Rotten Rebates. When a Rebate isn't a Rebate

I've had some bad experiences with "rebates" lately.  They have left me irritated, disappointed and basically wishing they didn't exist.  As I think about it, I think my disappointment boils down to 3 things;

• Companies are complicating the customer experience.
• The hassle of getting what you've been promised.
• Broken promises

Lets start with a basic definition of "Rebate" from the free dictionary

re·bate ¹ 

n.

A deduction from an amount to be paid or a return of part of an amount given in payment.

tr.v.  re·bat·ed, re·bat·ing, re·bates

1. To deduct or return (an amount) from a payment or bill.

Complicating the Customer Experience
Back in college, I remember my first accounting professor making us repeat back to him in the manner of a rally slogan.  "WHAT DO WE WANT?"  "CASH"  "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?" "NOW!"  The point of the exercise was that anything less than cash wasn't as good. (less flexibility) and anything other than now, brought all kinds of constraints in terms of timing etc.  So the point was that not all payment is equal.  With cash you can purchase anything anywhere, with a cheque, you can put it in the bank and hopefully there is money to cover the cheque, with credit card, there are processing charges and delays in payment. With gift cards, you are constrained to purchase in only one location.

By the same token not all "discounts" are created equal.  Remember the accounting rally slogan?  Lets modify it a bit. "What kind of discount do you want?" "CASH!" "When do you want it?" "NOW!".  So the best discount is the one you don't have to pay for in the first place.  Instead of the price being $150, its $100, you only pay $100 and thats the end of the story.
What about those offers where you spend $150 and they'll give you a $50 Gift card?  Well it fails the "cash test".  You can't buy gas for your car or food for your family with that, or make a charitable donation, you have to spend it at that store.  Sure if it's a store that stocks necessities you would otherwise use a grocery store etc. That might be fine, but chances are its a store that stocks some luxury item you wouldn't buy otherwise, and now you've got your choice of stores limited to 1.
Several years ago one of the local electronics retailers switched form mail-in rebates (we'll discuss those in a minute) to "instant rebates" these were processed at the till and got the customer the discount right then.  Well, is it cash? (did it reduce the price you paid out of your pocket?) YES,  did you get it right away? YES.  Good deal.  Those rebates sound OK.  We've seen store rebates, manufacturer's rebates, and the similarity to "coupons" is pretty minor at that point, apart from perhaps filling in all kinds of personal information to get yourself on junk-mail lists...  Make sure you NEVER SHARE PERSONAL INFORMATION.  They don't need it.  Make stuff up, skip the question, whatever.

flickr credit: philosophygeek

The hassle of getting what you've been promised.
Normally the hassle of getting what you've been promised in a rebate is related to you taking some action "after the sale" to get your discount.  It might be "providing a valid product UPC"   (ever seen a product with multiple UPC codes?  which one did they want???)  It might be "providing an original sales receipt", it might be "including the rebate form".  Essentially you gave your money away, (the money you are going to have them send back to you).  Now you spend your time (your employer pays you money for your time...) and you use an envelope and postage to send papers to the "rebate company".  They say it will take 6-8 weeks (8+)  And after 8 weeks you inevitably dig up their contact information and ask them about the status of your rebate.  They will say one of the following;

• It's in the mail (hmm...)
• What was your rebate tracking number? (huh?) 
• Oh yes, I see here you were missing your;
• original receipt
• UPC code
• Rebate form or rebate form details
• Your product doesn't qualify.  You bought model ABCDEFG-1  not ABCDEFG-2
• (sometimes retailers play with model numbers so they don't have to match competitor prices, so sometimes the retailer advertising the rebate is actually complicating your rebate collection process).
• The offer has expired
• "Sorry this rebate processing center has gone out of business. (they got arrested for fraud)

flickr credit: Brendan Shigeta

You will re-send (because you did everything right the first time) whatever they ask for and they will tell you it will take another 6-8 (8+) weeks.  Assuming you have an above par experience you'll get your rebate as promised on a cheque that mispells your name, but your bank will allow you to deposit it because they probably don't actually look at the names on the cheques you deposit ;-)

So the "rebate processing center" had your rebate money for 16 weeks.  They couldn't spend your money (unlike the rebate guys who got arrested for fraud above) because they had to pay you eventually, unless you gave up on your rebate and let them keep the money...  Its not like the retailer actually checks to make sure you got your money.  If they cared about you getting your rebate that much, they'd just do it themselves.  As far as they are concerned, as soon as you leave the store your rebate is someone else's problem.  The rebate processing center can collect interest on your money until you cash the misspelled cheque they send you at the end of your ordeal.

Broken promises
Companies sometimes offer rebates to get you to sign up for their programs (contracts).  Contracts are always written to favour the company, not to protect you.  So read that fine print and don't believe Xavier the sales guy who tells you he can waive a clause for you. He won't record it and you'll be on the hook when the foreign call centre doesn't have a record of Xavier's promise to you.
Watch out for "conditional rebates"  These are the rebates they want back from you if you decide to cancel their service, or similar evil.  Sure if you dig through the fine print, there will be some mention of this, but the sales person won't draw it to your attention.  It's a trick, don't feel bad, just get angry.  Remember you are the customer, you are the person making their job possible, and you should not be tricked, you should be honoured and treated with appropriate respect.

There was one deal where there was a rebate for some VOIP phone equipment that enabled me to become a customer of a popular VOIP phone company.  Essentially they wanted me on the monthly payment plan (which is reasonable if there is good service)  I had to purchase this overpriced piece of electronics which was designed to only work with their service, and then to make me willing to pay for this I was offered a "rebate".
 I was all excited about becoming a part of the "experience" and tried it out.  Most of the time it was great, but sometimes just really poor quality.  Not suitable for the way I use phones, so I cancelled the service.  While cancelling, Von... oops, the VOIP company told me I was going to have to pay them $150.  A cancellation fee and a "REBATE RECOVERY FEE".  After wasting a hour of my life arguing with the guy on the phone I had the cancellation charges reduced to $33, but not without a fight.  Funny enough I probably would have blogged on how that company had really good service (except when talking to people on cell phones).  But in their corporate greed they turned an optimistic potential spokesperson who might once again have become a future customer, into someone who will speak out about their greed, service failures and absolute disrespect for their customers.

Free Advice
Let me encourage you to memorize the "Accounting Rally Slogan"  "What kind of discount do we want?" "CASH" "When do we want it?" "NOW".  Don't go into these "offers" blindly.  Don't settle for "gift cards" if you can get cash.  Don't settle for "Later" if you can get it "now".  And maybe most important, don't buy it because of the rebate.  Buy it because you need it.

I'm a big fan of customer rights.  I think it boils down to honesty, to respect and honour, to treating your customers the way you would want to be treated.  Unfortunately people may have consciences but corporations, outsourced divisions and shareholder meetings do not necessarily have a conscience. As we introduce greater layers of separation between customer, decision maker and employee, we create the potential for great injustice.

Cheers, I hope what I've written here saves your bacon, and protects you from the "headaches" of Rotten Rebates.
Greg.

Corporate Greed and Upselling - Trialware On Your Computer

None of us has made it this far in life without hearing McDonald's famous "would you like fries with that?" upsell.  Whether its the "extended warranties" that put electronics retailers in the dubious position of convincing us that their products are subject to highly likely and frequent failures, or the person in the restaurant asking "did you want cheese with that?" or "anything to drink", we are constantly surrounded by upselling.  It is the corporation's attempt to extract more money from our wallets than we have decided to give them.  They have a captive audience and are greedy for a little more of our after-tax money.  Sometimes its sneaky like a well placed food-bar at the exit of a big box retailer, other times it is more overtly evil like additional charges on your restaurant bill for items you thought were included in the posted price.  Sometimes it is putting the customer in a situation where they have to work hard and spend their time to avoid paying money.  I have been seeing the same thing happening on the last few computers I have purchased.

When purchasing computers in the last couple years, it has become difficult to ignore the seriously large amount of  CRAP software that is loaded onto the desktop.  It is software loaded onto the computers that promises to disappoint in one of the following ways.  The software;

• will stop working after a time period
• will allow you to create documents in a proprietary format before locking up.
• will offer a narrow range of functionality with enough limitation or irritation that upgrading seems like the only way to make the pain stop.
• offers a service you never would have sought out on your own.
• is ad supported and to make the annoying ads stop you must pay.
• (mcafee) is stuck in a half installed state that is only solved by creating an account on their website.

When did it become OK for some corporation to put something on our computers without our permission, particularly something that advertises at us, or promises to frustrate, or slows the computer to a crawl by starting when the computer starts...  For example there was some DVD software that came installed on a net-book that ran 2 executables at boot time, each of which used several Megs of RAM (you caught that it was a netbook and had no DVD drive right?...

My best guess is that companies like HP and Acer are being paid to install this software on your computer. ($15/computer etc) knowing that a certain percentage of suckers will simply obey the computer and type in their credit card number to continue.

So I am technically savvy and have no problem recognizing these "special offers", but I truly pity the older generations and the less astute who may not understand their computer software is going to "stop working" in 60 days.  To prey on the ignorance of the ill-informed is reprehensible behaviour.  These corporations seem to think nothing of taking actions that will lead to confusion and frustration and disappointment on the part of their customers, as long as they get their $15 per computer sold.  Ok, so they make money by making their customers experience frustrating while bloating their computer's RAM and cluttering the start menu and desktop.   I would suggest that the term "free-trial" is the other meaning of "trial"  the one that means the same as "ordeal" and not a "test-drive".  There is an arrogance with these software manufacturers in that they seem to believe the following about their software;

• that it is so important it should take up space on my desktop where I will see it constantly
• that it is ok to use up your RAM on startup to keep "helpers" and "startup assistants" in memory even if you don't use their software that day.
• that it is OK to hijack file associations and make themselves the default software for use with files of those types
• that your data (audio/text etc) should be stored in a proprietary format that only their software reads/writes

When we recently purchased a computer for my parents, we uninstalled (or modified the behaviour of) the following crap trial-ware; Adobe Reader (does not need to load on start), cyberlink DVD software (does not need to load, this is a netbook), Microsoft Works (ad supported? really Microsoft you are sounding more desperate each year), 15 time limited games, Mcafee antivirus software (60 days).

MS Office student edition 60 day trial, carbonite online storage.

There are lots of excellent and free software packages out there that surpass those listed above, so I've loaded these onto the computers to replace the advertising, crippled trial-ware and deceptive marketing.

Many of these were in my list of free software earlier this year.

Hey Manufacturers....  My next computer will be Linux or Google-OS.  Stop treating your customers like a "market to be exploited" and start putting yourself in their shoes and asking "how would I like to be treated?"

Software vendors.... Your software isn't as good as you think it is.  People aren't delighted to "TRY" your software "FOR FREE".  Get out of the 80s.  Deliver real value to people with no strings attached and you will have a loyal following (anyone heard of Google or open source software).  Stop trying to trap the customer into your profit center.

People...  Use free open source software.  It works, its better, its less of a headache, it costs less.  Be free.

Cheers,

Greg

P.S.  Acer you owe me 8 hours of my life back.  I bill at $60/hour, I think you owe me a laptop.  Email me to arrange delivery.

Only YOU can stop Bad Copyright Law

Much of life doesn't involve seeking perfection, but rather avoiding two opposite and equally bad errors.  Much like while driving down the road you want to avoid driving off of it into either the ditch on the left or the ditch on the right.  I think the current copyright "debate/issues" fall into this category.

flickr credit: ritchielee

The cultural value of the arts can't be sacrificed for corporate greed.
I remember being absolutely disgusted to learn that the song "Happy Birthday" was copyrighted and that any time a movie chose to use the song, had to pay a royalty of $20,000. (I believe that is the figure I heard in the documentary "The Corporation").  To me that is a song I learned from my family during my childhood.  We didn't get "Happy Birthday to you" on a CD in shrink wrap from a store, we didn't get sheet music from the book store and sit there reading it.  We have passed that song on from parent to child for several generations.  It is a part of our culture, a part of our history.  So I'm not sure my family should have to pay to sing that song.  Or to sing that song in a video, or to pay to sing that song on a tape or CD that we record for each other, or to pay to sing that song in a video or on a CD that we sell to raise money for a charity, or pay to sing that song in a video or on a CD that we are selling for money.


It isn't one size fits all
OK, so there is a big difference between singing the "happy birthday song" with your friends and family and downloading movies, burning them to DVD and selling them on craigslist.  I want to be clear that while some copying and sharing and repeating or borrowing music and other content seems reasonable and fair, clearly some forms of copying are not appropriate.  It isn't all or nothing, there has to be room for reasonable interpretation and fair use.


Artists should benefit from their work
I think it makes sense for an artist who writes music (or a movie) to be paid for their work.  I also think that the musicians, producers, (and if they are necessary) manufacturers and distributors should be paid for the work that they do.  But I don't think that a song or a movie or any other piece of art should remain locked up forever.  If an artist owns a song and receives royalties for 50 years and then dies, I think the song should then be free.  The idea of the "rights" to a song living on in the hands of some faceless corporation after the death of that artist mocks the idea of an artist benefiting from their work.  At this point it isn't at all about fairness to that artist.  In our culture, for the most part we believe that people should benefit from their work and that they should be able to use the proceeds of their work for their own benefit.  Our society violates this principle on occasion such as in situations of underemployment where "the system" underpays people out of greed and traps them in low paying jobs.  The issue gets much greyer when most artists make some money and others make $Millions.  Is the quality of Madonna's music really that much better than Jack Johnson or Chris Janzen or Kevin Prosch?  Should a pop star make Millions?  Some say yes, some say thats unreasonable.  Whatever just so long as I can establish that our society as a whole hasn't come to a single understanding.


The changing landscape of music distribution
Now there are crazy things going on out there. Times are changing and the rules and realities of music distribution are very different today than they were 15-10 or even 5 years ago. Today software loaded onto your computer is crippled to only play the music certain organizations say you have a license for (Windows Media Player / itunes).  Many of these schemes do not recognize legitimate license or legitimate use. (try ripping your CD and storing the MP3s on your hard-drive...)  So without your consent all these restrictions get put in place, which limit how you can use what you legitimately have a right to.  Lets say your CD gets scratched...  You have a license, but lack the physical media.  How do you get that back?  Or stolen CDs, or crashed hard drives.  There are lots of cases where something that  you legitimately aquired is easily lost to you.  (Or you are using a different computer today and your software hasn't decided it is alright for you to "authorize" your computer to use that media...)  There are even plans to prevent your computer and stereo speakers from playing music that doesn't have licensing keys embedded in the file.  Now is that too much control or what?  There is an alternative, and it is one that many people are choosing.

Opting out of the current music distribution scheme.  
Rather than traveling in a car to a brick and mortar store to buy a shrink wrapped plastic disk with music. Many are choosing to purchase their music online, effectively bypassing the entire manufacturing and distribution piece of the music industry.  THAT is a disruptive behaviour but a good one.  The cost of Selling, Stocking, Shipping, Printing, Manufacturing... all evaporates.  So that $17 CD which costs only $1 to "press" now costs the music companies substantially less.  And they can pass the savings on to their electronic customers....  OR they can be greedy and insist that a $17 CD on the shelf is the same cost as an online album which costs mere pennies to transmit to your computer.
Now, you can just purchase the GOOD SONGS and leave the fluffy filler crap there on the Internet.  THAT is a disruptive behaviour because suddenly you only bought 4 tracks from i-tunes and not the 12 tracks you would have been obligated to take home from the brick and mortar store.
Things are changing and the music industry is largely losing control, so they had better pay attention and adapt to serve the customer, or the customer will go elsewhere. (when was the last time the music industry made you think of "customer service"?)  In a restaurant if the food is horrible you send it back to the kitchen.  If you buy a CD and don't like it, too bad you broke the shrink wrap.  Now there is an industry that is overdue for an attitude adjustment.
There are other methods as well.  Many artists distribute directly on the Internet intentionally, allowing fans to listen and "try out" their music.  For example, I heard "MOBY" first on a streaming radio station on the net, and decided I really liked his music and as I read more, many of the things he stood for.  I purchased Moby's album "Play" because I liked the sounds and wanted to legitimately own some of his music and support him in his work.  If artists attract a following online, they can sell direct to the public, without all the lawyers and other unnecessary machinery of the big corporate music machine.  For over 20 years now, software distribution has legitimized this method of selling through shareware, limited versions, completely open versions etc.  But there is something even more revolutionary on the horizon, and that is perhaps the first glimmers of what truly may become a "gift economy".  Open source, creative commons and copyLeft have become household terms when discussing software.  These legitimate models of doing business and licensing digital media have themselves been a very disruptive force for good.  Giving people free high quality software they would in many cases never be possible otherwise, but I digress, we are talking about bad copyright law and focusing on music.

Litigation and the insanity of greedy music corporations

Even more recently these music corporations (paralleling this with the movie industry is left as a mental exercise for the reader) have taken to the unprecedented act of suing their customers for making copies of copyrighted music that is.  (ok I confess I'm having trouble with versions of the word copyright, copywritten, copywrited) Ridiculous fines like $80,000 USD per CD copied are being levied at folks who don't have the means to pay those fines. (recently a woman was fined something like $640,000 for 8 copied CDs in the US).  The article went on to explain that this was intended to "send a message".  So clearly fear control and greed are on the agenda of the corporate music giants and the self appointed policing agencies like MPAA that claim to represent the artists ("artists really means greedy corporations").  That they would bankrupt a woman over 8 CDs is satire when you listen to them speak about justice.  In the Old Testament of the Bible there is a rule that was meant to stop this kind of escalating evil. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".  That rule limits retaliation and evil to equal pain.  That lady should have had to pay for her CDs.  If they were $20 and she "stole/copied" 8 of them, then she should have paid $160 with interest to make it right.  Don't be fooled by the talk about justice and "upholding the law".  Any law that allows a $160 theft to be brought to justice with a $640,000 fine is not a just law.  That is 4000 times the value of the CDs.  It may be that these companies in their intense greed have decided that suing their customers is more profitable than selling to them.



Copyright is restricted by country
Copyright law is based on property law, and is different in every country.  For example in the United States of America, I understand that it would be against the law to copy a music CD you had purchased and give that copy to a friend.  While in Canada, the same act is legal.  I can share the music I have purchased with friends in Canada without any fear of the RIAA or the DMCA or the FBI or the MPAA or any other 4 letter accronym knocking on my door.  In Canada, sharing is good.  Now I could not SELL that copied music.  Selling the music is reserved for the artist or other rights holders.  Additionally in Canada, I pay a levy on all blank media that I purchase.  Every blank CD, Every blank tape.   I pay a tax that has been earmarked for the artists.  Even if I use that CD for non-copyright music.  Even if I burn my own photos to that CD, I pay a levy that goes to musicians and other artists.  So lets understand together that what is illegal in the USA may be legal in Italy, Canada, France or any other country.  It is also clear that the sovereign nation of France has no right to tell "Americans" what they can and can't do in the privacy of their own houses, so lets not be ignorant and pretend that "American" organizations can do the same to individuals in other countries.  For "American" companies, it would be nice to have the whole world play by the rules with which they are familiar, so there is pressure on the US government to pressure other nations to adopt the rules of the USA.


Currently I understand that "American" corporations and their Canadian subsidiaries are trying to force a corporate USA version of copyright on Canadians.  The corporate giants are insisting that their version is good and any other (Canadian) version of copyright is evil.

You can say no to this.

Do some reading, become better informed.
Video with a powerpoint from Michael Geist "5 Myths on Canadian Copyright"  

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6315846683

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4005/125/

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/11/1534224/CRIA-MPAA-Demand-Expanded-DMCA-For-Canada?art_pos=5

http://ansak.blogspot.com/2009/08/dmca-is-back-in-commons.html

So... I figured I'd better walk the talk.  This blog content is NOW creative commons licensed (details at the bottom).  Lets keep paying it forward and fixing the greed problem in this world eh?

Add your comments below.
Greg.