Rebates-do you bother?

[coozie7]

Just out of curiosity.
Do any of you guys from the US or Canada take any notice of or apply for the rebates?
When giving my own advice here I seldom take any notice or make it clear the price I have linked to is with the rebate.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

I gave up on rebates years ago. They're designed to rip off the consumer by making jump thru hoops, send emails, blah, blah...

 

[daedalus685]

I have sent out one rebate in my life, if was teh first one I ever got, they made me send an international stamp (US to canada) and the banck charged me what ended up being about 1/3 of teh rebate to change currencies. Never again will I bother.

It isnt worth the time to send them out to get what ammounts to change for a coffee. I never consider them in the price of components.

 

[coozie7]

I seem to be seeing a pattern here.
Thanks for the replies.
This my help me help others (when I get it right!).

 

[efeat]

I send them out if a part I buy has one, but I never really expect to get them back. Needless to say, I don't go out of my way to find an item that has a rebate.

 

[ausch30]

It depends on the amount. If it's a few bucks then I don't bother but in cases like my PSU (PC Power Silencer 750) I ended up getting it for $65 after free shipping and a $35 rebate.

 

[Wayoffbase]

I always send them in, it's nice to get a few dollars in the mail long after you've forgotten that it was coming. Of course, I'm talking about $25 or more on something like RAM or a graphics card, a $2 MIR on a $10 item isn't worth the hassle. The 'scam' of rebates is the fact that manufactures know that only about 20-30% of people are going to send them in time, others will buy an item because it has the rebate and then forget about it or do it wrong.

I've had good luck recently with Corsair and Asus, the Asus one came alot faster and was a check that I could deposit. Corsair sent pre-paid credit cards.