Rebate rant
May. 19th, 2004 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nlbarberI really dislike rebates. If a manufacturer wants to encourage me to buy a product, they should just offer a sale. The rebate scheme, in my view, is to make things look like they are on sale, but with the knowledge that some good percentage of people will fail to fill out the rebate form, or will lose the required proof-of-purchase, or will miss the deadline--and the manufacturer gets the sale at the higher price.
Which brings me to Intuit and their TurboTax rebates. I buy the Mac product (there's only one), and I get a "free" State product. But it's not free--you must shell out the money (which Intuit then keeps for the interim), and apply for a rebate. Same deal on the "free" electronic filing: put in the credit card number, get charged, fill out the forms and get your money back sometime later. But I do all this, having tried TaxCut and been unhappy with it (I'm not sure they still make a Mac product, anyway), and being stubborn about doing my own (fairly complex) taxes.
I filled out all the rebate forms for 2004 the weekend after April 15th, and then last week got an email saying my State tax rebate had been denied because I hadn't purchased it within the promotional window. A quick check said this was probably wrong, but I put the stuff aside until I could dig out all the fine print on the rebate offer before filing an appeal.
So I procrastinated all last weekend, and didn't get it done. Just as well, because this week I get a second email: You may have received a notice from us stating that your rebate submission was rejected. This notice was incorrect. We simply made an error when entering your information and this error was just discovered through our normal quality assurance process. And they'll send a check in 15 days or so. The electronic filing rebate, at less than half the amount of the other, has already arrived, incidentally.
I'm glad they've got a QA procedure that caught this before I went to the effort of an appeal. But I'm still resentful of the whole rebate process. And don't get me started on electronic filing fees: I think the various taxing authorities should be picking up the tab on those, because of all the savings they accrue from not having to input the data. There's no benefit to me in electronic filing other than not having to stuff 20 pages of tax return into an envelope.
Which brings me to Intuit and their TurboTax rebates. I buy the Mac product (there's only one), and I get a "free" State product. But it's not free--you must shell out the money (which Intuit then keeps for the interim), and apply for a rebate. Same deal on the "free" electronic filing: put in the credit card number, get charged, fill out the forms and get your money back sometime later. But I do all this, having tried TaxCut and been unhappy with it (I'm not sure they still make a Mac product, anyway), and being stubborn about doing my own (fairly complex) taxes.
I filled out all the rebate forms for 2004 the weekend after April 15th, and then last week got an email saying my State tax rebate had been denied because I hadn't purchased it within the promotional window. A quick check said this was probably wrong, but I put the stuff aside until I could dig out all the fine print on the rebate offer before filing an appeal.
So I procrastinated all last weekend, and didn't get it done. Just as well, because this week I get a second email: You may have received a notice from us stating that your rebate submission was rejected. This notice was incorrect. We simply made an error when entering your information and this error was just discovered through our normal quality assurance process. And they'll send a check in 15 days or so. The electronic filing rebate, at less than half the amount of the other, has already arrived, incidentally.
I'm glad they've got a QA procedure that caught this before I went to the effort of an appeal. But I'm still resentful of the whole rebate process. And don't get me started on electronic filing fees: I think the various taxing authorities should be picking up the tab on those, because of all the savings they accrue from not having to input the data. There's no benefit to me in electronic filing other than not having to stuff 20 pages of tax return into an envelope.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Ugh.
Date: 2004-05-20 07:20 am (UTC)I agree, rebates are evil. So I am meticulous about sending everything in tickety-boo.