Poll: How often do you send in Mail In Rebates?

[MacRumors]

Vote: Poll: How often do you send in Mail In Rebates? (http://www.macpolls.com/?poll_id=243&ref=forums.macrumors.com)

[ZildjianKX]

Some of these polls are getting weird, how do you guys come up with them?

At my local grocery, they had a 50 cent mail in rebate... and a stamp costs 37 cents... hmmm... that was the first time I never sent one in. :D

[Bunzi2k4]

this is a little off topic, but once at fry's i bought a mini usb 4 port for 9 dollars, with a 9 dollar rebate :-D so i payed 70 cents for tax :-D... but when it comes to computers ect, i forget... darnit... i forgot to do 3 in the past 3 months... >:-|}

[Nermal]

Oops I answered Never, then realised I sent the one that came with my cellphone. It gave me $30 free airtime.

[MetallicPenguin]

Yeah, you guys drunk when you're thinking of polls? :p

Most of the time I guess.

Your next poll should be:

Have you gone outside this summer?
-Nope, waiting for my PowerBook/Power Mac to come.
-Yeah because I was going to get into my car
Etc.

[maradong]

Originally posted by ZildjianKX
Some of these polls are getting weird,

affirmative

how do you guys come up with them?

Good question ;-)

At my local grocery, they had a 50 cent mail in rebate... and a stamp costs 37 cents... hmmm... that was the first time I never sent one in. :D
lol

[Mudbug]

Originally posted by MetallicPenguin
Have you gone outside this summer?
-Nope, waiting for my PowerBook/Power Mac to come.
-Yeah because I was going to get into my car
Etc.

This is too funny... maybe this really should be a poll one day, just to throw everyone off!

[arn]

Huh? I thought this was one of the better polls.

You always buy stuff which you rationalize to yourself because it comes with a $xx rebate.

The problem is... I rarely send in the damn thing. I've got a $70 rebate sitting on the desk right now for a printer I bought. I'll get around to it.

arn

[KingArthur]

Rebates are like coupons. Marketing ploys. Are you goign to take the time out to do the extra work for the rebate, or are you going to just buy it and say screw the rebate. lol. When you look at something that says $99 that normally costs $150, you are going to buy it. When you take it up to the front of the store and find out that it is with a rebate, you'll say, "ok. I'll take it b/c it is still going to be such a good deal". The companies know the percentage of people who buy the product during the rebate period has a low turn around rate with the rebates. It saves the company money and gets them new buyers.


Ahhhhh.....behold the power of marketing

[MacFan26]

I send in rebates most of the time. For people buying a laptop (at the education store) and also bought an iPod, they gave a $200 off rebate on the iPod, also off the educator price to begin with. So I got my 15 GB iPod for $169, instead of $399. I deemed that one to be worth it. :)

[Dahl]

You can save some good $ if you look around, I try to find the best deals, sometimes that's free software or rebates. The thing with rebates is that they take forever to send the check. I'm getting $100 from Marcomedia any day and I swapped my Premiere CD so I can get Final Cut Express for "free".
I can't remember the last time I bought blank media, it's always free with the help of rebates.
Add out of state shopping to avoid tax and the free shipping you sometimes can get and you can save quite a bit.
:)

[MattG]

If it's for enough money, sure, I'll send in a rebate.

[Ambrose Chapel]

I got a printer that had a 50 dollar or so rebate...mailed that in right away. Actually I could have redeemed it twice - once from the manufacturer and once from the store. Only one required the actual receipt and UPC code, the other only wanted a copy. Hmm maybe I did redeem it twice, can't remember now.. ;]

Other than that I usually pick up Sony CD-R spindles when they have that rebate deal where it comes to 50 discs for 3 bucks or so. Don't see many other rebates...

[MetallicPenguin]

Originally posted by arn
Huh? I thought this was one of the better polls.


I'm just joking around arn:D It just seems so off topic for some reason.

[kworden]

How often do you really get a Rebate back !!

I've sent in 4 rebates in, I have only received 1 back in two years


K :)

[scem0]

Some of the time.

They are such a hassle though, they really work for the sellers IMO.

scem0

[wdlove]

I always send in my "Mail in Rebates." In fact I have one right now that is worth $5. :)

[Sonofhaig]

Originally posted by arn
Huh? I thought this was one of the better polls.

You always buy stuff which you rationalize to yourself because it comes with a $xx rebate.

The problem is... I rarely send in the damn thing. I've got a $70 rebate sitting on the desk right now for a printer I bought. I'll get around to it.

arn


$70 rebate? Waiting there? Arn, please send me the money if you don't need it. ;)

[wdlove]

Originally posted by arn
Huh? I thought this was one of the better polls.

You always buy stuff which you rationalize to yourself because it comes with a $xx rebate.

The problem is... I rarely send in the damn thing. I've got a $70 rebate sitting on the desk right now for a printer I bought. I'll get around to it.

arn

I agree arn, I think that it's a great poll. Please don't take this in the wrong way arn.

You are a marketers and manufacturers dream. The marketer is able to get you to buy a product by publicizing a rebate on the product, and so will get more customers. The manufacturing wins because he gets the sale at full value.

arn you need an admistrative assistant and by the way I'm avaialble! :p

[gopher]

I marked never because many of these rebates require your personal information. Also if they can afford to make it on sale, why not just put it on sale? It is a waste of paper to have rebates. Worse yet, many of these rebates take up to 13 weeks to process. In that amount of time, some devices actually get cheaper to begin with!

[jkojima]

I've had terrible experiences receiving rebates. For any Canadian MacRumors fans out there: stay away from Futureshop rebates! Not once in perhaps 4 or 5 purchases have my rebates come.

Most recently I got into a fight with their rebate processing company when they accused me of sending a fraudulent rebate (right form, wrong UPC)... when it was they who mistakenly tried to process my rebate under the wrong promotion code. Still haven't resolved the issue.

So, to answer the poll, though I keep sending them, I certainly will never again base a purchase decision on a mail in rebate.

[MacManDan]

if I buy a product with a rebate, I send in the rebate. It's free money, after all (minus the stamp, of course). I don't think rebates under $1 are worth it though :D

I'm currently waiting for 3 rebates to be mailed back to me .. and when they do come, I'll be $100 richer.

The only problems I've had with rebates was (surprisingly) with Apple. I had a deal to get $20 back if I purchased Toast with my PowerBook last July, and they mailed me a letter stating that the rebate was invalid and I would need to send them "corrected" information by X date. Unfortunately, I had received the letter 2 weeks after that date! Argh .. so needless to say I don't trust Apple's rebates anymore :( :eek:

[ZildjianKX]

I have trouble receiving a lot of rebates... the ones I've had particular trouble with are Costco rebates, and Best Buy rebates... never did receive my $30 rebate for Unreal (yes, original Unreal) from Best Buy...

[MacSlut]

I liked this poll. I would love to see one based on the reception of rebate checks. I'm always seeing hard drives that I'm tempted to purchase, but don't trust that I'll actually receive the rebate check.

[QCassidy352]

I liked this poll too. Don't listen to the peanut gallery arn! ;) :p

Just today, on the last day possible, I got around to mailing in a $10 rebate...

[MacFan25]

I usually send them in, especially if it is for a good amount of money. I try not to forget about them. ;)

[Doctor Q]

Stores use rebates because they know a lot of people will buy at the reduced-by-rebate price and then never send in the forms. I've seen floppy disk multipacks sold for $10 with a $10 rebate. And they still make money!

Rebates are a pain, but I can't resist a bargain so I buy products with a rebate when that gets me the best price, and I send in the forms. I have always gotten the rebate check and always much sooner than the 6-8 weeks they promise. One recent purchase from Macmall (a Sony compatible memory stick) was cheaper than any store but required two separate rebates! My tax software also came with two.

A friend of mine explained it this way: Stores can't charge one person a different price than another person simply because one has more money than the other, but when they use coupons or rebates they get that effect. The people who aren't counting their pennies or for whom time is expensive won't bother cutting coupons or sending in rebate forms, so they pay more.

[wdlove]

Originally posted by ZildjianKX
I have trouble receiving a lot of rebates... the ones I've had particular trouble with are Costco rebates, and Best Buy rebates... never did receive my $30 rebate for Unreal (yes, original Unreal) from Best Buy...

I have sent in about 5 rebates to Costco. Received them in a timely manner with no problems!

[MacFan26]

Incidently, I just sent one in today for $10 off a microwave I bought at Costco :)

[Makosuke]

I agree that it's a good poll. But there's one option missing:

-I never buy stuff with rebates, on principle.

I personally think that in all but a few cases, rebates are an underhanded ploy to rip lazy people off (at best, by hoping they forget; at worst, by hoping they won't bother to complain when you never send their money). So I have not bought anything that offered a rebate as any significant portion of the price in years.

(I don't count things like "50 cents back" rebates on shampoo that I would've bought anyway.)

The one situation I'm willing to forgive rebates are when they're for disparate products that it would be difficult to track purchases of any other way--"Buy 4 Universal DVDs this year, get a 5th free" or the like. Still don't like 'em, but I'll cut some slack, anyway.

[tazo]

if its over 10 dollars i do

[wdlove]

I just mailed a rebate in today for $5 from BJ's. So now I will be able to find aout about there service!

[jbomber]

I usually try to send them in as soon as i get whatever random new toy it's being offered with. Otherwise you get wrapped up in playing with said toy, and never realize that the deadline on the rebate passed until it's too late.