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02/21/2004 Entry: "... oh and one more thing: rebates lie."
I might also add that I got pissed off because Sprint sent around an ad for our company that said employees could upgrade our phones for $149/pair. Despite the ad saying, "Upgrade," it meant, "Upgrade for new customers only..." which didn't make sense, until you realize "upgrade" meant "instead of the usual phones we give new customers." Boy, did I feel like an idiot in the Sprint store. Oh, but no worries, I could still get the phones for $149/each... after a $200 rebate. After some extra fees, that would be I'd have to pony up $700 up front, and hope they actually remembered to mail us $400 in rebates 4-8 weeks later. As I look at my "rebate waiting area" in my desk, I see I am still waiting for a $70 rebate from Circuit City, a $40 rebate from Office Depot, a $30 rebate from Best Buy, and several assorted $5-10 rebates from various companies. Truthfully, I have actually gotten rebate checks from time to time, usually ones for the $5-10 range, and a few from Best Buy for even higher, but experience shows that only 1 out of 3 rebates actually get sent back to me. I don't know why I have some of these, the $70 one is from 2002 when I got my cable modem. You're not getting it, Punkie; you got scammed. The best joke was when Office Depot denied a $1 rebate from Bic Highlighter Pens because I apparently sent the form in too late. Let me repeat this another way, they spent $0.35 in postage to deny a $1 claim. Heh. That felt at least a little better. Rebates are a big scam. I never listen to them anymore. If I get a rebate, great. But I always assume that the price is the price without the rebate, so if they say, "This system is $599 after $300 manufacturer's rebate, " they mean it's $899. Period. If I get $300, yay me, but I won't hold my breath. I'd go into this whole spiel about rebates, but many people already have done it for me. Here's a halfway decent article about it.
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