The Rowe Family Blog

I hate rebates.  They are extremely inconvenient.  They also force me to pay sales tax on a portion of sale that I’m not really paying for.  I understand why companies offer rebates all the time though — it makes them money.  People think that they are saving money, and they can, if they follow the 15 rules set forth in the rebate guidelines.  But sometimes even if you follow all of the rules they still reject your claim.  Or you never get a rejection notice or a check.

Recently I bought a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita as a gift.  A rebate was offered for a whopping 2 dollars.  The rebate didn’t influence my purchase decision but I decided to take advantage of the offer even though it was hardly worth my time.  After paying postage I’d only get about $1.60.

I followed their rules which were:

• send the rebate form
• send the original dated register receipt with product highlighted or circled
• send the original UPC code from the product

Sometime later I received a rejection letter that included all of the materials that I originally sent to the rebate address.  The rejection letter stated:

“All required purchases could not be identified on the register receipt”

This boggle my mind because the item is circled on the receipt (see below).  Maybe they didn’t understand that 750 ml is the same as 1 pint, 9.36 fl oz.  The bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita now cost me $.39 more than the price I paid at the register.

If your company is considering a rebate program I urge to not offer a rebate.  If you must offer a rebate I urge you not to choose CMS Rebate Services as they obviously can’t handle the simplest of rebates.