One last thing before I hit the hay – mail-in rebates are really starting to bug me … I think because I’m starting to read them for what they really are…
I just finished filling out a rebate for some Corsair memory that I bought from Newegg. I thought I got a really good deal – that is, until I sat down and read the terms of the rebate. I actually bought two different products – one came with a $40 rebate and the other with a $15 rebate – so originally I was expecting a total of $55 off the original cost of my order.
Wrong.
Maximum rebate $40.00 per household.
There’s a bunch of other legal jargon included as well to prevent you from splitting up the items between a couple of different people to still get your money’s worth. And on top of that, the rebate must be submitted within 21 days or it’s void … AND the check will take 8 – 10 weeks to arrive! Seriously, why do these guys even bother offering a warranty if they’re going to be so jerky with their terms?!
I thought I remembered seeing some legislature a while back that made mail-in rebates illegal in certain states, thus forcing them to only be able to do rebates at the point-of-sale, but I can’t seem to find links to anything worthwhile this late at night. It really makes me wonder just how much requests gets lost in the shuffle or rejected back due to some stupid rule written in the fine print.
Despite the form saying I can’t claim them both, I’m still going to submit for the entire $55 and see what happens – nothing I can lose at this point. I’ll let you know in 8 – 10 weeks if they follow-through with the jerkiness that the rebate form itself suggests…