Rebate, or bait?

Arnold Kling is having trouble getting rebates for stuff he bought.

Last month, I bought a laptop at a CompUSA in Rockville, Maryland. I did not know nor care about any mail-in rebates. However, as I was standing at the cash register waiting for the stockboy to bring the box, I was accosted by two salesmen as well as the register clerk, who told me that I was entitled to a lot of free merchandise, because of a special sale that week. The catch was that I would have to pay for the merchandise and then wait for the rebate. <snip> So far, I have received denial letters for every single rebate.

But is this just ineptitude on his part, or something darker and more sinister?

"Now, here's the interesting part," the reader wrote. "The rebate fulfillment house will GUARANTEE IN WRITING to the manufacturer that the percentage of rebates claimed as presented in this table will not be exceeded. They will eat the cost if it is." Small wonder then that the rebate house sometimes just can't see that receipt you're certain you included in the envelope. If they wind up paying the rebates out of their own pocket, it makes sense to just pay off those who scream the loudest. And small wonder the vendors are tempted to offer these magical discounts on their products. If one rebate fulfillment house won't guarantee to keep your costs low enough, just use a slightly sleazier one that will.

Indeed, the longer any company can keep your money, the more interest they can earn from it. Even in cases where you eventually receive the rebate, the company makes out very nicely. Add enough special requirements, and only the very anal-retentive meticulous actually manage to get paid.

How to cure it?

Kling has a solution worthy of – well – Klingons...

Indeed, sometimes the easiest policy for government to implement in order to deal with market failure would be to punish the scammed consumers rather than the scamming firms. Thinking along those lines, Congress could pass a law imposing a fine or prison term on any consumer who buys merchandise with a mail-in rebate form and cannot prove that he or she received the rebate within 60 days. This threat would have stopped me from taking any product with a mail-in rebate, and I suspect it would have made most consumers think twice.

jIQub vaj jIwuQ. (I think, therefore I have a headache.)