Here's evidence that my skepticism about rebates is warranted:

I am staring at more than 1,300 rebate requests sent to Vastech on Bonaventura Drive in San Jose. The envelopes were tossed - unopened - into a garbage dumpster near Vastech. I have two boxes of envelopes that were thrown out without being processed. In all of my years of reporting, I have never encountered such outrageous behavior against consumers.

An employee of nearby Dominion Enterprises found the letters, along with hundreds of others addressed to Vastech, at his company's dumpster. He turned them over to his boss, Joel Schwartz, who gave them to me. All of the letters were addressed to UR-04 Rebate or some variation of the product name at the Vastech address.

The problem is that it's no skin off Fry's or Best Buy's nose if people don't get their rebates. They just claim that it's up to the manufacturer. So the fraud will continue. And I'll continue to ignore the rebates.

Rebates like that need to be outlawed. If the store wants to cut prices, they can do so up front.

The problem is that it's not the store that's cutting prices--it's (supposedly) the manufacturer. But they're not really doing it, either, because I'm sure that they expect most people not to bother.

I'd always had good luck with rebates, but on the last one (for an IPod) I did get screwed out of substantial money.

Might not ever again make a purchase choice influenced by a rebate, but if I do, I won't ignore the instructions to make a photocopy of your receipts. If you don't, it's just your word against their's.

This is a problem that will be corrected by the market. Rebates have such a bad reputation by now that some stores (e.g., Office Depot) process them in-house and/or increasingly use "instant rebates" to eliminate consumers' doubts about the odds of fulfillment.

I noticed the local CompUSA stores are closed... Apparently their competitors are not learning from their mistakes.

The most irritating thing about most of these rebates is that it typically impedes your ability to make a return. You have to send in the _UPC_, which also means you can't return the item in its original packaging. A coincidence, I'm sure.

I've long avoided rebates, but a few months ago I succumbed and bought a couple of products based on their rebated prices. It was a total hassle. Poring through fine print instructions, filling out forms, hunting down upc codes and photocopying receipts -- all for the sake of (eventually) a lousy $20 or $40 dollar check that takes a special errand to deposit, and won't make a nit of difference to my financial well-being.

It completely re-established my aversion to products bearing rebates, and they DID pay as promised.

Staples has been great with their rebates - all on-line. Circuit City -- ugh.

And most certainly: make copies of what you mail.

I remember this great rebate I saw -- 100% of the purchase price.

It was on a can of compressed air keyboard/electronics cleaner. You had to send in the UPC barcode, though.

The barcode was painted on the can.

Like anyone ever expected that "rebate" scam to
actually pay anything? For one thing, there's
usually such a short window that, unless you
pretty much jump on the deal as soon as you get
home from the store, you're past the expiration
date of the rebate offer. I guess they're
counting on that happening for most everyone
unless they were, like, -totally- fixated on
the "discounted" price as the key element in the
purchase decision... the annoying thing, though,
is that the stores seem to have thouroughly
indoctrinated their sales folks into presenting
the product based on the assumption that the
rebate would be claimed. Excuse me, sir, I'm
willing to pay you the $199 you're actually
asking for that LCD monitor. The possibility of
the $20 rebate from the mfg. is a separate issue;
it has no bearing on how much money I have to
give you guys so you'll let me take the thing
home... please stop calling it a "$179 monitor"
when that's not how much you're asking for it!

-dw