Mail-in rebates

I've heard horror stories before about mail-in rebates taking forever to come, or sometimes, not even coming. I've had only a few experience with them, only one in years. (A recent one, which has yet to come.)

However, I've got a bit of temptation - CompUSA is having a big sale this weekend, and one of the items in their flyer is a 160GB HD for $60. ($180 - $20 instant + $100 mail-in rebate.) I'm looking for a new HD for dumping music and movies on, and this would work great.

Anybody have good or bad experiences with mail-in rebates? Are they usually fine, just a bit slow? Or has anybody here had one (or more) never end up coming?

Most places are generally very good about mail in rebates, especially large stores like compUSA. Generally they are not the quickest things, so if you need the money, dont do it. But if you dont mind waiting a bit, you should be good.

I've never had any trouble with them. In fact, it feels like you're getting free money once you finally get the check in, because you've long forgotten that you sent out for it.

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Originally Posted by Tones

I've never had any trouble with them. In fact, it feels like you're getting free money once you finally get the check in, because you've long forgotten that you sent out for it.

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That's about how I feel. It sucks having to put the money up front...especially on high prices items...but it's the best feeling getting the money 2 months later, after you really don't have it in your budget plans (since you can't count on it coming at any one time).

I bought a comp from Dell not too long ago, and I sent in a rebate for 150. They say right off the bad it'd take about two months. It came about a week and a half later than that, but at least I got it. They do take forever sometimes, but it's well worth it.

All the ones I've sent out, I've recieved. Fuji got me my rebate check really quick (maybe a month, it was for cd-r's) while my $100 rebate for my Samsung flat screen monitor took about 4 months to get.

They count on you not sending it out (they get a very small percentage of rebates sent in during promotions) so send it out. Just triple check that you have everything they want before you seal the envelope. If one thing is missing, they won't send it.

I had a similar offer from Best Buy for a 120 GB HDD. The rebate was a whopping $150 which reduced the final cost to $121 with tax ($1 per 1GB). Anyway, I received it within 3/4 weeks, so no problems there. I photocopied all the forms and proof-of-purchase tags just in case. In general, I haven't had a problem with other rebates, but I share your paranoia every time I send for 'em.

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Originally Posted by Rumpy

They count on you not sending it out (they get a very small percentage of rebates sent in during promotions) so send it out. Just triple check that you have everything they want before you seal the envelope. If one thing is missing, they won't send it.

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At one time I read that only about 20%-30% of people actually submit the rebate for a given offer.

Alot of major companies use www.wheresmyrebate.com -you can usually track your rebates there.

I almost never recieved the promised rebate. I think CompUSA has actually stiffed me on it 2-3 times. A hard drive I recently bought had two rebates on them (not from CompUSA) and neither showed up. But I think it's karma because I once got not one but two rebate checks from Iomega (when I was only supposed to get one). Since each check was $40, I was happy about that. :)

The thing is, what stores do is take that $20 they are going to give you and let it sit in the bank for a month or two so they can build some interest on it, then when they ship it back to you they've made a profit. So you can always expect this stuff to take forever. I work at Staples, and my favorite thing is the $1.00 rebates you get back after buying a pen or whatever. After spending $0.37 just to mail it out you're sure to get your money's worth.