AS a general rule, I never purchase an item based on the rebate – either I usually forget to send it in, or they have an archaic level of detail required to complete them. Still – for my job I purchased quite a few Samsung LCD’s a few months back that just happened to have a rebate available in addition to the low price offered by NewEgg.
So I filled it out, it’s a decent chunk of change – enough to buy another LCD. Yesterday I get a postcard saying my purchase was made outside the qualifying period.
Huh?
Now NewEgg had a link to the rebate which I printed out, it covered any purchase made between April 1st and 30th and had to be postmarked by May 30th. I bought the things in mid April and mailed in the rebate in early May.
I call the 800 number on the card, and realize that they’ve processed May’s rebate – not April’s. Two entirely different offer codes. Thankfully the woman on the phone sorted it out in short order and re-processed it, but this is precisely why I don’t like to deal with rebates.
Could it have been operator error? Sure. Could it have been an effort by Samsung to either spread out the rebates or just save money by denying ALL incoming rebates on the first try with a simple mistake on their end? More likely.
I trust big multinational corporations as much as I trust big government. Samsung still makes solid products, but this sort of stuff just bugs me.