Mail-in rebates

[bandit]

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?

Heres another with no rebates

OfficeDepot has the Maxtor 160GB 8mb Cache Hard Drive for $150 - $80 coupon code 38129876 = $70 w/ free shipping. No rebates.

Inventory will depend on your zip code. These will go out of stock fast. It was advertised in the SJ Mercury.

[mollipen]

How, uh, exactly do I take advantage of that there? I bought the CompUSA one, but haven't opened it yet, so I can always take it back.

[GohanX]

Office max has a bit of a reputation for stiffing on rebates. I've only ever used a few, and I always got them. Just took forever as expected. The delay is intentional, they make interest on that money that's just stewing around. So does the postal service on money orders.

edit (er yeah, what Regus said...)

Not trolling here, but I'd like to just say that it's not that the Omax rebates are any worse than anywhere else, there's just so fucking many of them at any given time. On sundays when the ad hits, there are bargain shoppers that get dozens (literally) of rebate items. It's confusing when you have so many items, and many of them don't get sent in till its too late, or the customer puts the wrong upc in the wrong envelope, etc.

I hate rebates with a passion, I have to put up with it every day. At store level though we will take care of the customer as long as they sent it in right. 9/10 times the customer brings in the info, and their rebate was rejected because they didn't include a UPC. If they did everything right, we either call up the rebate 800 number and get it straightened out, or pay for the rebate out of our own pockets, but we rarely have to do this.

The only time I've seen customers legitimately get the shaft is when Cendyne went out of business.

Just make sure you make copies of everything before you send it in. No rebate center yet has denied it when an employee calls about the rebate and it goes like this "Mr Smith's rebate was rejected because it had no UPC" *I look down at copy* "I'm looking at a copy of the UPC right here, bitch, it was sent" "Ok, they'll get the check in 2 weeks."

I'm not trying to defend OfficeMax though... on a personal level I believe rebates are an advertising scam and not worth the hassle, but if you do everything right you will usually get your rebates back. I've never had any problems with the ones I've sent in myself, other than they take a while.

[Brotherman]

For the most part, my experience has been good when I remember to send the rebates in. It does take a while, but as long as you consider that in making your purchase, rebates are great deals. The worst I've had happen is for them to send me another form to fill out some info. because of some mistake on their end, but I still got my money after that.

[bandit]

How, uh, exactly do I take advantage of that there? I bought the CompUSA one, but haven't opened it yet, so I can always take it back.

O sorry. You have to order it online.

[mollipen]

Nevermind... I asked some questions, then figured out how to apply the coupon. They are all out for my town anyhow. *grr*

[Shin Johnpv]

I hate mail in rebates with a fucking passion a deep burning passion

which is why i dont buy most PC stuff in stores any more because most of it is advertised at much lower prices with fine print of rebates where as i can go online to like www.newegg.com and get the same item for the same price or 9 times out of 10 less with out having to deal with mail in rebates

newegg is the fucking shizzle for buying PC parts

[OGcritic]

How, uh, exactly do I take advantage of that there? I bought the CompUSA one, but haven't opened it yet, so I can always take it back.

Hmm, Is the the one they were selling for $60 after MIR?
If so, then I believe that was the 2mb buffer one...which is going to slow you down in the long run...you may want to think about that one (I was pissed I didn't pick up that Office Depot one, since I saw it immediatly after it was posted on Bensbargains.net...and I even put on in a cart, and it was still in stock. I couldn't buy it, cause I had to wait for my sister to get home, to use her credit card....lame)

[mollipen]

What is the problem with a 2MB buffer?

And I'm going to be using this HD for an external media drive. It'll have my music, it'll have my movies, it'll have my idol pics. It won't be my main HD, it won't run the OS, it won't run apps, anything like that. Is it still a bad idea?

[OGcritic]

As far as I know, what happens with the 2mb buffer, is it will take longer to access, and open whatever files you want to bring up.

Like if you're wanting the open up a large movie file, and you have a 2mb buffer. It will take such and such longer to open up as opposed to if you had a 8mb buffer.

Someone may correct me if I'm wrong...but I think that's the gist of it.