Do the Paperwork

Today in my newspaper there is an article titled "Do the Paperwork and Get Your Rebate Money".

The article goes on to tell folks 'How to get your rebate'. Follow all the instructions, make copies, yadda yadda yadda. It also tells you what to do if you never receive the rebate. (Better mark this one for a follow-up!)

I have much better advice! Just don't buy anything that has a rebate! Just look what you will gain by following this advice. A huge time saving consisting of the following items. Unless you need it today, sooner or later someone will put it on sale without a rebate.

No trying to read the tiny print telling you what to send.
No cutting out all the tiny UPC codes, locating serial numbers, etc.
No having to make sure you beat the deadlines for sending all the required stuff.
No making copies and filing them away because you will undoubtedly need them later.
No checking the mail in vain looking for a rebate check.
No making calls (if you can find a phone number) to find out what happened to your rebate.
No getting denied your rebate because of a 'mistake' in what you sent. (One rebate center tried to tell me I mailed it too late. I mailed it the day I bought it! Eventually I did get the $$, but only after many calls and threats!)
No writing letters of complaint to the Attorney General of your state or anyone else you can think to write, because you didn't get what was promised.

Rebates have to be the best consumer rip-off ever conceived. They are legal (shouldn't be) ways to make consumers think they are getting a good deal and the sad thing is the fact that consumers have to jump through too many hoops to (maybe) get what was promised.

Whatever happened to just putting something on sale?  If people would just boycott those rebate promises, pretty soon they would go away and save consumers a lot of grief!

I'm still reading the paper. Where else would I get such good material to write about?

Martha