My new Reader from TigerDirect is HERE!

[Clemenseken]

UPDATE.0.9 alpha : an email "Ship Confirmation" arrived last night!
I found my Tracking Number at UPS site, called in Frankfurt and was told package will arrive Friday morning! (07/26/07)

[Clemenseken]

Hi all,

my three units Sony PRS500 are here (for: wife, brother, me).
I checked them a little - they differ slightly in brightness.

As we leave in two days for our vacation I have no time to tell any more about my TigerDirect experience ... but will do so on return!

(Andiamo a Italia - Ciao e Salve!)

[mogui]

I have always been happy with Tigerdirect -- lots of choices -- good prices -- good service for me.

The Better Business Bureau is often a helpful last resort. A few years ago Fry's sold me a monitor that was supposed to have a $100 rebate on it. After waiting a long time for the rebate, I called the monitor company. It appeared to be a fake company because nobody answered the phone or responded to customer service emails. Fry's wouldn't do anything even when I made visits in person to their store. Finally I contacted the BBB. Within a few days I had an email telling me I could get my rebate.

Personally I now think that anybody that participates in a mail-in rebate deserves what they get. It is clearly a profit-boosting scam that shady merchants perpetrate knowing many people will "space out" on the rebate and not collect it. Now I don't buy anything that has a rebate unless the store will give it to me at the register.

Curmudgeons unite!

[joblack]

Arg ... UPS is a snailmail service.

From the USA to Germany it was fast, but in Germany it seems to use donkeys to transport it =).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by joblack

Arg ... UPS is a snailmail service.

From the USA to Germany it was fast, but in Germany it seems to use donkeys to transport it =).

UPS = United Parcel Service. USPS = United States Postal Service

UPS is not the same as the USPS. UPS is a delivery service that does some really stupid things. Like they employ what they call home drivers. Which are basically people delivering packages after they finish work. We had one of these really stupid home drivers deliver a package that was supposed to be signed for and the moron left it outside in the public entrenceway to an apartment building where anyone could get it and someone stole it. The package was on a timed delivery and needed to be there to us in time. Thankfully the shipper was able to help us out in a rush order when I called.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mogui

Personally I now think that anybody that participates in a mail-in rebate deserves what they get. It is clearly a profit-boosting scam that shady merchants perpetrate knowing many people will "space out" on the rebate and not collect it.

What utter nonsense. Many highly reputable companies operate such offers - eg when I bought my Canon EOS20D digital SLR camera, Canon were offering a £100 ($200) rebate. I posted off the voucher from the box - they posted me a cheque for £100. All went perfectly smoothly.

[mogui]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What utter nonsense. Many highly reputable companies operate such offers - eg when I bought my Canon EOS20D digital SLR camera, Canon were offering a £100 ($200) rebate. I posted off the voucher from the box - they posted me a cheque for £100. All went perfectly smoothly.

So why not just give a discount? Or an "instant rebate"? What could be their motivation for making you jump through that particular hoop? Did you enjoy it?

If you don't think you are being scammed see here and (funnier) here.

Isn't it easier just to say no?

[Dr. Drib]

I personally don't care for rebate offers, either, but I use them.

However, to make a generalized statement about rebate offers as all being scams because of a bad personal experience you've had strikes me as a specious argument, one whose claim is grounded on illogic.


Don

Originally Posted by mogui

I have always been happy with Tigerdirect -- lots of choices -- good prices -- good service for me.

The Better Business Bureau is often a helpful last resort. A few years ago Fry's sold me a monitor that was supposed to have a $100 rebate on it. After waiting a long time for the rebate, I called the monitor company. It appeared to be a fake company because nobody answered the phone or responded to customer service emails. Fry's wouldn't do anything even when I made visits in person to their store. Finally I contacted the BBB. Within a few days I had an email telling me I could get my rebate.

Personally I now think that anybody that participates in a mail-in rebate deserves what they get. It is clearly a profit-boosting scam that shady merchants perpetrate knowing many people will "space out" on the rebate and not collect it. Now I don't buy anything that has a rebate unless the store will give it to me at the register.

Curmudgeons unite!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mogui

So why not just give a discount? Or an "instant rebate"? What could be their motivation for making you jump through that particular hoop? Did you enjoy it?

I would guess that if a large company like Canon wants to do a promotional price on a specific item, it's perhaps easier for them do it that way rather than have to change the price structure for all the dealers, etc.

If you don't think you are being scammed see here and (funnier) here.

That is completely spurious logic. The fact that there have been scams involving rebate offers certainly doesn't imply that all such offers are scams. That's a ridiculous generalisation.

[Azayzel]

Originally Posted by Clemenseken

Hi all,

my three units Sony PRS500 are here (for: wife, brother, me).
I checked them a little - they differ slightly in brightness.

As we leave in two days for our vacation I have no time to tell any more about my TigerDirect experience ... but will do so on return!

(Andiamo a Italia - Ciao e Salve!)

Wow! That was some pretty speedy delivery to Germany once they finally decided to fill your order; only three days? Glad to hear you've received them (just hope you're not gonna scalp them on eBay after all this trouble, though that's your business). I've enjoyed my first one and the wife loves the one I picked up from TD, she can't get enough of it.

[Azayzel]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I personally don't care for rebate offers, either, but I use them.

However, to make a generalized statement about rebate offers as all being scams because of a bad personal experience you've had strikes me as a specious argument, one whose claim is grounded on illogic.


Don

I'm thinking along the same line as Mogui. The whole mail-in rebate system is in place to get people to make large purchases they normally wouldn't make with the promise that they will get some money back in return to decrease the actual price of the item. What you fail to mention, and Mogui pointed out, is that many people will either a) forget to mail the rebate altogether or b) space it until the last minute, or be victim of a short turnaround postmark deadline, and get denied their rebate due to missing the postmark deadline. I think that the whole postal deadline is a scam in itself, if you took the time to make the purchase, trim the UPC, fill out the rebate, and mail it, you should receive your rebate regardless or the time it took you ro do so, provided it's in a reasonable timeframe or at the very least a month. I've picked up some rebates where I only had a 3-day window to get it in the mail; now that's absurd! I've actually missed out on a few rebates due to some of their funky schemes, and even got to the point where I'd photocopy everything and physically watch the postal attendant cancel the stamp as it was put in the mail.

The marketing guys that dream up the whole rebate system aren't dumb, they know they'll only have to realize about 25-30% of the rebates they advertise due to procrastination and forgetfulness.

[mogui]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That is completely spurious logic. The fact that there have been scams involving rebate offers certainly doesn't imply that all such offers are scams. That's a ridiculous generalisation.

I suspect that mail-in rebates started as a means of controlling the discount passed on to the consumer, that is, to ensure the retailer doesn't just gobble it up as profit. But it has since become a moral ski-slope for even some of the biggest companies as they realize that the rebate can be relied on to boost their bottom line.

I am suggesting that all mail-in rebates are a shady business practice. Marketers now know that by making it difficult to collect the discount, many will fail to do so and the money will end up going to the shareholders, not the customers. An honest merchant can give you a discount in a straightforward manner if he chooses to do so. If the manufacturers want to control who gets the discount, they can offer a checkstand rebate or instant rebate, as it is called.

Who does the mail-in rebate benefit? Certainly not the oft-forgetful elderly, the busy consumer, or those outside the demographic conditions of the offer. I recently bought a Canon camera. I am very pleased with it, but if it had been sold with a mail-in rebate, I would have passed it up. Even if you are diligent in collecting the rebate, you can be sure someone else is being cheated.

I think it is better if we send a message to dodgy manufacturers by not participating in their calculating little games. Just buy another brand. They will eventually catch on and stop doing it.

[JSWolf]

The reason they have mail-in rebates is because not everyone mails them in so the company gets to keep the money that otherwise the consumer would get.

[mogui]

The two companies mentioned in this thread, Canon and Tigerdirect, are famous for phantom rebates. See the Rebate Rogues Kennel at consumeraffairs.com. You can see a long list of complaints by consumers detailing their bad experiences.

Better yet, ask for your rebate at the checkout counter at the time of purchase. If the retailer won't give it to you, refuse to buy. They will eventually get the message.