No, Thomas, your experience is not atypical, at least going by me. I've never, ever received a rebate.

I no longer take them seriously, or even bother to send them in. If it worked once in a while, I might bother, but it's gotten to the point that it's not worth the time and hassle on an expected-value basis, even when it's fifty bucks or so. If the price is worth it without the rebate, I buy it, if not, then I don't. But I never factor in the rebate any more in the purchase decision, unless it's instant in the store. I wish that they'd stop this fraud.

I have a friend who always gets his rebates. I asked him how he did it and it became obvious that he spent the better part of a day doing all the letter writing and phone calling that was required to actually get what was promised to him in the first place. Did I mention that he was retired and had plenty of time on his hands?

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Wow, I feel sorry for you guys. I've gotten a couple hundred dollars worth of rebates this year. $100 off a laser printer, bringing it down to $50, $10 after rebate pre-n wireless card, a 1GB sd card, etc, from a variety of retailers (best buy, compusa, ecost.com). They take forever, sometimes 10 weeks or so, but as far as I know they've all come thru eventually. (I'll admit I haven't kept track of every single one, but I know the lion's share have come thru.)

I too, have NEVER had a problem with rebates and I use them extensively since every month tigerdirect and pcdirect will have items that are free after rebate with free shipping after a certain about of retail purchase. I have received whole cases of cd/dvd media with rebates via OnRebate effectivly for free. I know of no trick to it. Perhaps, I've just been lucky.

Tob

My favorite rebate story involved a $6 rebate on a $6 can of compressed fluorinated hydrocarbon cleaning spray. Great deal, right? Except: you had to send in the UPS symbol to get the rebate, and it was painted onto the spray can!

"...compressed fluorinated hydrocarbon cleaning spray." Ahhhh- I love the smell of tri-chlor in the morning! It smells like- NASA... in the sixties! :)

But seriously, I agree. In most cases the rebate game is- a game. What I'm finding even more aggravating of late, is the growing number of grocery, pharmacy and office supply stores who want you to carry THEIR little "Reward Card" around to be scanned with every purchase, "to save you money." Before long we'll need wallets 6 inches thick to hold them all. If they really want to "reward" repeat customers they should drop their retail prices to begin with. That will generate LOTS of repeat customers.

I've got less than a 25% track record at actually getting a rebate. Most of the time, they disappear into rebate oblivion. It's gotten to the point that I refuse buy anything that has a rebate offer unless the price is good enough without it. I also refuse to do any more business with the companies that didn't honor their rebate promises. Maybe I'm just one guy out of millions, but if others start feeling this way, the rebate fraud will end up hurting companies. I don't see fraud as a viable "calculated business decision."

"...compressed fluorinated hydrocarbon cleaning spray." Ahhhh- I love the smell of tri-chlor in the morning! It smells like- NASA... in the sixties! :)

Nope, no chlorine in that stuff. It was either a perfluorocarbon or a hydrofluorocarbon, I forget which.

I am one of the "never had a problem with a rebate" group. As noted, sometimes they can take months to show up, but eventually they do. I've got a $50 check for a rebate sitting on my desk right now.

On the other hand, I only look at rebates for electronic goods, which might be a sufficiently restricted space to change the observed behavior.

I hate rebates in the sense that they are an invitation to spam, whether email or phone calls. The interesting thing is Thomas purchased from CompUSA, who rarely sells anything without a rebate. I never shop at CompUSA for that reason. They were even successfully sued for misleading advertisement regarding rebates.

However, I have had success with rebates in the past. This year, I'm sending in a rebate to Canon. I also found greater success with rebates from manufacturers rather than the merchants.