I suspect that the percentage of people who are tempted by a rebate is quite high but that the percentage who actually follow through and collect the rebate is significantly lower. The rebate offerors probably love that disparity and seem to work to make it even less likely that buyers will seek that rebate.
Here's an example. Yesterday at Office Depot I bought a Western Digital Passport -- an 80 GB portable hard drive. The price on the shelf was $129.99. Not bad. But a close scrutiny reveals that it's actually $179.99 with an instant rebate of $20 and a mail in rebate of $30. Well, okay. Not quite as tempting, but that's not a deal killer.
The cashier rang up the instant rebate and was kind enough to print out the rebate forms and make two copies of the receipt. Why two copies? Because there were actually two mail-in rebates, one for $10 and one for $20. One was to be mailed to El Paso and the other to Detroit.
Both forms had to be filled out. Both forms required the original or a copy of the receipt. One form required the original or a copy of the UPC, and the other required the original UPC.
So the only tricky part was making sure that the original UPC got in the right envelope. But, the whole process was cumbersome and time consuming which I'll serve up as evidence of my original point that the rebate offerors are trying to discourage the collection of the rebate.
But I'll show them. It's off to the mail box I go. Oh wait. The postage rates went up the other day, and I don't have the correct postage stamps. Dang! Foiled again. (But only until I get some new stamps.)
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