Mail-in rebate requests typically require original receipts and codes taken off of the original packaging. If you misplace the receipt or throw away the box, you lose out on the rebate. Since the receipt is typically needed to return the item or claim the purchase as a tax deduction, consumers are not exactly eager to send off the original receipt. If a copy of the receipt is mailed instead of the original, the processing company can deny the request and not offer the option to resubmit.
Companies can even deny receiving your claim request at all. Without a receipt or proof you mailed the paperwork, you are out of luck. If you miss out on a rebate or your rebate request is unfairly denied, you can file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.
The Bureau of Consumer Protection works to protect consumers against unfair and deceptive business practices. Although the FTC might not be able to recover your rebate, multiple complaints can prompt an investigation.
If the FTC finds the company guilty of deceptive practices, they can prosecute. In fact, it's discussed openly in the trade press. In truth, the companies don't process their own rebate offers they hire companies to do it for them, many using "at-home" data entry people. These companies count on your forgetting to send in rebates, filling the form out wrong, mailing it late, or missing the small print about including bar codes or packing slips, or a piece of your dog's hair.
Enforcement agencies occasionally take action but most of the prime offenders are large companies with huge legal departments and, dare we say it, scads of political influence.
In five years, the Federal Trade Commission has taken action against a relatively small number of offenders. Part of the problem is the question of who's issuing the check. Confusion over where rebates originate leaves consumers unable to target the problem and get it fixed.
Everyone else starts opting out the more complicated it gets, unless the reward is unusually great. Ultimately, he told Webster, it is more efficient to build the rebates for everyone, instead of relying on the knowledge that only a select few will wade through a long process.
In many cases, such firms know exactly what they are doing: offering a rebate that will attract consumers, then making it just hard enough to collect and use that rebate that many customers will never actually claim it. There are many variations of this kind of unnecessarily added-in friction baked into the world of rebates and cash-back offers. The customer has to pick new categories for rewards every few months, then keep track of the merchants by which they are getting rewarded — or they have card-based rebates at many merchants, but must individually select each merchant where they want to receive a reward, one at a time, within their mobile app.
Even better, they could automatically add offers to a consumer's card as they come up, without the consumer having to do anything. Offering a clunky, leaden, friction-filled process is a way to save money, Edwards noted, but, ultimately, it is short-sighted. Any strategy that relies on annoying or frustrating a consumer into resignation is not a process designed for customer retainment.
Simple, smooth processes — particularly those oriented around getting a customer a reward in a faster, better manner — tend to do a lot to boost loyalty and consumer interest, he explained. Ultimately, they often have the added benefit of being cheaper, too. When the payout is instant and easy, it can be much lower. If those merchants offering rebates want to use them to their fullest advantage to direct and encourage consumer behavior, that means now must be the time to bring them into the digital era.
The Holiday Shopping Outlook, PYMNTS surveyed more than 3, consumers to learn what is driving online sales this holiday season and the impact of product availability and personalized rewards on merchant preference. Shares of the online payment processing platform Paysafe plunged to a record low Thursday Nov.
Escaping The Dark Ages What consumers often face when collecting rebates is a process littered with stutter steps, which tend to push those consumers away. Recommended for you.
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