, the recipient could cash it, deposit the $200 and earn interest on it. With the cards, however, AT&T not only gets to keep the interest on the money between the time the cards were issued and they are used, but also gets to keep any money left on the cards when they expire. How many cards will get lost, or forgotten in a wallet or purse? How many will get partially used, and have some amount, even a few cents, left on them? The other gotcha with the cards is that they cannot be reloaded. I’ve tried to use the cards very carefully, but I have one that has 17 cents left, and the other has $2.36. How do you use a credit card with 17 cents on it? It bugs me that my $200 AT&T rebate is turning out to be a $197.47 rebate, even with my best efforts. And I’d guess that most recipients of the rebate cards will end up with MUCH more cash left on them.”

The more the rebate is for, notes one IT director, the more ways the company is likely to find to misplace it. “We bought a fairly expensive network storage device from Netgear that had a very sizable rebate attached to it. Netgear proceeded to misfile the claim about a month later. When we provided copies that everything had been filed correctly, they finally processed it correctly. But wait, that’s not the end of it. After a couple more months of waiting and bugging them, we are finally told it will ship. Well, about a week after that made-up date, we ask for a tracking number … only to be told it has been processed and will be shipping about a month later. Each inquiry seems to result in further excuses. To add insult to injury, if you reply to the e-mail address they provide with their responses, you reach a bot that tells you it does not service requests. Calling them is even more laughable. There is absolutely no way to reach a human at any of the rebate center numbers. Needless to say, they have probably lost all of our future business, not that they had much respect from our IT department to begin with.”

Some technology companies demonstrate more innovative thinking in their rebate gimmicks than in their products. “Microsoft and Symantec, to name two, have both used one especially sleazy trick,” wrote another reader. “Their official rebate forms are printed on ultra glossy stock which cannot be written on with ball point or fountain pens, and copies of the forms on regular stock are not accepted. The area to be filled in is smaller than a book of matches. In both cases, the forms in question were stickers that had to be peeled from the box to show the rebate application (and all its fine print) on the reverse side. The coating on these forms was not your typical casein gloss — it was more like bonded cellophane. So, unless one gets a fine tip Sharpie and writes with the patience and precision of an engraver, the form will be illegible. Even assuming one does just that, if time isn’t put aside for the ink to dry, the form will smear and become unreadable. In fact, even after the ink has dried, it is easily obliterated by finger contact. The point is that if companies really wanted to deliver on rebates, they could make the process easy to pursue. Instead, the difficulty in securing a rebate is by design.”

What tricks have you seen vendors design to keep from paying their rebates? Post your comments about this story below or write Ed Foster at Foster@gripe2ed.com.