I am talking about that sales gimmick, the rebate. In the last few months, I have had to send in a dozen or more rebate requests. It seems that you can't buy anything related to computers these days without having to get involved with a lot of rebate games. I resent having to go through all the nonsense of filling out forms, cutting up boxes to remove proof of purchase codes, making copies of invoices or sales slips, mailing all the collected stuff and then waiting so long for the rebate check that I forget what it's for. I would really prefer a simple reduction in price. Unfortunately that won't happen since the rebate thing is a marketing ploy. It's a come-on and the companies hope you won't actually apply for the rebate. Statistics seem to show that a lot of people don't bother and the companies do all they can to throw up obstacles to discourage as many people as possible.

First, there is the special form you have to get. No copies, please, only the original will do. Where is the form? Sometimes you have to ask for it at the store where you make your purchase. Tough luck if you forget to ask. (Oh yes, don't forget to ask for an official duplicate of your sales slip while you're at it.) If the rebate form comes with the box, it is often buried in the middle of a lot of advertising literature that you have to sift through before you find it. Is the form clearly marked as such? Of course not, that would be too easy. It's in an obscure place in the middle of a page sandwiched between advertising blurbs for useless (but expensive) services. The lines on the form are very small so that only by using special micro-writing techniques can you get your name and address filled in. As a result, I often get rebate checks made out to odd names. Fortunately, my bank doesn't seem to care that I bring in checks for "W. Lavie" or other strangers. No doubt, however, companies will keep hoping that I won't be able to cash some of their checks.

I recently bought a HP printer and ran into a new version of “Let’s make the rebate form hard to get.” This time the only way to get the required rebate form was to go to a special Web site. There I had to fill out a form to see if I was eligible for the rebate. They wanted to know a whole lot of things, including marketing survey stuff like my employer, my income, my job function. OK, I made up some fake data for that part but then they wanted to know the code for the model of my new printer-not the model number, mind you, but the code for the model number. To get this code, I had to go look it up in another Web site. After I entered the code number (it had no resemblance to the model number), next they wanted the serial number of the actual printer I had bought. Do you know where the serial number is? It’s on the bottom of the printer. I had already installed the printer to see how it worked so now I had to remove the paper, disconnect the cables, and turn the printer upside down to get the serial number. (Along the way a couple of parts fell off.) All this was required, not to actually get a rebate form, but just to see if I was eligible to get a rebate form. It was almost like trying to get into some secret fraternity. Finally, I received the stamp of approval and was ruled to be eligible. Now, I had to go to yet another site to finally get the mail-in rebate form. But guess what. At this new site I had to fill in much of the same information I just got through filling in at the previous site. Clearly, HP is hoping I will throw up my hands and say a $25 rebate isn’t worth the hassle. But I trudge on. Finally, I get the rebate form and print it out. Now I have to fill out the same information on the rebate form that I just entered twice on Web sites. Not to mention that I have to retrieve the box that my wife already put in the garbage so I can cut off the proof of purchase or whatever part that is wanted. Also according to the rebate form, I need the “original invoice”. What invoice? I ordered the printer on the Internet so all I have is a confirming e-mail and the packing slip that came with the printer. Big red letters are stamped on the packing slip, “This is not an invoice.” Also the rebate form says that the printer’s serial number should be on the invoice. Nothing that I have has the printer serial number on it. I write the number on the packing slip, send it in, and hope. The $25 rebate is no longer the incentive. It is now a primordial struggle with the forces of HP.

Of course, HP is not alone in this type of obstacle creation. I recently used the Internet to order a couple of computers from Dell for two grandchildren. When you order on the Internet, Dell often promises a significant rebate, ranging from $100-$200, depending on model. However, instead of just reducing the price at the time of purchase, they make you mail in a rebate request. They have all the information about you and your order right there on the Internet, but you still have to go through the whole charade of filling out and mailing in stuff. You have to go to a special site to find the rebate form; it doesn’t come with the computer. (Sound familiar?) Then you have to mail in the rebate form with the packing slip that comes with the computer. Unfortunately, one of the grandkid’s computers came with a packing slip that had no mention of the rebate. How that problem will resolve, I don’t yet know. The point is that such problems would not arise except for the whole ridiculous business of having to mail in stuff. The convenience of doing business on the Internet is partly vitiated by this rebate nonsense.

Another company that pulls this kind of stunt is Intuit. I buy my income tax software on line. According to Intuit, the state software is included in the price. But, you have to pay extra for the state and then mail in a rebate form to get the money back. Intuit knows who I am and that I have just downloaded the federal software from them and that I have paid for it. Nonetheless, I have to mail in a form, a proof of purchase, and a sales slip (all printed out from the Internet). I will then wait for three months until I (hopefully) get back the money that I should not have had to pay in the first place. 

Making the rebate request form an obstacle is only one of the tactics used to discourage people from applying. Getting together the various and sundry things that must accompany the rebate form is another hurdle. Sometimes it’s a version of a scavenger hunt. Especially if you have a wife like mine whose first and immediate reaction to anything that arrives is to throw all the packing material and boxes into the trash. It would be one thing if they always asked for the same part of the box but that wouldn’t be playing the game. They have to make it hard enough to cause some more people to drop out of the process. So it’s a game of trying to find which little thing on the original box that they want mailed in this time. No, it’s not the UPC code, no, it’s not the product code; oh, there it is, it’s one of the tabs that are used to close the box. I even once had to make a photocopy of the bottom of a laptop. Toshiba insisted on having the serial number (like HP). My word wasn’t good enough, however. They wanted real proof and insisted on a photocopy, not of an invoice but of the machine. Have you ever Xeroxed the bottom of a laptop?

If you manage to get as far as collecting all the hodgepodge of stuff that has to be mailed in, you have to put a very long address on an envelope to be mailed in to some obscure location like a small town in South Dakota. I guess they hope that, by making the address very complicated and out-of-the-way, some applications will go astray in the mail. Lost mail is clearly what they had in mind when they designed the format of a typical rebate check. It looks nothing like a check and has a very close resemblance to junk advertising mail. I am constantly tossing advertising stuff that looks just like the format that is used for rebate checks. Also, it is the size of a postcard and easily gets stuck in the middle of the flyers from the grocery stores that we never look at. That the check should get lost or inadvertently thrown away is clearly what companies are hoping for. They also take so long to mail the check that they must be hoping that you will forget about it. I sent a rebate request to Symantec in early December; the check came in mid-March. If the check, in fact, never comes how many people will have all the documentation or the energy needed to inquire? But don’t get your hopes up, HP, this is a duel to the death. I am carefully checking the mail every day.