[ale] [OT] rebates

[Scott Castaline]

Jeff Lightner wrote:
>
> Personally I?ve always thought the main point in ?rebates? is that 
> vendors fully expect not to have to ever honor them.
>
> To me the funniest is when mail order houses like Dell offer rebates. 
> You have to buy it from them, have them send it to you, then send them 
> something proving you bought it from them? The only two reasons I can 
> see for this would be: A) They make money on the float between the 
> time you buy and the time you get the rebate and/or B) They don?t? 
> expect to have to honor the rebate so increase their bottom line.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] *On Behalf Of 
> *Jerry Yu
> *Sent:* Friday, February 23, 2007 6:31 PM
> *To:* Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> *Subject:* Re: [ale] [OT] rebates
>
> maybe some lawyers can see it as a job opportunity (for a class action 
> lawsuit), if they do google/yahoo/msn search :)
> CompUSA was there before, till FTC fined them a few years back.
>
> On 2/23/07, *Sean Kilpatrick* <drifter at oppositelock.org 
> <mailto:drifter at oppositelock.org>> wrote:
>
> The offer said "90 days." That means, at law, 90 calendar days.
>
> The more time I spend with Google, the more I have come to realize
> that Office Depot has been scamming folks across the country for the
> past few years with rebates that are not honored.
>
> Sean
>
> On Friday 23 February 2007 17:34, Jim Popovitch wrote:
>
> | On Fri, 2007-02-23 at 17:15 -0500, Sean Kilpatrick wrote:
> | > Back in November I purchased a HP laser printer from Office Depot.
> | > The printer (2605dn) works well -- no complaints about the printer.
> | >
> | > BUT . . . . (you knew there was going to be a "but")
> | >
> | > The printer came with two rebates, totalling $175. The rebate forms
> | > burped out by the cash register's printer provided clear instructions
> | > and warned me it might take 90 days (!) for my money to arrive.
> | >
> | > Well, 90 days have come and gone but there is no sign of my money.
> |
> | 90 calendar days, or 90 business days?
> |
> | -Jim P.
> |
>
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I've had 2 recent experiences with Office Depot:

1. I was shopping for a UPS (some of you might remember my asking for 
your opinions). Everybody's price varied but was fairly close, except 
for Office Depot. They were actually listing a price higher than the 
MSRP. Oh by the way I wound up getting the APC RS1500 from a site called 
mWave.com based in the LA, Ca area. Even with shipping they were at 
least $25 cheaper than everyone else and their customer service was 
great. I kept on getting e-mails at each step from order acceptance, 
approval, shipped and just before delivery.

2.Staples has been offering $3 for empty ink cartridges for a while now. 
Office Depot just recently started the same, and then raised their 
prices on new cartridges by $2 which were already $2 more than Staples 
which is $1.50 cheaper than Wal-Mart.

Oh well, just my $ .02.