Thread: Cash back offers

My Step son got an Acer with $150 cashback and MBGitW just got a compaq with $150 cashback. Both said 6-8 weeks precessing and low and behold the cheque from Acer arrived in 6 weeks. We only sent the compaq one 2 weeks ago so I am not expecting it for another month or so.

They seem to work, if you don't mind handing over the cash and waiting for the return check. I'm using it as a way to save for a bandsaw

Pretty simple sales practice really Toolin. Dont give away any discount you dont have to.

There is always a percentage of people that forget to claim so the company gets to keep the money.

I claimed for sons notebook recently and got the money in about 10 days

Only my opinion -
I believe that the inflated figure is for credit companies to charge interest. The $150.00 that you get back does not come of the total that the interest is calculated. A lot of people use credit because they haven't got the funds to purchase and are led to believe that they are getting bonus money to spend later.
Pretty sad the way people are fleeced.

I'm sure we've done this before...but here goes again...

It is very simple. They give you some money back. In return you fill out a form with some information on it. They are paying you for your information. This money comes out of the marketing budget. Nothing "sham" about it. It just helps them gather data about their consumers.

All of the above. And the gathered information is sold to other companies making mailing lists, who sell to other companies, who sell to ....... After a few cycles, the information is useless, and the game starts over. Take the money and run.

Joe

Got a 9in mini lap Acer about a week ago and have applied for my cashback, and the application has been accepted. In the online application, ther were two very strong pushes to claim a 1 yr warranty extension instead of the cashback, but I wanted the cash.

Paid cash up front do the credit co's didn't benefit from loan me more money and getting interest on the lot.

Looking around, the ticket prices on a lot of gear has fallen in the last month or so as the (now gone) high Aussie $ kicked in on new shipments. Inclined to think that the cashback schemes got rolling again to keep older stock selling against newer stuff imported with the better exchange rate, and then spread into the newer stuff as a competitive reaction, and to stimulate sales now that we have started another reccessionary trend.

Just look at new cars, anytime a new competitive model comes out, or a product is due to be replaced in the lineup, out come all the freebie options to boost the perceived value of a car. They do this rather than offer a similar discount on the purchase price because they need to clear cars while maintaining price to make the value retention figures for 1, 2, 5 and 10 years down the line look good. Not to many people get caught twice buying a new car that has no trade in value in 5 years time.

I bought an Acer laptop about a year ago,applied for the $150 cashback and received an email saying my $90 would be sent out within the time set out.

Luckily for me i had printed off their original offer and when i faxed it to them they did honour the $150 cash back.

Cheers Fred

One of the companies that processes rebates in the US (Parago) has just been granted a patent for "rebate processing system provides a user friendly interface, yet retains hurdles sufficient to maintain breakage."

Breakage is the industry term for rebates that can't be claimed as the claimer did not supply the 'correct' information to the rebate processing company.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/reba...cam-206894.php

In other words, you can promise a bigger discount as you know that a percentage of people will be unable to claim it due to hurdles in your processing system.

I ended up buying a puter wthout a rebate. The one being offered was next to useless in that it had only 1 gig of ram to run vista with. Shyte! - even XP needs a minimum of 2 gigs to run half arsed.

why dont they just knock $150 off the price?

Originally Posted by weisyboy

why dont they just knock $150 off the price?

Because the way they do it costs them LESS than $150; many don't file, and many others don't jump through all the hoops right. See Master Spinter's link.

Joe