Mail-in Rebate: Forget About It
Posted by Frugal on May 19th, 2006
It has been such a long time that I buy things with mail-in rebate. Because of the small amounts involved, I decided that I gave it a try again. So I went and bought a Vakoss USB hub. The mail-in rebate was $4. Boy, this company had its processing office in Canada. So I had to use a 60 cents stamp. That left me $3.40 if I could get the rebate. I mailed in the rebate in December of last year. After two months, I called to follow up and see if they have processed my rebate yet. I was told that things postmarked in December will be sent out in the beginning of April. So I waited until the second week of April, and gave them a call again. Now, the customer service rep is nowhere to be found. Their voice mail is entirely full (of complaints I’m sure). My mail-in rebate is not in my mail.
Because this company is located in Canada, I couldn’t even complain to www.bbb.org. I left a comment at www.FatWallet.com, a good site for saving tips & deals. Maybe when I find some time, I will fill out the forms at FTC. The biggest problem with filing these complaints is that most likely your complaint will not be addressed or addressed in a timely fashion. But it is good for the next guy or gal who search and check out the companies for reliability and trust. Your negative comment or unsatisfactory record for the scam company will result in less scams and less “business” for them. Well, at least you would have forced swindlers to change their business names.
As for me, I am not going to buy any mail-in rebate products from untrustworthy companies. Yeah, they can be a good deal, but they are a good trap too. I prefer spending my time elsewhere, rather than struggling through steps of traps. And you never know when they will be pulling the last final trick of bankruptcy by paying off all the corporate officers, but leaving no money for your rebates.
If you know any bad guys, or consistently good guys (not the Good Guys that just pulled out of California), please let me know. I appreciate your feedbacks.
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June 21st, 2006 at 6:08 pm
I was in the same situation as you. But after calling a few times and getting the “full mailbox” message, I finally got a recording that said to leave a message or to e-mail at customer.ca@vakoss.com. I left a detailed phone message and also e-mailed to that address plus to their sales e-mail address.
I got an e-mail reply that check #xxxx had been issued and I should receive it by the end of the month.
Good Luck.
June 21st, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Thank you so much Pat, I will try that. I thought that company must have gone into disappearance.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:59 am
So? Did you ever hear back from Vakoss? Did you get your check yet? I have emailed to customer.ca@vakoss.com and not heard a reply after a month.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:03 am
No, I didn’t have time to do that yet. I will write my email too, just to get another data point on this company.
Good luck on your rebate. If you did get your rebate, please come back and let me and everyone else know.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:07 am
Today I finally got my rebate after 6 months of waiting. $4 for the Vakoss 4port hub. I thought it was never going to come too. While I was waiting, Vakoss customer support never followed up to get back to me.
But the funny part about this whole speel is that I went to go complain to the customer Relations dept. @ Frys Electronics store in CA where I bought it. Frys sent me a $4 check for my loss after reporting it 1.5 months ago.
Didn’t think I hear anything else from Vakoss but they proved me wrong. I got away with the $4 rebate they owed me + an xtra $4 used for tomorrows McDonalds burger.
July 21st, 2006 at 2:33 am
Yes, GrnMnky, and all,
I just received my $4 rebate TODAY (or Thursday)! I also complained vehemently to Fry’s in a CA store. I was not very happy, and I asked Fry’s to remove ALL Vakoss products from the shelf. The manager of the store never got back to me. But I guess there were ENOUGH people complaining to Fry’s, it looks like, so that you actually got that $4 check directly from Fry’s.
I was supposed to receive my rebate in early April. And my rebate came in AFTER almost 7 months of my submission. This is the longest ever that I experienced with any rebates. Not sure if Vakoss was intending to send out all the rebates in the first place.
July 21st, 2006 at 6:18 pm
I just got my $10 rebate today from Vakoss. This is also one of the longest waits I had for a rebate. Another interesting tidbit is the rebate check was mailed from somewhere in NY whereas I had to mail the rebate info to Canada. I guess their plan is to only send rebates to those that follow up. As most of you probably already know, the percentage of customers who even send in a rebate for $10 or less is pretty low. The percentage who actually track their rebates and keep records to follow up is probably near zero and this company knows that. Keeping their voicemail box full is a dirty trick. If I hadn’t found this web site I would have never found the email address to enquire about the rebate.
Thanks to Pat for posting it.