Posted: 2/21/2005 2:31:18 AM EDT
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I know I flamed someone in the other thread where I said I like rebates because they make the lazy procrastinators subsidize lower prices for me .... well, I just got fucked by my own procrastination. Crow tastes bad. I bought a digital rebel a while back which had a $100 rebate. On saturday night I filled out all of the forms, copied receipts, put everything into an envelope ready to mail off. The rules of rebate program said "must be postmarked by Monday, February 21st". I figured I'd mail it on my way to work this morning. The problem with that just dawned on me now. Fucking dirty trick of a date to pick. 
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Suck it up...if I totaled up all the piddly little $10 and $20 rebates I never bothered to mail in over the years, it would probably be over $200...I'm just lazy, I guess...  |
Lol...I feel your pain. It may've been me.. "%^$& Mail In Rebates..*%&^ Best Buy" was the thread.....Anyways, those things piss me the hell off, but, I dutifully barked like a poodle and jumped through all thier hoops.....I mailed them off within a week with all the BS attatched, so, eight weeks or so from now I should get my money. We'll see. |
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I only ever filled out 1 mail in rebate. It was somewhere around November. It gets returned to me around March saying it could not be processed b/c I used green ink and it specifically stated black or blue. I thought that was dumb that they opened it, read it, made out a new envelope and mailed it all back to me for that, even though I understood I didn't follow the rules. I tried to send it again using the correct ink. It was returned again saying it had to be recevied by March 8 and the received it on March 14. This all reminded me why I don't bother..... Dan |
Not bad, I was going to say find someone with a postal meter. Make a photocopy of the envelope with the postage sticker on it. |
That's why they do it. ETA: Not only do they bank on 70% of consumers not even sending the rebate in at all, they also know that some percentage of those who do will forget they sent it in. If it gets refused or "lost" or whatever they know that many will never remember they sent it in and thus never complain. |
| Find a company to meter it for you. It counts as being post marked as far as I know. If you were in Phoenix, I'd say stop by and I'd do it for you. Call a couple of offices in your area and ask them if they have a potage meter and tell them of your predicament. We have a petty cash fund that people pay into for postage here for personal stuff, so I assume other companies would too. Anyway get it metered and just put it in the the mail box and they won't be able to do SHIT. Good luck. |
I feel bad just because I got burned by not realizing the po was closed on the 21st. Too bad for them the power of the intraweb has given me a way to get a 21st postmark anyway. ha ha ha The usps website link worked. I've got a postage paid shipping lable with a big ol "sent on 2/21/2005" right on it. Even includes tracking information. |
An outstanding idea. Perhaps even mailboxes Etc. could do this. If not, any large business is likely to have a postal meter. Who do you know? |
You folks on ARFCOM are the greatest! I would've never thought about this, playing this bullshit game of rebates is a royal PITA, but you have to play it if you want a good deal. You have to play the game by reading the fine print. It's getting to be difficult to comply the requirements because the rebaters are printing the fine print in small fonts. These rebates is starting to become a royal PITA that for a few measly bucks, I'm going to tell them to shove it. |
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Some insight to how rebates work. 1) Most rebates DO NOT go to the product company. They go to a processing company that handles rebates-subcontract-for any company they can contract with. 2) Rebates are distributed to homeworkers,(retired people,stay at home moms,etc.)to be transfered to floppy or cd form to be processed. 3) It takes time to receive,open,enter and pay out. Any rebates not converted to disc before the homeworker has to turn the work in is reassigned to another batch to be processed. Some may be assigned to several homeworkers before they get done. 4) Post dates are entered as part of the process, but overdue get processed to disc like any other, they may be rejected when time to cut checks. 5) Notes and sob stories have no influence on the outcome. The homeworker simple follows the procedure for the data required by the disc program as a fill in the blanks. 6)Processing pays .08/copy +/-, the homeworker is not going to spend alot of time trying to figure out what you have written if it is not clear. My wife has three days to process 500 envelopes. If you buy a product that has a rebate, fill out the form quickly,clearly,and completely. If you do, there should be no problem. |
This worked, I got the rebate.  Thank you! |