7 ms·

Most "sales promotions" in the 90's were little more than fraud. Most of us remember the period where almost everything in computer stores were "free after reb

Most "sales promotions" in the 90's were little more than fraud. Most of us remember the period where almost everything in computer stores were "free after rebate." "Emachine 1997 model FREE AFTER REBATE", "Pack of 50 CDR FREE AFTER REBATE". The rebate involved you filling out a form with the original proof of purchase, sending it off, and either never hearing from them again or having it denied. "Sorry, wrong receipt, send us the real one" but it was already gone. Now, I assume anything with a rebate is fraud. The insight from this article is that we were right.

CalRobert 4y ago
I had about a 95% success rate. As a broke student in the early naughties I got almost everything tech FAR. CompUSA and Frys (pour one out) were especially good. I miss the cameraderie of the Black Friday Frys line.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  >early naughties Haram
notyourwork 4y ago
I don’t recall ever getting one denied. Maybe I was lucky but those CD rebates were huge for me as a kid to have infinite supply of media to write content to. Music, games, apps, etc.
- astura 4y ago
  Yep, Same, I've filled out probably 25+ rebates in my life and I always got the rebate, eventually. You have to make sure you read and follow the fine print though - the instructions are very specific. The GP probably didn't read the fine print. I still have several spindles of CD-Rs (and later DVD-Rs) that were free (or maybe $1) after rebate.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Similar 'cashback' deals exist even now... You rarely get 100% back. Often there isn't too much fine print either, and the payout rate is ~90% in my experience. Sometimes they insist in paying in amazon vouchers or some other 'almost cash' currency. They are very common on subscriptions.
    - Fatnino 4y ago
      Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash. Other things used as cash include gift cards, cigarettes, drugs, bikes, iDevices, baby formula, diapers, laundry detergent...
      - ghaff 4y ago
        >Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash. Although, generally speaking, Amazon and other general purpose large retailers (Walmart, Home Depot) have figured that out. When I get rewards points of some sort with an option to convert to various gift cards, the best deal is always with the specialty retailers but then you need to make a point of using the card for something you really want/need as opposed to just adding some dollars to your Amazon account.
    - astura 4y ago
      Oh, you don't have to tell me, I have made several hundred dollars on these deals - I only do money makers (where the cash back is more than the cost of the subscription). Plus one of my friends can always use the subscription stuff and are thrilled to get the items if it's not something I'd use. (Such as makeup & dog toys). I've always had the correct payout. I have a browser that I solely use for cash back websites. I usually find out about these deals on https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ which is run by what seems like fantastic, non-scammy, people and its the only credit card blog that I know of that's independent. The rest shill for referrals.
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  I wrote my first web app to track my rebates :). Even had some sign ups. Vbscript with an Access database. Worked pretty well.
Spooky23 4y ago
You missed the first part, which was “read the instructions”. I worked at a store that heavily promoted these things to get foot traffic. The only people with problems were the people lining up on Sunday meaning to fill a cart with shit they didn’t need - or even know what it was to get it for “free”. I remember one guy, who punched me in the mouth, screaming that he bought a scam video card “it doesn’t even play tapes” for $14.95 and didn’t get his $20 rebate for whatever reason. I think that he didn’t include the UPC code or something. The medical bills after I threw him out the window, the arrest and fine were a lot more than $14.95. I used the free cd offers all of the time to get CD-Rs… we’d make custom mix CDs for the folks in our dorm.
- bagels 4y ago
  Throwing someone through a window may cross the line beyond self defense, but did the customer get charged too?
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    It’s an expression. Russians even take it further, ‘defenestration’! I assume from the story those are the angry fellows charges not our hero protagonist. One can not punch a person and not expect retaliation, even if that person you perceive to be a social inferior to you doing retail work. Funny you took the complete opposite way that the clerk got in trouble.
    - Huh1337 4y ago
      Defenestration is a Czech expression (the Czech language works with Latin roots a lot, even has special grammar for it). Russians only adopted it.
      - shkkmo 4y ago
        Defenestration is a term coined to describe a political event in Prague but I'm not sure the word itself is Czech but is arguably French, Latin or English in origin. > Though already existing in Middle French, the word defenestrate ("out of the window") is believed to have first been used in English in reference to the episodes in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates threw two royal governors out of a window of the Hradčany Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their action. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague But that article has no citations for that claim...
bagels 4y ago
I got most of my rebates at Frys back, but tried to avoid those purchases because of the hassle. I will never forget though the rebate that Microsoft refused to honor for the joystick I bought as a kid.
United857 4y ago
I forget the name but during the dot-com era there was a company who sold stuff like TVs at vastly inflated prices (something like 10x retail) to consumers on the premise that they could get a 100% rebate by mailing in a form thus making the purchase "for free". Their business model was based on the assumption that a percentage of customers would forget to do this. Unfortunately, when hundreds or thousands of $ is on the line, people were very diligent! Unsurprisingly that company didn't last long.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Yeah, it baffles me that whoever did the planning for this thought that "making it cumbersome to fill out" would work the same as for, say, a 5% rebate on a small purchase vs. when the rebate is worth thousands of dollars.
  - ferrocarraiges 4y ago
    I wonder if the decision-maker could have been wealthy enough that thousands of dollars felt insignificant to them. At some point, you lose sight of how much things cost, because the answer is almost always "not much". Reminds me of Jessica Walter's character in Arrested Development: "It's a banana, Michael - how much could it cost? Ten dollars?"
    - grogenaut 4y ago
      How many years till that's true
      - Tarsul 4y ago
        People in 2100 will laugh at that joke and think "that's way too cheap. What is she thinking!"
        _carbyau_ 4y ago
        Has happened before: https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036 https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-bla...
spaetzleesser 4y ago
I bought a lot of stuff with rebates and I almost always got a check after a very long wait. Sometimes you had to call the number to make them send it out. It was fine when I didn’t make much money but after a while it was too much hassle.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  And that is the point: price discrimination. For some 22 dollars is expensive, so they will do some work for the 12-14 dollar rebate. People making good monies won't care too much, or not at all.
Sebguer 4y ago
An amazing spoof of this from Nathan For You comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC0-tuYE2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC0-tuYE2o
- codekansas 4y ago
  I thought the link was going to be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWotuQBgs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWotuQBgs4
  - Sebguer 4y ago
    Damn, actually that one is even more appropriate, haha. Too many options!
- warbler73 4y ago
  Wow thanks for that, really good. Love the alligator.
treeman79 4y ago
Mad dad was obsessed with those cd and floppy disk rebates. I believe he got paid every time or close to.
scarface74 4y ago
I sent like 15 people to get free Emachines after signing up for MSN for two years. They all got it.
themitigating 4y ago
Anecdotal experience I've gotten all the rebates I've filled out. I just assume that enough people are sloppy or don't read instructions that it works out for the company
shepherdjerred 4y ago
https://youtu.be/6vbCKava_JE https://youtu.be/6vbCKava_JE
esalman 4y ago
I bought an MSI gaming laptop in 2106 and they promised $100 back after rebate. Never heard back.
- celticninja 4y ago
  Future you should probably not buy that laptop then.
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  I don’t understand the complaint. You’ll get your money in 2106.
- layer8 4y ago
  $100 is barely worth anything in 2106.
Larrikin 4y ago
I don't know about the nineties, but nearly every single rebate offer I've ever filled out I've gotten the money promised. Sometimes it takes a while but most of them are online and you just fill in your bank account information. Takes at most a couple minutes. Some random amount of months later you get a deposit in your account. I also try to do any of those class action suits I qualify for. Those are a little more hit or miss but it's about the same time investment of a simple form, but usually those take a lot longer to get money. Got a check for 3 bucks for buying chips at some point in the past couple years, but it was really nice getting hundreds of dollars put into my bank account from Facebook a few months back after filing a claim years ago and forgetting about it.
vermooten 4y ago
Not quite true, but I can see why you'd think that. I worked for a reputable SP company in Oxfordshire, legal were all over everything we did. The Hoover debacle did wonders for our business, all of a sudden clients wanted protection from the scammers. But ok I then went to one in London and some directors were sent to prison for fraud. So OP yes you have a point. It was a dodgy world.
whoooooo123 4y ago
musicale 4y ago
I miss Fry's Electronics, but they were definitely a practitioner of "free after rebate" and other rebate-based discount schemes where they took your money up front and claimed that you would get some of it back from some third party sometime in the future. In spite of the obviously scammy nature of such promotions, I still took the bait a few times, averaging probably a 50% rebate success rate - somewhat better than I would have predicted. At some point there was a web site where you could check your rebate status, which seemed to help a bit.
random314 4y ago
I did submit those rebates, and was paid back all of them. They weren't scams. You had to be very meticulous about cutting out the correct UPC bar codes and scanning and retaining copies of receipts etc. The hoops were elaborate, but if you jumped through them - you got your money back.
jbverschoor 4y ago
paypal stole my free $5 or $15 in the '90s by removing my account

CalRobert 4y ago

I had about a 95% success rate. As a broke student in the early naughties I got almost everything tech FAR. CompUSA and Frys (pour one out) were especially good. I miss the cameraderie of the Black Friday Frys line.

LegitShady 4y ago
>early naughties Haram

notyourwork 4y ago

I don’t recall ever getting one denied. Maybe I was lucky but those CD rebates were huge for me as a kid to have infinite supply of media to write content to. Music, games, apps, etc.

astura 4y ago
Yep, Same, I've filled out probably 25+ rebates in my life and I always got the rebate, eventually. You have to make sure you read and follow the fine print though - the instructions are very specific. The GP probably didn't read the fine print. I still have several spindles of CD-Rs (and later DVD-Rs) that were free (or maybe $1) after rebate.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Similar 'cashback' deals exist even now... You rarely get 100% back. Often there isn't too much fine print either, and the payout rate is ~90% in my experience. Sometimes they insist in paying in amazon vouchers or some other 'almost cash' currency. They are very common on subscriptions.
  - Fatnino 4y ago
    Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash. Other things used as cash include gift cards, cigarettes, drugs, bikes, iDevices, baby formula, diapers, laundry detergent...
    - ghaff 4y ago
      >Amazon bucks are the closest thing to cash. Although, generally speaking, Amazon and other general purpose large retailers (Walmart, Home Depot) have figured that out. When I get rewards points of some sort with an option to convert to various gift cards, the best deal is always with the specialty retailers but then you need to make a point of using the card for something you really want/need as opposed to just adding some dollars to your Amazon account.
  - astura 4y ago
    Oh, you don't have to tell me, I have made several hundred dollars on these deals - I only do money makers (where the cash back is more than the cost of the subscription). Plus one of my friends can always use the subscription stuff and are thrilled to get the items if it's not something I'd use. (Such as makeup & dog toys). I've always had the correct payout. I have a browser that I solely use for cash back websites. I usually find out about these deals on https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ which is run by what seems like fantastic, non-scammy, people and its the only credit card blog that I know of that's independent. The rest shill for referrals.
spaetzleesser 4y ago
I wrote my first web app to track my rebates :). Even had some sign ups. Vbscript with an Access database. Worked pretty well.

Spooky23 4y ago

You missed the first part, which was “read the instructions”. I worked at a store that heavily promoted these things to get foot traffic. The only people with problems were the people lining up on Sunday meaning to fill a cart with shit they didn’t need - or even know what it was to get it for “free”. I remember one guy, who punched me in the mouth, screaming that he bought a scam video card “it doesn’t even play tapes” for $14.95 and didn’t get his $20 rebate for whatever reason. I think that he didn’t include the UPC code or something. The medical bills after I threw him out the window, the arrest and fine were a lot more than $14.95. I used the free cd offers all of the time to get CD-Rs… we’d make custom mix CDs for the folks in our dorm.

bagels 4y ago
Throwing someone through a window may cross the line beyond self defense, but did the customer get charged too?
- jamiek88 4y ago
  It’s an expression. Russians even take it further, ‘defenestration’! I assume from the story those are the angry fellows charges not our hero protagonist. One can not punch a person and not expect retaliation, even if that person you perceive to be a social inferior to you doing retail work. Funny you took the complete opposite way that the clerk got in trouble.
  - Huh1337 4y ago
    Defenestration is a Czech expression (the Czech language works with Latin roots a lot, even has special grammar for it). Russians only adopted it.
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      Defenestration is a term coined to describe a political event in Prague but I'm not sure the word itself is Czech but is arguably French, Latin or English in origin. > Though already existing in Middle French, the word defenestrate ("out of the window") is believed to have first been used in English in reference to the episodes in Prague in 1618 when the disgruntled Protestant estates threw two royal governors out of a window of the Hradčany Castle and wrote an extensive apologia explaining their action. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague But that article has no citations for that claim...

bagels 4y ago

I got most of my rebates at Frys back, but tried to avoid those purchases because of the hassle. I will never forget though the rebate that Microsoft refused to honor for the joystick I bought as a kid.

United857 4y ago

I forget the name but during the dot-com era there was a company who sold stuff like TVs at vastly inflated prices (something like 10x retail) to consumers on the premise that they could get a 100% rebate by mailing in a form thus making the purchase "for free". Their business model was based on the assumption that a percentage of customers would forget to do this. Unfortunately, when hundreds or thousands of $ is on the line, people were very diligent! Unsurprisingly that company didn't last long.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
Yeah, it baffles me that whoever did the planning for this thought that "making it cumbersome to fill out" would work the same as for, say, a 5% rebate on a small purchase vs. when the rebate is worth thousands of dollars.
- ferrocarraiges 4y ago
  I wonder if the decision-maker could have been wealthy enough that thousands of dollars felt insignificant to them. At some point, you lose sight of how much things cost, because the answer is almost always "not much". Reminds me of Jessica Walter's character in Arrested Development: "It's a banana, Michael - how much could it cost? Ten dollars?"
  - grogenaut 4y ago
    How many years till that's true
    - Tarsul 4y ago
      People in 2100 will laugh at that joke and think "that's way too cheap. What is she thinking!"
      - _carbyau_ 4y ago
        Has happened before: https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036 https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-bla...

spaetzleesser 4y ago

I bought a lot of stuff with rebates and I almost always got a check after a very long wait. Sometimes you had to call the number to make them send it out. It was fine when I didn’t make much money but after a while it was too much hassle.

tomjen3 4y ago
And that is the point: price discrimination. For some 22 dollars is expensive, so they will do some work for the 12-14 dollar rebate. People making good monies won't care too much, or not at all.

Sebguer 4y ago

An amazing spoof of this from Nathan For You comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC0-tuYE2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbC0-tuYE2o

codekansas 4y ago
I thought the link was going to be this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWotuQBgs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWotuQBgs4
- Sebguer 4y ago
  Damn, actually that one is even more appropriate, haha. Too many options!
warbler73 4y ago
Wow thanks for that, really good. Love the alligator.

treeman79 4y ago

Mad dad was obsessed with those cd and floppy disk rebates. I believe he got paid every time or close to.

scarface74 4y ago

I sent like 15 people to get free Emachines after signing up for MSN for two years. They all got it.

themitigating 4y ago

Anecdotal experience I've gotten all the rebates I've filled out. I just assume that enough people are sloppy or don't read instructions that it works out for the company

shepherdjerred 4y ago

https://youtu.be/6vbCKava_JE https://youtu.be/6vbCKava_JE

esalman 4y ago

I bought an MSI gaming laptop in 2106 and they promised $100 back after rebate. Never heard back.

celticninja 4y ago
Future you should probably not buy that laptop then.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I don’t understand the complaint. You’ll get your money in 2106.
layer8 4y ago
$100 is barely worth anything in 2106.

Larrikin 4y ago

I don't know about the nineties, but nearly every single rebate offer I've ever filled out I've gotten the money promised. Sometimes it takes a while but most of them are online and you just fill in your bank account information. Takes at most a couple minutes. Some random amount of months later you get a deposit in your account. I also try to do any of those class action suits I qualify for. Those are a little more hit or miss but it's about the same time investment of a simple form, but usually those take a lot longer to get money. Got a check for 3 bucks for buying chips at some point in the past couple years, but it was really nice getting hundreds of dollars put into my bank account from Facebook a few months back after filing a claim years ago and forgetting about it.

vermooten 4y ago

Not quite true, but I can see why you'd think that. I worked for a reputable SP company in Oxfordshire, legal were all over everything we did. The Hoover debacle did wonders for our business, all of a sudden clients wanted protection from the scammers. But ok I then went to one in London and some directors were sent to prison for fraud. So OP yes you have a point. It was a dodgy world.

whoooooo123 4y ago

musicale 4y ago

I miss Fry's Electronics, but they were definitely a practitioner of "free after rebate" and other rebate-based discount schemes where they took your money up front and claimed that you would get some of it back from some third party sometime in the future. In spite of the obviously scammy nature of such promotions, I still took the bait a few times, averaging probably a 50% rebate success rate - somewhat better than I would have predicted. At some point there was a web site where you could check your rebate status, which seemed to help a bit.

random314 4y ago

I did submit those rebates, and was paid back all of them. They weren't scams. You had to be very meticulous about cutting out the correct UPC bar codes and scanning and retaining copies of receipts etc. The hoops were elaborate, but if you jumped through them - you got your money back.

jbverschoor 4y ago

paypal stole my free $5 or $15 in the '90s by removing my account