{"id":1212,"date":"2010-10-03T05:40:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T12:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2010-10-03T05:40:51","modified_gmt":"2010-10-03T12:40:51","slug":"beware-rebate-cards-can-expire-very-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/?p=1212","title":{"rendered":"Beware, rebate cards can expire very quickly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With mail-in rebates, the odds are against you from the start.\u00a0 My own experience is that I only get an actual response to a mail-in rebate about half the time, even if I have done everything right.\u00a0 Then rebates started to appear as Visa\/MasterCard cards, with none of the protections of most state laws or the new federal gift card laws.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like they are becoming an even worse deal as rebate companies seem to be experimenting with shorter expiration dates.\u00a0 Take this <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oregonlive.com\/finance\/2010\/10\/rebate_card_comes_with_a_catch.html\" target=\"_blank\">recent experience<\/a> by a journalist:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Imagine my anger and humiliation when I pulled the card out in August,  only to note two key dates: &#8220;Valid From 03\/10&#8221; and &#8220;Good Thru 07\/10.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When he contacted the company that manages the rebate card program, he discovered:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A fact sheet on the site promoting rebate cards says this: &#8220;Checks  expire within 3 or 4 months. While there are some exceptions, most  rebate cards do not expire for at least 12 months.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clearly because of his experience, some rebate cards, and ALL rebate checks expire in substantially less than 12 months.\u00a0 I think most people simply don&#8217;t pay attention to expiration dates and these companies must realize that shortening expiration dates is a good way to reduce redemption; it is better to deal with a few angry customers to save quite a bit of money.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve previously posted some tips on getting the most value out of rebate cards, like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Trick number one:\u00a0 Take the card into your bank and attempt to have  it turned into cash.\u00a0 Apparently this is allowed on some cards.<\/li>\n<li>Trick number two:\u00a0 Use the card to buy another open-loop gift card, one that DOES have the gift card safeguards.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This particular customer decided to force the issue with the rebate company and demand a new card for his remaining balance:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I employed a strategy espoused by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.willamette.edu\/wucl\/faculty\/profiles\/birke\/index.php\">Richard Birke<\/a>, director of Willamette University&#8217;s Center for Dispute Resolution. Everything is negotiable, <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1qJuWw\">he says<\/a>. Plus, it never hurts to ask.<\/p>\n<p>When  I called the rebate card&#8217;s 800 number, I asked the rep to speak to a  supervisor. None was there, she said, but she&#8217;d forward my request to  one for review. Check back in 10 days on the status, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Three  calls and two weeks later, a rep named John told me my $85.80 had been  reloaded on another card. I&#8217;d receive it in four weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With mail-in rebates, the odds are against you from the start.\u00a0 My own experience is that I only get an actual response to a mail-in rebate about half the time, even if I have done everything right.\u00a0 Then rebates started to appear as Visa\/MasterCard cards, with none of the protections of most state laws or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fees-breakage","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1214,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.giftcardadvocate.org\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}