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Businesses The Almighty Buck Technology

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.
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Best Buy to Eliminate Rebates

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  • Mail-in sham... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:48AM (#12118739)
    Mail In rebates are a sham, in that it takes 8-12 weeks for the check to come in. I am not going to wait 3 months for a 2 dollar check.
  • by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:49AM (#12118741) Journal
    It takes 1 minute to fill out the postcard and less than half a dollar to mail it off. I don't understand anyone who doesn't mail it off for their rebate.

    Unless you're making $30.00 each minute ($1,800/hr), you're just wasting perfectly good money.

    Does this mean that Best Buy won't be having rebates anymore?
  • by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:52AM (#12118752)
    Rebates have already been kinda of a scam. They make it as hard as possible to get them, but advertise the price after rebate. Meanwhile they are playing the float with your money. Its not that bad b/c they do pay after you jump through many hoops but they count on people not putting up with the hassle. This is a good bet b/c people value their time and sanity.

    I'm glad that I'll never have to put up with these tatics from BestBuy again (not that I ever did, I use pricewatch and Fry's for my hardware needs).

  • by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:52AM (#12118754) Journal
    People forget, miss the deadline, etc. Non-return of rebates is critical to the business model. Best Buy just decieded that the dollar value of the customer annoyance was greater than the rebate non-returns.
  • by SerialEx13 ( 605554 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:55AM (#12118762)
    If you don't ship it registered, what's stopping the company from saying it never got there? I've heard of people who have waited over a year and have hassled the company numerous times to finally get their rebate. I got two items with a mail-in rebate on Boxing Day (December 26), I got the $10 cheque, but am still awaiting the $60 cheque.

    Some businesses will instead just give you the discount at the till and do the work themselves for the rebate.

    The only real major downside to getting rid of rebates is that in reality only a very small (less than 10 per cent) of people fill them out which means that in theory they can offer larger rebates for those who do. Of course, that's only in theory.
  • by The Amazing Fish Boy ( 863897 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:59AM (#12118780) Homepage Journal
    I think not. They have to have thought up something better.

    It's nothing to do with morals. Capitalism doesn't require morals. Best Buy probably spends more on customer complaints, lost customers, etc. to warrant this decision. They are self-interested, because they want to benefit the consumer.

    (Only to the point where they have to do the least and get the most. They wouldn't give up profits for the consumer's benefit.)
  • by SubTexel ( 715118 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:59AM (#12118781)
    I have yet to find any of the slashdot April fools jokes funny this year, last year, the year before that, etc... Come on and end the jokes!!
  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:05AM (#12118800)
    You're at the bottom, you'll be the last to find out.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:25AM (#12118862)
    It takes 1 minute to fill out the postcard and less than half a dollar to mail it off. I don't understand anyone who doesn't mail it off for their rebate.

    Unless you're making $30.00 each minute ($1,800/hr), you're just wasting perfectly good money.


    Quit fooling yourself. It does NOT take 1 minute.

    1. Fill out rebate form.
    2. Make photocopy of receipt and circle purchase.
    3. Cut out bar code.
    4. Find envelope (every 100 envelopes or so, you'll have to organize to get more).
    5. Fill out envelope.
    6. Find stamp.
    7. Make photocopies of everything you are sending.
    8. Mark date on calender on date you are supposed to receive rebate.
    [this is where we branch]
    [branch #1: several weeks later]
    9. Find copies of rebate that is marked as *should be received by now*
    10. Find phone number on company that's supposed to have sent you rebate
    11. Call phone # to find out why no rebate has been received.
    12. Listen to someone giving you the run-around
    13. Realize you are fucked
    [branch #2: couple of weeks later]
    9. Receive email about why rebate was declined. One of:
    - UPC code missing.
    - purchase not circled.
    - unreadable submission.
    - that address was already registered.
    - other lie.
    10. Goto 10 of branch #1
    [branch #3: couple of weeks later]
    9. receive email about rebate accepted.
    10. never receive rebate and forget about it.

    Rebates are a SCAM. And they bloody well know it. It's actually a very simple scheme: the majority of people will never send it in. Then the majority of people who get declined, will not follow up. At the end they are left with a very low percentage of actual payouts, many MANY weeks after the original purchase.

    I applaud Best Buy and hope many will follow. (Fry's, are you listening?!).
  • by flowerp ( 512865 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:35AM (#12118897)
    Stores typically advertise prices after rebate, making you think you pay less. But for obtaining the rebate check, you have to go through a long process and give up some privacy on the way.

    Here in Germany there are strong laws protecting consumers. Here we have no rebates that are comparable to those in the US. Sometimes there are coupons attached to the product (like: collect 5 of these, claim a freebie/prize). But never we are told the product costs less than at the register. Heck, even the sales tax (more correctly: VAT) has to be included on the prize advertised for the item.
  • by LakeSolon ( 699033 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:39AM (#12118903) Homepage
    If anyone was wondering why Slashdot would choose to link the Minneapolis daily paper for this story: Best Buy is based in Minnesota [bestbuy.com].
  • Re:Wondering (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:40AM (#12118907)
    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...

    It's only easy money as long as people don't wise up to the scam. BBY and almost all other merchants have been riding the rebate scam hard enough to kill a mule for the last half decade at least. It is amazing that it still fools so many people.

    All it takes is for a large enough minority (probably less than 20% of all their customers) to decide that any product offered with a rebate is automatically disqualified from consideration for purchase and all that extra margin the merchants have been making on the rebate scam goes away.

    The immediate effect will be that any sharp merchant will cease (ab)using the rebate scam in order to try to recapature those customers who've decide they won't play the rebate game any more.

    That may possibly be what's going on here now, but I have my doubts about BBY management being akamai enough to notice and react to a rebate backlash. I expect other merchants to act first before BBY gets it in gear. I just don't have any confidence in a company that is primarily known for building and populating big, square smurf caves.
  • by schtum ( 166052 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:45AM (#12118919)
    People who forget or otherwise choose not to send in their rebate forms have no reason to be annoyed with anyone other than themselves. The big problem is when people uphold their end of the bargain and the company fails to uphold theirs.

    Personally, I have yet to be stiffed, but two rebates I mailed in for my parents when they bought cell phones were rejected on the grounds that the second month's bill didn't show that the first month's balance was paid in full. Bullshit. There was a large number next to "previous month's balance" and a zero next to "current balance". I even circled it for them so they wouldn't miss it.

    One angry email later, they promised to review my claim, and my parents did receive a rebate check for one phone. As for the second phone, they claimed not to have a rebate form in their system. Again, BS. How could they send me a rejection notice for a rebate form they never received? They either lost it or threw it out because they didn't feel like paying it.

    Another angry email followed, and now they're asking me to fax my supporting documentation, which I plan on doing (always keep copies of rebate forms/receipts, etc, until you have the check). It almost seems like a game to see who will get tired of squabbling over a few measly bucks first. If it were my own money and not my parents, I'm not sure I'd still be fighting.
  • by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:45AM (#12118920) Journal
    I'm a customer.

    I like rebates.

    I really, really, *REALLY* like rebates.

    What I dislike is feeling like I've been lied to, which is how the whole advertise the price after rebate thing makes me feel. Sure they explicitly say that the price is "after rebate", but that's *AFTER* the listed "price"... and it's just plain wrong, IMV. Rebates should simply not be factored into any primary listed price. If they want to, they can list the main price, then list the price after rebate immediately following. It will communicate the same information, in much more honest fashion, IMO.

  • by tetrode ( 32267 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:54AM (#12118939) Homepage
    So, could anyone explain this to the rest of the world?

    Thank you in advance,

    Mark
  • Lower prices? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Doogie Howser ( 65040 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:54AM (#12118940)
    So, if BB eliminates mail-in rebates, will they permanently lower their prices? Will they increase the intelligence-insulting "instant rebates" to compensate? Yeah, right...

    On a related but perhaps OT note, I've always wondered why car companies have to provide many thousands of dollars in rebates and "incentives" to sell their products. Anyone ever think that maybe the price points were too high to begin with? Just a thought...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:12AM (#12118985)
    That means "April's Really Big Fools Day", or "Fuck, Would Somebody Find The Spineless Fucking Retard Who Invented This Fucking Holiday And Beat His Fucking Brains In Day"
  • Missed opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:19AM (#12118999)
    Too bad, you being the first post on this thread, you could have posted "last post" and it would have been on-topic and funny...
  • by Mancat ( 831487 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:22AM (#12119004) Homepage
    Most rebates that I've seen are offered by a third party, and not by the manufacturer. I don't even know how that works.

    I bought a laptop from BestBuy a year ago. It was a Compaq model, so the rebate was coming from HP. I sent it off to their third-party rebate refunder, and when I finally received a response, they told my I had missed the deadline. I mailed a day after I bought the laptop, and the deadline was six months away.

    Honestly, I didn't even bother to fight it. It's just $100, and was not worth the trouble. That's probably exactly what they're hoping you'll think when they refuse to honor their rebate. Based on that experience, I'll never buy anything with a mail-in rebate again.
  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nunchux ( 869574 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:28AM (#12119013)
    No offense to you but I asked a member of your "Geek Squad" a test question: "How do I get started with Perl programming?" The response? Perl is a mixture of C++ and Java so you should buy C# and go to Sun's web site and download the Java SDK. Well, they were right about getting the Java SDK from Sun's web site; but how clueless do you have to be to mistake any programming langage for a "mixture of" two? I was pissed, when you don't know the answer to a question should you just throw buzz words at someone? No! You try to answer their question or admit that your clueless.

    No offense to you, but asking a Best Buy employee (most likely a $8-an-hour community college student who likes gadgets) about relatively complex programming languages is akin to asking the guy who recommends wine at the grocery store how to start a vinyard.
    If he was motivated enough to know Perl, don't you think he'd be anywhere but that hellish crap job?

  • Re:That's a (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:33AM (#12119019)
    If you're going to correct spelling, at least get it right. It's "their", not "there" or "they're"
  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mancat ( 831487 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:41AM (#12119038) Homepage
    If you don't dabble in Perl, then why is your name "The-Perl-CD-Bookshel?"
  • Good point! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:49AM (#12119053)
    You didn't mention this explicitly, but retailers generate a lot of their profits during the Christmas season, and when you buy a gift for someone you're certainly not going to cut up the box to collect the UPC to send in for the rebate. So they get to keep that money too.

    What a scam!
  • by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @04:52AM (#12119059) Homepage Journal
    no shit you picked a good user name! play the retail game - politely ask form some pen and paper, and when they give it to you, ask to see the manager so you can get his or her boss's name and number + corperate. at which point they'll bend over backwards and give you the cash you should have recieved.

    on the other hand i have zero sympathy for you risking your credit rating over a stupid hard drive - you should never make impulse buys over $50, especially if you have to budget your money as closely as you apparently do.
  • by pe1chl ( 90186 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:01AM (#12119070)
    Ah... so that is part of the ploy?
    It is not so common here. Recently I bought a cable box and I would get half of my money back. I sent in the forms, and indeed: they were lost.
    I did not know that would be standard procedure...

    It must be inconvenient for the company as well. They have to keep records of which forms are received for the first time so they will be discarded, then advise those complaining customers that they need to send them a second time, this time handle them correctly, and make sure they do not get the rebate again by sending one or two extra forms...

    And even then, the first-time failure of the handling of course stamps a negative image on the company.
    They must have had a difficult time deciding if this is all worth it...
  • by T3kno ( 51315 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:06AM (#12119079) Homepage
    Three words for you boss, computer fair and Internet. I used to shop at Fry's all the time, and grew to hate it just like you. Now if I need anything I'll hit the local computer fair, there is one at the Orange County fairgrounds here in SoCal every other week it seems, and there is a huge one in Pamona every few weeks. Check your local papers, there has to be one in the Seattle area.

    Just a bunch of vendors trying to undercut the other guy, if you know how to wheel and deal a little bit you can beat the crap mainstream stores like Fry's and BestBuy any day of the week, even if you were to get your rebate money.

    As for the Internet if you can hold your horses for even a day you can find killer deals on the internet, a lot of places have free shipping. Plus if you order from the right places you dont have to pay geschtap^H^H^H^H^Hsales tax.

    Phuck Fry's, BestBuy, CompUSA et al. The one last thing I would recommend is your local corner computer shop, those guys are just geeks trying to make a buck, they may not have everything but they'll have most of what you need, plus they can order stuff. Plus he's the guy at the computer fair selling stuff as well, so give him some love, you just might make a friend who can hook you up later on.
  • Yeah right.

    Problem with Best Buy (especially in that situation) is that shit rolls downhill. It always comes from the top, the people who deal with customers the least.

    No matter, they broke the law in not giving what was advertised so his budget practices don't even enter into the logic game you try to play. You can't blame a customer for not getting what they were promised.

    Or can you? That is the movement that companies are making now a days...
  • by meheler ( 193628 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:12AM (#12119090)
    I don't know, I would consider advertising the after-rebate price in 150pt font, and the note advising you that's only after a mail-in rebate 1/75th that size. You say, "Wow! A hard-drive for $29.99! Deal!" Take it to the counter and suddenly it's $75. "Oh, sorry, didn't you see? That price is only after a mail-in rebate. Would you like to purchase the product anyway?"

    Not everyone has the time, interest, or desire to RTFM. Nor should anyone be expected to when dealing with how and when to spend their precious dollar bills. Really, those kind of rebates should be between the manufacturer and the seller. I think the mark-up should include that kind of convenience.

    In the end I guess I agree that it's not my most hated marketing ploy, since, to me, all marketing tactics are equally worthy of my animosity.
  • by RubberDogBone ( 851604 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:13AM (#12119092)
    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.

    Many stores don't do cash refunds because they don't want to keep large amounts of cash on hand just in case somebody needs a refund. Cash is too tempting for robbery or sticky fingers.

    You can pay for large items in cash, sure, but if it's over a certain amount (varies by store policy) most or all of your money goes straight into the store safe rather than the register cash drawer. They probably couldn't refund a large cash purchase even if you hadn't yet left the store.

  • Joke? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john@lamar.gmail@com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:32AM (#12119124) Homepage Journal
    I hope it was.

    Think of the logic behind this:

    I'm Joe Sixpack.
    I save up my money to buy a television.
    I get there and get the last one in stock because I had to save up my dollar bills.
    I get it home, it doesn't work.
    I take it back to the store to get a refund.
    They tell me that even though I gave them cash, the most liquid form of payment, that I will get a check in the mail.
    8 weeks, or 2 months, later I get a check.
    The check isn't liquid.
    Banks charge $5.00 just to cash it even if it's drawn at that bank.
    Liquor stores want 2 to 6% of the check just to cash it.

    I'm serious when I say not everyone has a checking account. I can't for various credit reasons, my father couldn't because of a nasty divorce which left him in bankrupcy, with fees it may not be affordable, I may not have enough money to use the checking account.

    Remember, there are people out there scraping by. No matter, why should I take a check from you when I gave you cash?
  • Re:Enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by errxn ( 108621 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:49AM (#12119145) Homepage Journal
    Sadly, this is no April Fool's post, whether it was intended as such or not. I have yet to see the rebate check for the very laptop I'm typing this post on, and I mailed the claim in the Monday after Thanksgiving.

    Nor do I expect to see it, nor am I going to even bother bitching to Best Buy about it. As they say, "don't throw good money after bad."
  • Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by docflan ( 816137 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:57AM (#12119153)
    At random my ass. I invite every shopper to compare any Best Buy price to newegg.com. On anything. Newegg will generally beat Best Buy on any hard drive, optical drive, usb drive, DVD R media, CD media, monitor, printer, ... but I digress. And Newegg is not unbeatable either. Zipzoomfly.com beats them sometimes. Rima.com beats them sometimes. Best Buy is last in line, folks. The parent of this post is low-rent trolling at best. Representative of a clinical learning disability at worst.
  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:59AM (#12119158)
    I hate to break it to you sport, but having worked in retail myself I can say, just because you work behind the counter at *A* store doesn't mean you know what's goin' on with Best Buy as a company.

    If this isn't an April 1st joke, the 2 year time frame is still a bit of a ways off. I would bet dollars to donuts you'd be hard pressed to find ANYONE below the rank of executive or some high level managers, those directly responsible for getting this off the ground, that know more than the average /. reader right now.

  • by Rai ( 524476 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @06:23AM (#12119189) Homepage
    but I ignore rebates altogether when I'm shopping for electronics and such. I don't even allow them to be a factor in my buying decision. The amount I'm paying for an item will always be, in my mind, the amount they charge me at the register, regardless of whatever rebate it promises me.

    If BestBuy has something for $100 with a $50 MIR, but the guys down the street are selling the same thing for $75, I'm buying it from the guys down the street. I've never found MIRs to be reliable and I have and always will be willing to pay a bit more than the "after-rebate-price" to avoid them. Now, if I do buy something that has a rebate, I'll go ahead and send it in, provided it's a worthwhile amount ($20 or more) and I'm not too concerned about destroying the packaging of the item by cutting the UPC off the box. In this case, I just consider MIR a sort of bonus win (like a lucky lottery ticket) and not part of the amount I'm saving from the store.

    Am I just being a stubborn consumer or do others have a similar attitude?
  • by mythicflux ( 794321 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @06:47AM (#12119224)
    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.

    Of course you do have the option of having them do a functionality test, it's a bit of a hastle given that they charge a while $0.00 and that it takes a whole 5-10 minutes to verify that the machine boots correctly (assuming you have to go through a setup process).

    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.

    That truely does suck, but I would have to ask this, what kind of insult was it? Don't get me wrong, I had a computer salesman imply that I had some damaged my video card purchased 2 days prior which had a TV encoder IC chip actually blow out, (I could see the silicon inside sitting at an angle) and he had the audacity to say "well if you don't know what you are doing" to certified computer technician with years of experience. So I understand that people do say insulting things, but also having held a job way back in retail I can tell you that people are rather fscking nuts, I've been called a fscking idiot because I could not move a customer from a terminal that needed to be restarted (and was about 2 minutes away from being usable again) to a terminal already in use by an existing customer in a department which was not my responsiblity. The issue was that the gentleman in question had gotten this view that right after Christmas with the returns line being 2 hours long that he was somehow more important that the people who had waited just as long as he had. And that my refusal to immediatetly bow down to his demands while he was insulting me was completely unbelievable.

    The point is, those clerks may have been majorly stupid and disrespectful, or it maybe that the situation turned a poor choice of words into an insult for your mother which really wasn't meant to be taken that way.

    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.

    Because, as with most major retailers, the company limits access to money to prevent potential theft from employees and other unknown people. Odds are that that money you handed to the cashier was taken from the front register and placed in a safe to ensure that the company wasn't risking loosing 500+ dollars (and not just the cost of your machine). People have a habit of attempting to rip off major retailers all the time, they return false products sans important components or they return just the empty boxes and stupid clerks don't bother to check the box. So as a safety measure, ask yourself this, if you ran a store generating a $10,000 a day and had to just choose some guy you may not know personally to handle that amount of cash, wouldn't you feel concerned about the possiblity that that guy could accidently send a few extra hundred dollars some guy returning something, now, multiply that by they 600+ store Best Buy has. Isn't it a safer bet to have some bean counter hit a few keys, print a check and mail it off?

    Yes, it sounds like you went through a hastle, which did suck, but the store would have had a policy that would have given you options since there is no way in hell a sale associate at any, ANY retail store would let you walk out of the store with an obviously non functioning machine you had just spend 500+ dollars for, your mother could have had a technician test the machine, and while it maybe possible that she wasn't asked if she would like a functionality test, I have yet to purchase a machine from (Best Buy or any other retailer) and not have those sale drones try and sell me on the fact that a functiona

  • Re:Enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tdemark ( 512406 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:08AM (#12119305) Homepage
    I have yet to see the rebate check for the very laptop I'm typing this post on, and I mailed the claim in the Monday after Thanksgiving.

    So, why don't you call the number on the rebate form? You know, the one that you kept a copy of, along with copies of the UPC and receipt?

    I've done several thousand dollars of rebates over the last three years and I have never not received them in the end. On a few, I did need to call in when the turnaround date passed without a check. That's why it is really important to keep copies of everything you send in as well as the appropriate due dates for each.

    - Tony
  • by jav1231 ( 539129 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:40AM (#12119335)
    If stores were required to post the out of pocket price in bold this would all come to a stop....VERY quickly.
  • by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:41AM (#12119337) Homepage
    Now, why would someone go through all this for the $10 rebate on a stack of $25 CD-Rs?

    Maybe he's the type of guy that doesn't like companies that *rely* on the "hassle factor" to screw people out of small sums of money (which --> big profit).

    Maybe it's principle. Maybe he just doesn't like losing. But if more than a miniscule proportion of people did that, it would soon not be worth the retailer's time to pull the scam.

    So, it makes sense from a larger scale point of view. Whatever his conscious motivation, this *is* ultimately logical.
  • Re:Joke? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @09:33AM (#12119445)

    Of course it was, and I'm glad you got modded up for the reply. I have been there myself and I still haven't bothered to try to "re-establish a credit rating". If I cannot pay cash for something, I just don't buy . Pretty simple, and it keeps me out of debt.

    I don't figure I'll need a mortgage in my lifetime, so it works for me.
  • by darylb ( 10898 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @09:53AM (#12119492)

    The money quote: In fact, more than 80 percent of consumers surveyed by NPD Group of New York last fall said they sent in their rebate forms.

    Just having consumers hate the rebates isn't enough. Rebates only work for sellers and manufcaturers if a substantial number of people fail to send them in. That is, they bought the product, probably having been persuaded by the rebate, then never sent in the rebate materials. I recall several articles in the past (no links, sorry) that explains how if the number of rebate submissions approaches 100% of purchases, then it's cheaper for manufacturers and sellers to cut the price. The rebate overhead, of course, is what really makes this happen.

    So, an 80% submission rate is probably close enough to 100% that sellers/manufacturers aren't seeing the kind of return they're used to. Who cares whether the buyers like rebates? What matters is whether they file for and receive the rebates. Now that the FTC is cracking down on that second part (i.e., companies not paying off on the advertised rebates), where's the upside for the companies?

  • Re:Rebate? Try PSP (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:02AM (#12119512) Homepage
    I just wish they would not lie to you. I was told by a manager that they cannot accept opened software back because it is illegal to do so due to copyright laws..... talk about lame.

    I buy a disney game for my son and it was scratched... it would not even play in the computer at best buy. it was the only one that was on the shelf and I was told this lie when I asked for a refund.... I asked how then do I get compensation for my defective product and the manager tells me to call disney... when I asked for the disney customer service number for me to call she said they did not have one..... in fact, there was no customer service number to call..... I was pissed at the time of this conversation, and I told her I would never shop at a best buy again... and I have not.
  • Two Years? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ranger ( 1783 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:02AM (#12119513) Homepage
    Well if Best Buy is going to eliminate rebates within two years, I guess I can wait two years before shopping there again.
  • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:08AM (#12119525) Homepage Journal
    So, let's think about this. Best Buy goal is to sell stuff that poeple want, not need, at a cost low enough to make people think they are getting the best deal, but high enough to support executive salaries and maybe generate a profit.

    Obviously, to do this, corners are cut. You are not going to get the same service as a place where they are not having to play games to bring you a low price. They are not going to expend resources to ship extra product across the state and in the process lose money.

    And it is not about buidling relationships. There is none. A person shops at best buy for the lowest price. If the price is lower somewhere else, they will go there. If Best Buy has the lowest price, the person will go to Best Buy regardless of past experience.

    The only thing slimy is the six to eight week wait time. This seems unreasonable, as most places I go refund large sums in 14 days. However, you get what you pay for. If dealing is honorable people is a benefit, pay for it. There is little at Best Buy that is a neccisity.

    If I may add a computer tidbit. I remember about 10 years ago buying an Apple Laptop. There was some minor issue with it, and i wanted to exchange it. It had been at least a week, and the store said I could not return it but had to send it back to the manufacturer myself. This was reasonable, as at that time computer manufacturers were increasingly refusing to exchange computers that had functioned for a week. However, Apple still had the policy of allowing up to 30 days. Of course now almost everyone is 14 days, though apple will still allow 30 days under soem conditions. Fortunately I was able to ruturn the machine, get a new one, and not suffer the productivity loss of having to wiat a month for a repair.

  • Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:11AM (#12119532)
    Who modded this up? The guy proved his point with research and examples. Then someone mentions a conspiracy theory and gets modded up too? Try addressing the point!

    Poster: 1 + 1 = 2.
    Reply: I see you used mathematical symbols, which indicates an obvious bias. I'm not saying your wrong, but it's worth being said.
  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dolphineus53 ( 765914 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:19AM (#12119550)
    Why would a computer repair tech know anything about programming languages? The people at Geek Squad are techs. They replace parts, run virus/spyware scans and reinsall an occasional OS. Which part of this job requires knowledge of Perl? Why would you assume a PC tech would?
  • Re:Joke? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:31AM (#12119588)
    Maybe if you're so bad off that you can't afford to cash a check...


    YOU SHOULDN'T BE BUYING A TV
  • by ohm ( 122073 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:12AM (#12119746) Homepage
    In the past three years, I've submitted something like 125 rebates. I'll admit that my record-keeping hasn't been flawless, but I bet I'm getting about an 85% hit rate, and for substantial rebates (> $25), I'm getting a 100% rate of return.

    So, I for one will miss rebates. If you're diligent about them (I print out the form as soon as I purchase online, and I fill out the forms as soon after purchasing as I can) you can get some incredible bargains, plain and simple.

    I see them as a subsidy for the non-lazy, borne on the backs of the lazy. It's a tax on other people, I acknowledge, but a tax that redounded to my benefit. Oh well...I guess I'll just have to slow down my electronics purchases. I'm sure the wife won't mind.
  • by thefirelane ( 586885 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:36AM (#12119859)
    Heck, even the sales tax (more correctly: VAT) has to be included on the prize advertised for the item.

    That's because due to the terrible nature of the VAT, you can't really compute its end cost on an item... each step of manufacturing has a slight tax that adds up.

    For the end consumer sales tax, we don't include it because ant-government types (correctly) want the consumer to know how much the government is taxing them on an item, so it must be priced seperatly. In Europe the governments don't want you to know how much they tax, so they use things like VAT and the method you mentioned to hide such things.

    Not saying one is better than the other, just different philosophies. The VAT, however, has allowed European governments to steadily raise taxes without the consumers noticing. (This was recently in the Economist, subscription required)
  • Re:Enough... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rtphokie ( 518490 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:39AM (#12119870)
    You and me both. I've only had to fight on one rebate, with Staples. I got a card in the mail that said sometime to the effect of "Your purchase on 3/1/2001 does not fall within the rebate offer for purchased made within 3/1/2001 and 3/31/2001". After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I called the number, they said there was nothing they could do.

    I called the local Staples store and asked the mangager to resolve it. He refused until I asked what he would rather do, solve this problem with me, with the consumer reporter on the local news, or the North Carolina Attorney General's office. I got a call back from Staples corporate HQ the next day and my rebate check via fed a couple days after that.

    Rebates are bad when they are simply sales that should be offered in store. When they are deep discounts, I like them because I'm organized enough to actually send them in and keep track of what I've received and what I havent.
  • Re:Joke? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:56AM (#12119944)
    I'd bet well over 98% of people have a checking account (or some relationship) with a bank that would allow them to cash a check for free or at least have the funds to pay the cashing fee (won't the take it out of the check?). If you're in that remaining 2% you need to concentrate more on how you control your wealth than what Best Buy is charging for a TV.

    Yes, I'm being an asshole but only because A) Financially sound people generally provide more benfit to society as a whole and B) I don't want to be inconvenienced nor do I think Best Buy should have to change their policies because 2% of people can't manage basic financials but still want new TVs.

    What next, are we going to start bitching about next, the independent paycheck cashing places for taking their cut? How about e-tailers that don't take cash or even checks? Damnit, the government won't give me my tax refund back to my credit card even though that's how I paid last year! Screw them bastards!
  • Good Luck! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by timelorde ( 7880 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @01:10PM (#12120261)
    Let's hope they do better than Blockbuster did with that "No more late fees" crap.
  • Re:Joke? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by netfool ( 623800 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @01:28PM (#12120336) Homepage
    You missed his point. He gave them cash (as liquid as it gets). They gave him a check (not so liquid). He has to pay a fee just to get his money back into liquid form - even though they were in the wrong (by selling a broke TV).

    Besides, there's nothing wrong with saving up towards something. It's not like he said "I'm Joe Sixpack. I blew my paycheck this weekend on a TV & now I can't afford my mortgage payment... I'm going to lose my house because I wanted a pretty TV."

  • by Stunning Tard ( 653417 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @01:30PM (#12120347) Journal
    There are two hidden costs to mail-in rebates:
    1. Extra sales tax
    2. Lost interest on the rebate

    #1 Sales tax gets charged on the pre-rebated price. It's probably not a big deal in the states where sales taxes are usually lower. Where I live (Ontario if you must) sales tax is %15. From your example this gets charged on the $99. $7.50 more than if it were charged on the $49.99.

    #2 While you wait for your $50 back any interest you could earn on it is lost. Those rebates can take months to come back. %3 cumulative interest on $50 over 4 months (which you can easily earn with a decent savings account) comes to $0.50

    So the cost of the drive from Best Buy comes to $99.99 * 1.15 - 50 + 0.50 = $65.49
    Plus a stamp/envelope/photocopy and the risk of being slimed.

    The extra cost of buying online is shipping charges.

    From my last experience buying a hard disk the same model was at Best Buy and some tiny pc shop nearby. I don't have the exact numbers but the tiny shop had a slightly higher price but no mail-in rebate.

    Currently the Canadian Best Buy flyer has a 120GB Maxtor for:
    $169.99
    - $24 instant rebate (applied post tax, can't confirm)
    - $26 Mail-in Rebate
    ---------------
    $119 ($145.49 after tax)
    ---------------

    The neighborhood hole-in-the-wall shop (Laurier Computer, Ottawa):
    ---------------
    $109 ($125.35 after tax)
    ---------------

    Same specs on both: 120GB 7200RPM ATA-133 8MB by Maxtor. So it's probably the same model.
  • by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @01:32PM (#12120356)
    ummm - that assumes you have a regular job and something to "direct deposit" with.
  • Re:Enough... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ip_fired ( 730445 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:02PM (#12120464) Homepage
    Then you have been lucky. I purchased a Tivo from Best Buy, that came with a $100 rebate. I sent in the rebate the next day, everything was in order. I even typed up my name and address so that they couldn't claim it was illegible.

    They claimed that it was lost in the mail. I've *never* had mail lost except sending it to rebate places. I think it was probably "lost" after they received it. I went to Best Buy, where they reprinted the receipt for me, but they wouldn't give me the rebate form again. I called the rebate company, and they told me to get the form off of their website. I went there, and it didn't exist. They didn't have a single Tivo Rebate form. So I'm out $100.

    Lessons learned:
    Send your rebate via registered mail. And if that doesn't work, you're screwed.

    I hope they implement instant rebates. Now that would be nice, and I'd probably go to Best Buy more often.
  • by __aaercy5451 ( 871064 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @02:02PM (#12120465)

    Unlike their English counterparts, who have the benefit of a very good Advertising Standards Authority [asa.org.uk], and their local authority's Trading Standards office, American consumers are left high-and-dry because 'the market' has to be allowed to operate without government interference. The fact that millions of customers get screwed is totally lost on them.

    If KFC advertises a mini chicken sandwich, for example, and it looks much bigger on the poster than it is in real life, the ASA will ban the misleading ad [bbc.co.uk] in England. As the whole mail-in rebate scam shows, American consumers get NO protections whatsoever. Welcome to the land of free enterprise.

  • Re:Mail-in sham... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:16PM (#12120804)
    You clearly admit its the customers fault, yet you blame the offerer anyway?

    Yup. Like in car sales. The buyers often feel bad the next day. Why? Because they feel they were pressured into something they didn't really want/couldn't afford. The salesmen know the tricks to get people to buy things they wouldn't have bought otherwise and purposefully act in a manner contrary to the best interests of the consumer.

    Are you saying that a salesman that knowingly acts in a manner contrary to the best interests of the customer is blameless when the customer is coerced into the action that harms them?
  • Re:Joke? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Professor_UNIX ( 867045 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @03:30PM (#12120893)
    The middle class, for the most part, doesn't pay bounced check fees. Well, ok, it still happens to me every now and then, but it is very rare. Think about it, though... One of the largest and most profitable revenue streams for these mega corporations comes from assaulting the poorest people in America. It seems criminal.

    Frankly his story seems a bit suspicious. Why didn't he just ask for store credit and buy another TV instead? Why didn't they just replace the broken TV with a working one? I've never had a problem taking back a broken item to Best Buy and getting another that works. Hell, I took a broken receiver back, they didn't have any more of that model in stock so they gave me a different brand that cost slightly more for the same price and apologized for the inconvenience. Just because the Best Buy you happen to shop at has horrible customer service doesn't mean they all do. Sure, I could've just returned it and walked away since I used a credit card for the transaction, but I really needed a receiver that weekend. I'm sure you could ask them for a gift card or something instead and just go to another Best Buy store and buy the TV there with the gift card. If you're not dicks to them they should work with you.

  • Re:Geek Squad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @05:32PM (#12121675) Homepage
    For everyone dissing you, i'd like to thank you, or at least your organization. Yeah geek squad is kinda silly, but they've helped me out. I was building a system this summer and we had a storm that knocked it out (lightning strike to the pole, hit the cable, passed through the cable modem, but fried the occupied ports on my router and my system). Im not much of a builder so i didn't have enough spare parts around to swap stuff in and out. I was able to take my system there and get it checked out no charge. They were able to narrow it down to a bad motherboard fairly quickly. Also were quite complimentary towards my build skill (wire management, parts choice etc). I suppose something like that would be a welcome change for them from probably spending 90% of their time cleaning spyware off hosed machines, but it was a good customer experience.
  • by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @06:10PM (#12121918)
    Given the abuse that consumers suffer with these rebates (some of which I can attest to personally), I'm surprised the Attorneys General from the various states haven't targeted the companies offering them. At a minimum, I'd expect them to go after unclaimed rebates using the government's power of escheat. There must be a ton of money left that goes unclaimed, and states are hungry for revenue all the time. Or, they could levy fines against companies who falsely claim all the rules weren't followed (I've had 3 of those myself, and I have absolute proof that I fulfilled every niggling requirement. They still denied them, claiming there was no UPC in my submission. Lying bastards. I have a photocopy of what I turned in, and the original UPC is right there taped to their stinking form.)

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