Oh My Stars -- Rebaters Are Thieves

I always knew that mail-in rebates were a bad way of getting a better price: Extra work and chance of things getting lost spells possible disappointment for the customer. I assumed that the rebaters were honest and were offering rebates to get some kind of valuable marketing information from the things that are sent in. I rationalized that the mixed rebate success I had was do to incompetent rebate processing centres. I always thought the original vendor truly wanted to give me a good experience and wanted to get this extra information. How wrong I was.

In truth, vendors hope that the rebate is not claimed. In fact, vendors try to put roadblocks in front of customers to make it likely that they fail to get a rebate they want. Those requirements such as purchase dates, UPC code cutouts, photocopied manual pages, circled amounts on the receipt, etc are all opportunities for the customer to get something wrong so the rebate can be denied.

Denied rebates are called breakage in the biz. I found this out from looking on a couple of websites that make reference to a patent by Parago Inc, and another one I found on my own by Walker Digital -- look them up on Google Patent Search;. These patents describe systems for processing rebates and some of the claims discuss maintaining a desired breakage rate.

So let me get this straight: A company tells me that something costs $50, except I have to pay $100 now and I'll get $50 back later if I just kindly send in a few bits of information. Then they simply keep my $50? That's called a lie and the company that made the promise is called a liar. Change that: it is called theft and the company is called a thief. From now on any product that I see with a mail-in rebate will make me very disappointed. The company may even be one I respect; but I don't respect thieves.

Companies: You are stupid stupid stupid if you think that rebates are a fun way to get customers to buy your product. It is as awesome as punching us in the face and then picking our pockets as we lie on the ground. If you want to offer a price reduction then DO IT. Just offer the true price reduction. Everyone will love you and no one will hate you. With a rebate everyone is nervous because they don't know if they will get the money, and some will eventually love you but some will eventually hate you a lot!

Here are some companies that have denied me rebates:

• Logitech for a webcam: How dare you lie to me. I thought you were good, but now you suck.
• Microsoft for MS Money: I missed mailing in the rebate in time so I don't know if you would have lied or not. The rebate was small, maybe $10. I'll give you another chance but stop offering mail-ins. You don't need to make $10 off me by stealing or hoping I miss the deadline.
• Symanted for Norton Systemworks: You guys blow so badly. I bought you because I needed my hard drive fixed and found this wicked rebate deal. I knew you blew because half the stuff I buy has your garbage virus scanner included that I have to uninstall, but I thought maybe Disk Doctor could help. Well, it didn't help and you stole the $30 you promised me in the rebate even though I jumped through all your hoops. I hate you and I always tell everyone never to buy your products. I hope you lose $30,000 worth of sales because of me.