Rebates have always been annoying but only recently have I seen them become a severe loss of time. There are no guarantees that you will get your money back and then it will usually be in 2 months.

First there was buy.com that had problems printing my online receipt in time to submit a rebate. All requests for aid (and even sending a copy of their server error message) received no response.

I should have learned my lesson but not, I am out again to Compusa, tempted by their weekend ads to pick up some long awaited gadgets. Not only do I leave with 5 rebates to submit but a couple of products had 2 rebates each to get the advertised price.

To make matters worse, when I asked for price matching to their competitor across the street the response was:
"Oh look, there is a new rebate for the exact value you were asking for. I did not see that before. Well we cannot offer you a price matching if there are rebates at the same value." Interesting this rebate was never advertised anywhere and was good only for a week. In effect they are saying that "we will probably match the price... in two months time and after you do some paperwork/ photocopying/ pay for postage. If you don't get your money in 2 months come back and talk to us."

To their credit they did suggest that if I wanted the cheaper price now I could go across the street. My confidence was not improved seeing that most of the rebates were to be sent to post office boxes in different cities.

All of that being said, I have always received my rebates in the past but the amount of work for multiple rebate items and the use of rebates to say someone can match their competitors price is making me wonder if this is really worth the effort.

Tags: rebates