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© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
I must be getting old. I seem to complain about everything. Well, here I am complaining about free money. With a rebate, you normally buy something at the normal price (supposedly), then you mail in a coupon (with proof of purchase) and then they send you free money.
Lately, I have bought several things which I would not normally buy because they were expensive. But they offered substantial rebates. I bought encyclopedia software only to find that the rebate offer had expired. I bought a Hasbro game which said that up to $20 would be rebated. I then found that if I bought several Hasbro games (like Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, etc.) I would get $20. Well I had indeed bought about six of these games. But I could not find a sales receipt (proof of purchase) among any of them. So I lost $20. Yesterday, I bought Gunk Puncture Seal Instant Tire Repair (because I had two flat tires and only one spare) which offers a $3 rebate, and my shopping bag contained no receipt.
I have recently lost out on two or three other rebates because I foolishly lost the receipts. One of them demanded proof of purchase for the software I was buying and proof of purchase for the software that it was replacing (software that I had bought years before).
I hate rebates.
Addendum:
God, I hate rebates. What torture I won't go through for $10. I just applied for a $10 rebate to Fujifilm Computer Products. I bought 5 zip disks at Hastings. The cash register didn't print out a rebate form, as the checker told me it should have. So I waited at the customer service desk for a half hour, while some idiot photocopied the wrong forms for me. I got home and found that the forms were for Iomega zip disks. But, no problem, the package told how to get the rebate the fast and easy way, over the Internet at myrewards.info. There, they wanted to know some vital things, including the store number. I have no clue what the store number is. I inserted a question mark, and explained it in the comments field. Hope that works (yeah right). In the comments field, I refrained from swearing and calling them names. Now I have to send the sales slip, a printout of the form, the UPC code, and the original rebate (what is that?) to Fujifilm (actually to I AM REGISTERED . . . whatever, I forget). And I couldn't get into the kevlar package (I stabbed right through it with my scissors which didn't help. I eventually sawed through the side with a steak knife), but that is an unrelated complaint. And I will get my $10 in 20 days (after they receive all that crap). My fingers will be crossed until then. If I didn't need the $10, I definitely would not have bothered.
P.S. I never did get my rebate from Fujifilm.