I had a similar issue with a rebate on a video card. Bought the card, did everything the rebate required, and waited...... 9 weeks later, completely forgetting about said rebate, I get a small postcard in the mail, denying me the rebate because "address unreadable"

I emailed newegg and got the same canned response about contacting the rebate company. I do not even consider a mail in rebate as a purchase factor anymore due to the pains you have to go through, only to get screwed.

Rebates are glorified scams. Might as well play the lottery.

How exactly is Newegg in the wrong? Because someone didn't get a manufacturer's rebate? If it were a rebate through Newegg, I could see the complaint, but I really don't see a beef with Newegg here.

PLEASE DON'T EMAIL US IF YOU EMAIL US IT WILL ONLY US LONGER

at least everyone else got an excuse. my newegg video card rebate fell into a black hole, despite the online status saying - pending payment for 4 months now.

@SportsCentre:
I meant to say "take longer". Dammit.

Newegg has in the past coughed up rebates due to companies going defunct etc. They are a pretty good company with excellent customer service.

That said should they really be responsible for a third party rebate?

And also, shouldn't the headline see "Beware of Rotten myrebates411 Rebate"? Or "Beware of Rotten Foxconn Rebate"? Those two companies are way more in the loop on this mishap than Newegg.

@Milstar: Don't know what Newegg you've been dealing with. The one I used to use was nothing but problems. Ordered items continually out of stock, prices advertised but not honored, delayed shipments, ignored rebates, etc.

Take your business to a company that deserves the business and actually gives a damn about customer service.

Sounds like an unfortunate chain of events, but the only possible issue is perhaps New Egg's bland response. They could have easily put a link to the rebate411 website to help clarify the nature of the problem.

Computers and systems can crash. It seems like rebate 411's reply is admirable, given the set of circumstances.

Exactly what does the poster expect? No one has denied his rebate, he will have to wait longer than he should, but this doesn't seem like a rebate scam.

Rebate 411 is not hiding, they are being upfront about what seems to be a rather catastrophic hardware failure and they are making a huge effort to rectify.

@Franklin Comes Alive!: yeah I agree, but those titles wouldn't have been as catchy and they couldn't have used that broken egg jpeg they had laying around.

Four months is nothing. It took 13 MONTHS of complaints and cajoling to get a rebate on a computer case purchased at a Fry's special opening-day sale. But yep, that $49.95 eventually did come.

Unfortunately, 5 months is not actually that ridiculous when it comes to a rebate. Many of the forms I've filled out as of late have actually stated, specifically, "12-16 weeks".

..Still waiting on that rebate legislation that was talked about a few years ago.. I'm trying to figure out how delayed, mishandled, and outright neglected rebates are not tantamount to fraud in advertising?

I've never done a rebate with them, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I have had nothing but great experiences with Newegg and I highly recommend them. Whenever I've had a problem with something they've always been quick to exchange it or allow me to return it. I'm sad to hear that people are having this issue with them.

@buzzybee: Many, many people, both here and at resellerratings, disagree with you.

Your experience is not representative of most newegg purchases - so I wouldn't go so far as to paint them with such a broad brush.

Isn't this a rotten Foxconn rebate that is compounded by the poster using a third party rebate company? Where did newegg screw up?

I am a long time Newegg fan and have always directed anyone looking to buy anything hardware related to them for their superior customer service. While I agree with Franklin it is not directly in Neweggs lap to deal with this problem. Newegg did get the sale of the product, most likely due to the rebate.

Now I am sure newegg is following up on the issue and I could see them in good faith ponying up something for their customers who have been hit by this. Its called taking care of YOUR customers regardless of who is at fault. It would in fact be a charge off for them and it would go a long way to cement the fact that Newegg is the best place to do business period.

As for rebates in general I have had 100% success with redeeming them. I do jump through all the hoops. I keep records I make calls. I have had the various rejection notes because of something like the address issue. But a followup with the company with a more legible or spoken address is usually all it takes. Then again it also depends on how big the rebate is. Fact of the matter is that they do anticipate that most will either forget to submit them, not submit them properly or when rejected for whatever reason not attempt to resolve. But if you stay on them you will get them.

As for this particular issue. It sounds like they, rebates411, are working to resolve the issue. Unfortunately systems are systems and when they fail it shows how vulnerable they can be. I had a post on my blog at www.thegraydrake.com about an issue I had similar but with my mortgage company. Not a small rebate I assure you.

Hang in there and keep banging on their windows. Though for 20 bucks at some point your time becomes worth more.

I hate to be the person blaming the victim, but rebates are nothing more than legal scams. (Unfortunately, our anti-consumer government is not taking any action on these cams, but that's a different issue.)

Complaining about being scammed by a rebate is like complaining about being stung by bees after sticking your hand in a bee hive.

If the price is right, buy it. If the price is not right, don't buy it. Don't buy based on promises. Corporations have no problems lying and breaking promises.

And one last thing, why is Newegg being dumped into this? Newegg has nothing to do with this and it's poor journalism to drag them into it.

I agree with all the posters about this not being a rotten Newegg issue yet. Lets see how it unfolds but but I think it should be renamed in the mean time.

@nrich239: What's great is that even though the address was unreadable, it was readable enough to be able to send you the postcard.

I'm with you, though. I don't consider a rebate as part of the price until I have the check in my hand.

I've never had problems with Neweggs rebates, but the "Next day air" shipping sucks. If you pick next day air on Thursday or Friday, even with rush processing, it'll be at least Tuesday before you get whatever you ordered. Very misleading. There is a disclaimer about this somewhere on their site, but it's burried in a hard to find place. I called them up to point this out and was told I was out of luck and the $25 I paid for next day air instead of the free shipping option (which would have arrived in the same amount of time).

I need to wonder if Consumerist didn't post this as a Newegg problem in hopes of getting a response from them. I'm figuring Newegg is more likely to respond to their name on this site than Foxconn or the rebate company. Not exactly fair, Consumerist. Manufacturer's rebates are just that - rebates from the manufacturer.

I dislike the pun because while catchy, NewEgg is a fantastic company and hasn't screwed this up.

Bah.

Rebates are notoriously based on following instructions to the letter.

And yes, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH NEWEGG. It's handled by the manufacturer.

To counter this story, there are hundreds of people who do get their rebates.

My rebate check on my newegg purchased video card is stuck on my door waiting for a trip to the bank.

P.S.

The correct and responsible thing to do would be to redirect this article at the MANUFACTURER of the video card purchased.

but, I guess that wouldn't be as sensational.

@buzzybee: buzzybee's comment says it all. A rebate should be considered a lucky bonus you might get for buying the product, but you should never assume you will get it just because you did everything right. I don't really see the need for any further discussion beyond that.

@Milstar: Yes. Because ultimately it is their reputation that is going to be tarnished.

Boo on the misleading title! Newegg has been great to me, but caveat emptor: REBATES ARE CRAP!

@gamehendge2000: Foxconn's rebates, at least on Newegg, ar ealways through Myrebates411. MR411 is a notorious craphole, and the vast majority of people seem to have had to hound them to get their rebate. I myself had to ask after my rebate after about 12 weeks. When I did, I received their absolutely standard 'We sent it, we'll resend another' response. It was clearly a canned response since it matched the letters posted online by others.

@SkokieGuy: MR411 is apparantly one person trying to process thousands of rebates, as far as the conclusions that everything about them seem to point to. They are absolutely notorious for never sending payments unless you bug them about it. The "server crash" sounds exactly like their standard list of excuses they call on. If there was a server crash, I severely doubt there was even a RAID array as they claim.

Hardware fails. It's a fact BUT it's inexcusable for myrebates411 to not have a backup.

I document pretty much everything when it comes to rebates. Only got burned once, by Buy.com. Never bought a thing from them since (oh...three years ago...). And I can't believe Howie Mandell is doing ads for them. Oh Howie...what have you done!?

So far, Staples has been the easiest. Submit online, and I get the rebates within a month.

Have to say, the title is another knock on consumerist in a long line of shoddy consumerist reporting. First all the Amazon non-stories, then the netflix non-story, now they try to sully newegg's good name. Newegg's response was as legit as any I've seen, and it's not newegg's rebate as the poster seems to indicate. I've seen nothing that shows contact with Foxconn, the manufacturer sponsoring the rebate. If consumerist wants to sully someone it should be them. Title should be changed immediatly to Beware of Rotten Foxconn rebate. It won't, I barely come around here anymore since 90% of the stuff posted anymore is crap stories. Ben needs to put his foot down and bring consumerist back round to what it was made for, real consumer issues.

This is an unjustified Digg against Newegg. It is true that they do not handle MANUFACTURERS REBATES. It is right there in the name people. I'm disappointed in the original poster for being deceptive about how he characterized his situation, but I'm more upset at the Consumerist editors for choosing to go with the sensationalized title against Newegg where it is clear on the face that it is not appropriate.

@macdude22: Dude, Consumerist is becoming just like any part of the "media" unfortunately. Headlines are made to get attention - not to be accurate. You start yelling that Newegg did something, you'll get attention with this demographic. Sad, really. I think Ben should be more careful about crying wolf on situations like this, or the Consumerist is going to lose the clout it has earned as of late.

I refuse to purchase anything from anyone if it has a rebate attached. The companies in charge of them are looking for any excuse not to give them out.

One of the few things Best Buy has done that I really like is to get rid of rebates altogether.

I've never heard anything bad about newegg until today... I still don't beleive it. Too many people I know get hardware from them and have nothing but good things to say about them. I'm sure this guy will get his $20.

I shop at Newegg all the time. Gonna have to watch out for that.

Newegg is fantastic, my411rebates, however, is not. A video card was lost in shipping one time and they replaced it next day, no questions asked.

Maybe it's just because I've spent almost 8 grand there over the last 2 years (I build machines on the side for people), but I doubt it. They seem to be pretty great to everyone. Newegg would certainly give you the 20 dollars if it was within the CSR's power, but they must have a separate policy for rebates.

@SkokieGuy:
"Computers and systems can crash. It seems like rebate 411's reply is admirable, given the set of circumstances."

Yes, but good companies backup their data. At most they should have lost one days worth of data (or one week should the facility have been destroyed), not two months. Any company operating without a decent backup system has no excuse and deserves to be driven out of business.

I agree - NewEgg is a great resource. How many times do people have to be told 'do not base a purchase on a rebate'. I personally do not buy things which are subject to a rebate because (1) the rebate indicates an imminent price drop in any event and (2) your odds of getting it are very very very very low.

As other people have stated, BOOOO to Consumerist for the unfair digg against NewEgg. Consumerist posts have been going downhill recently (especially the posts crying about showing ID, get over yourselves).

NewEgg has always been good to me, and VERY fast with order processing and shipping (sometimes getting items the next day with 3 day shipping).

While most rebates advertised are specifically stated to be "manufacturers' rebates", my experience as a retail manager is that the majority of customers go to the easiest target when they have a problem. That's usually the retailer (online or b&m). We actually had a process in place to take care of these issues - as long as the customer had supporting information (make copies of everything you mail!) we would forward it to someone at our corporate office whose job it was to fix the problem. If the rebate processor wouldn't send the check, our company did.

Was this posted by the same people trying to get Apple to replace a stolen iPod for free? WTF?

Bad Consumerist!!

Agreed: it's not neweggs fault.

Bottom line: Any manufacturer that offers a rebate = caveat emptor.

Newegg is great, but I don't count on getting rebates when buying products from them or anybody, and neither should you. For a while I was getting $10 rebates on RiData DVD spindles without hassle, but on the last one supposedly they were missing some part of the form. I resent it, and of course, never got the rebate. I also bought a Xion computer case from Newegg that was supposed to have a $30 rebate. Naturally I heard nothing for months. The only contact information was a number for Xion which must have been the direct line for the dumbass department. They seemed more confused that they were getting a phone call than of anything else. So yeah.. no rebate there either.

Anyway, If you really want to take a chance on a rebate, look at the user reviews on Newegg. People will sometimes say whether or not they got a rebate, and you can gauge how often it happens.

@Franklin Comes Alive!: Newegg sucks... if you buy anything from Newegg assume you wont be getting a rebate period... Newegg chooses to do business with shitty rebate proc. companies and they say tough luck to the customer.... Also LS1Andrew... u get over urself.

NEWEGG SUCKS !!!!! Will never buy from there again.

@pshah:

Newegg is not doing business with the rebate processors. They are selling products with manufacturer's rebates. The manufacturers are the ones dealing with the rebate processors.

Congratulations for being in the ~.01% of Newegg customers that don't like them, though.

@LS1Andrew:

I agree Newegg is Great and has always done a good job with everything I got from them. As for you and everyone else bitching about the unfair post by the consumerist, and the website is going down hill and blah , blah. If you dont like consumerist and think its going down hill then STOP READING IT.

Newegg is responsible for the quality of the rebates they offer. End of story.