Best Buy to Eliminate Rebates 609
plover writes "According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune 'In response to customer complaints, Best Buy, the world's largest electronics retailer, promised today to eliminate mail-in rebates within two years.' Can it be that we're finally nearing the end of one of the most hated marketing ploys of all?" Further commentary available at BusinessWeek.
Re:April fools day is over (Score:5, Informative)
Geek Squad (Score:5, Informative)
Wondering (Score:3, Informative)
So many people either forget or don't bother with rebates that Best Buy would be crazy to abandon them. It's easy money in their pockets... not that I'm defending them or anything. Just looking at it from their point of view.
It's because the FTC made them pay up (Score:5, Informative)
Don't jump for joy yet (Score:1, Informative)
If you RTFAs, they are going to give you Reward Zone points instead, which means store lock-in. I've been staying away from Best Buy completely, except for their loss leaders, so that's not a better solution as far as I'm concerned. Frankly I'd rather take my chances with the rebate since I've got the whole process down (keep copies of everything and report to BBB if nothing ever comes). Haven't missed one for years with that.
Best Buy should change other policies... (Score:5, Informative)
Take for instance their refund policy. If you buy a computer, and pay cash, and that computer doesn't work when you get home - you must wait for a check if you want to return it for a full refund. I advised my mother on going there because of the good prices. She paid cash and got a good deal. The PC was fried and they didn't have another to exchange.
Apparently another policy is that Bust Buy doesn't ship items from store to store or order replacement items if they are out of stock. Her options were: Wait 1 month for them to fix the computer, for free; wait 6 to 8 weeks for a refund; or pay the manufacturer to ship a replacement (and pay to take the broken machine).
After their sales staff insulted her in the store (only for wanting what was due), she decided to get the refund and buy a machine elsewhere.
Still, if I pay cash - why should I wait for a check in the mail? Cashing a check isn't cheap for people who don't have checking accounts, not everyone does have one too. Hell, they discourage the use of checks as it is.
Someone should also look into the fact that they never honor their rewards program. In one visit we bought $300 in DVD's and was supposed to get a $25 store credit in the mail (after paying another $10 to join the "club"). The credit never came and they don't even have us on file. Worst part is that we bought more, expensive, items there hoping we'd get a reward!
Scam!
Rebates explained (Score:4, Informative)
The catch is that they often "lose" the paperwork, or require many "hoops" for you to do, so that you may get your money. They rely on the fact that many people do not fully complete all the steps necessary to acquire the refund, and thus the company never pays out. I've seen figures that state only about 10% of people wind up getting their money from these things, for a variety of reasons - forget to send the paperwork, lose the receipt, forget the deadline, etc.
Re:So much for their corporate sales. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, this is real.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:5, Informative)
As for being cheaper online, at random, I looked up a hard drive from BestBuy.com (It's in their ad this week in the circular). Seagate Barracuda 120.0GB model number ST3120026A
Best Buy's Price: $99.99 - $50 MIR = $49.99
The Best Froogle could do wiht that same model number? $70 for a refurbished white box.
Best Pricewatch could do for that drive? $62 (This was a diffrent model number, but to be fair, as far as I could tell, same specs. The same model number was $74)
Best Pricewatch could do on ANY 120GB Drive? $53 for 5200RPM Drives.
It's just one example picked at random. I'm sure if we wanted to get into a pissing contest, you could find plenty of stuff that's cheaper online than what BBY sells it for after rebates. Point is, they're not all just horrible ripoffs designed to fuck you in the ass. Get overyourself and take off the tinfoil hat.
Re:Geek Squad (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Best Buy with morals? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Staples has already done this (Score:3, Informative)
Free checking accounts? (Score:1, Informative)
Have you gone to different banks to see what their checking account policies are? There are banks who will set up free checking accounts if you enroll in direct deposit. I don't know if any minimum balance is involved.
Re:Mail-in sham... -Go to Staples instead. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Enough... (Score:5, Informative)
That has *not* been my experience--especially with larger rebates.
My brother-in-law and I both bought Compaq notebooks at a big box electronics store with a $100 rebate from Compaq. Strangley, both of us got a notice saying that our rebates forms were illegible and to resubmit them. Of course those were rejected since they did not contain the *original* UPCs from the package since we sent them in on first go-round and they were not returned with the notice.
After numerous calls to Compaq with no resolution, I filed a complaint with my state's Attorney General's office. My brother-in-law did nothing. I got my refund in less than a week; my brother-in-law never received his. Coincidence? I think not.
Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:5, Informative)
I have to be honest. I am no fan of BestBuy or MIR. However, I have always got my MIR's back. I have never had any issue at all, sure it takes a little time, but mine always arrive.
Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:2, Informative)
A better example would be a higher margin product, to see which seller is taking less of a profit, such as LCD monitors.
Picked at random from Best Buy's web site:
Samsung SyncMaster 213T Silver 21.3'' LCD Monitor
Best Buys web price: $899.99 - 100.00 rebate = 799.99
PriceGrabber best price (non refurb): $721.00
(PriceGrabber lists 51 resellers for this part, so I didn't bother checking pricewatch or (gag)Froogle)
The rule for everyone is, if you need it today buy it locally. If not, check it out locally and buy it online if you get a better deal.
BTW, I used to own and operate an online reseller site. We refused to do rebates because they are designed to be horrible ripoffs and f*** you in the a**. Resellers count on the fact that most people don't ever pursue the rebate. Sure, it's the customer's fault for not doing their part, but it's the reseller's fault for exploiting the behaviour.
This was one of the reasons we ended up closing our shop and going out of business, we couldn't be profitable without comprising our ethics. Both me and my business partner are Christians (I'm a baptist, he's a catholic)... both of us answer to Christ for our actions and that is much more important than making a business work by any means necessary.
If the reseller or manufacturer is really willing to offer the after rebate price to each and every customer (1:1 ratio between a sale and the reduced price), they would simply lower the price on the item. By offering the rebate, the manufacturer and reseller are banking on the fact that the vast majority of customers don't ever file the rebate, thus they get the benefit of advertising a low price (after rebate) as well as the benefit of selling the item for more profit.Re:I am very disappointed by this... (Score:1, Informative)
http://forums.firingsquad.com/firingsquad/board/m
Re:Best Buy should change other policies... (Score:2, Informative)
If your mother had bought an eMachines computer, eMachines would have sent you the new computer at their cost, and the box they sent it in would have had the paid return shipping label inside so that you could use that box, the new shipping label, and send the PC back. That's how it was for my fried laptop.
Re:Best Buy should change other policies... (Score:3, Informative)
But it was MY job to make sure that happened. Remember that it may not be Best Buy that is screwing you over - it may be that particular store that has poor management and customer service.
Though after seeing the markups, I rarely shop at Best Buy for anything but base computer equipment (not accessories) - which is generally sold at 5% above cost.
Re:Staples has already done this (Score:3, Informative)
If Staples would allow for the same online rebate entry system and a 1 week turn around on getting your rebate back, then we're talking progress.
Re:Pissing on the wall... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes [wikipedia.org]
Re:Best Buy should change other policies... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I am very disappointed by this... (Score:3, Informative)
In most cases, you're not getting the discount you think you are (if you aren't also calculating the tax you pay on the full-price item + your stamp to mail in the MIR, etc.), and if your CPA is telling you that you can claim the tax on the after-rebate cost, he's wrong, and he's putting you in jeapordy (or risk of an audit).
Be careful how you approach these MIR incentives, they could put you at risk, if you file them incorrectly.
Re:Best Buy should change other policies... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What are you talking about? (Score:1, Informative)
What he describes is very basic economics. You do everything you can to charge people what they are willing to pay. This is why we have, say, different models of car. Some people will pay $15,000 for a car, some will pay $45,000. Does the second person feel it's a scam that he paid 3x as much? The car didn't cost 3x as much to make.
Some forms of price discrimination are illegal. Some are perfectly normal. As long as everyone gets their rebates if they mail in for them, there's nothing scam about it.
What nobody on Slashdot mentions, of course, is that there are a lot of people trying to scam the companies in this situation, too. Remember people who would buy, mail in, and then return, so they get the rebate without making the purchase? They require proof-of-purchase because people will mail in for 2 or 3 rebates on one item.
There are several things the company gets out of mail in rebates. They get more sales, they get some people who don't claim the rebate, and they get interest on your money for a few weeks. They know that systematically denying rebates will get them dragged into court and will lose way too many customers to make it even a consideration. The only reason they would deny rebates is to prevent fraud against themselves.
Sorry, my tinfoil hat is at the cleaners.
Re:No, this is real.... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Sooooo off topic (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I work for rebater (Score:2, Informative)
It is cost effective because the whole reason why the rebates exists is how they are accounted for on company books. The full price you pay is one item on company balance sheet and the rebate they have to pay is another. By separating them like that it effects how the company why offers rebate reports revenue and profit and calculates taxes.
Re:Enough... (Score:3, Informative)
$1 times 1,500,000 units sold = 1.5 million per month. Evil, crooked bastards indeed. Just because you are being scammed for a small amount, that does not mean that the scam itself is not large or highly profitable. According to your inane logic, if each thief steals only 50 cents from you per month, that is quite all right. This attitude quickly leads to thousands of thieves doing it.