eviljim

They weren't pricing mistakes -- no, they're not. The high retail price is regular for CyberRebate; the free after rebate is as well. They also sent out emails to all their affiliates to promote the FREE DVDs -- so clearly being free wasn't a pricing error either. Most likely affiliates started pushing hard and they sold a lot of their stock.

Going there now, I still see about 2 pages of DVDs, even some good ones still in stock.

Iron Chef

$169.00!

beebs

You can make just a much money in a falling stock market as in a rising one -- it's called selling short.

-Beebs

eviljim

Use the coupon code PATRICK and get $10 off any purchase $100 or over (which one dvd alone would satisfy).

odintor

You can get around this concern by using a Visa/MC. The acquiring bank of the merchant is responsible for companies which go out of business without providing the services they have guranteed, however I would not proceed without some sort of disclosure.

richard98

[/B][/QUOTE]You can get around this concern by using a Visa/MC. The acquiring bank of the merchant is responsible for companies which go out of business without providing the services they have guranteed, however I would not proceed without some sort of disclosure. [/B][/QUOTE]

I see absolutely no protection by using Visa/MC.

What are you going to dispute? When are you going to file the dispute? CyberRebate would provide you the DVD at the agreed upon price ($169) - they will have provided the goods as promised. You'll also be far beyond the 60 day period (to dispute a charge) before you could possibly hope to see the rebate.

Considering the risks, this is not a good deal.

dvdan

Buy the 3 dvds for $60 at your local B&M store and invest the $450 in some sort of security for about 4 months.

Deals4all

Buy one DVD for $160, Use the $10 off coupon, Brings it to $150, And you get the $160 rebate + the DVD, (About $35 value). Lets say it takes 3 months to get the rebate, thats $35 in 3 months off a $150 investment (That 85% annually!), try getting that in the stock market or a fund!

Charybdis

If this would work, this would surely be the way to go.

It would probably go something like this:
-Buy the DVD for $170
-Call up Amex Blue, and say, "Oh, I just bought this for $170, but I see that Another On-line Merchant has it for $20."
-Amex Blue Credits you $150
-You get the DVD and the $170 rebate (hopefully).
-Your total Outlay was $20

Any more details on this?

Deals4all

As far as I know that would be fraud.

nightliner

I wish I had thought of a scam like
this. I could be living comfortably in
Belize right now. Nice beaches and no
extradition treaties.

hyness

This sounds like a deal from Dennis Miller's comedy act...

"In the back of the National Enquirer, I found an ad...
Avoid ripoffs, send $20 to...

You have to be a real piece of sampsonite to fall for this one. Hey honey, I'll send $40, that way, we'll both be protected."

Why can't Dennis just quit MNF and DML and do stand up again? He was a brilliant stand-up comic.

renaldow

[QUOTE]Originally posted by odintor

Quote:

You can get around this concern by using a Visa/MC. The acquiring bank of the merchant is responsible for companies which go out of business without providing the services they have guranteed, however I would not proceed without some sort of disclosure.

This has been mentioned earlier in the thread, but here it goes again:

They will not. The only part of the deal that Visa/MC is involved with is the purchase of an overpriced DVD. The rebate is between you and whoever is offering it.

If you paid $169 for a DVD, and you received that DVD, then as far as Visa/MC is concerned, you have received the service/goods that you paid for.

If something goes wrong with the rebate, that's your problem, and only your problem. Also, keep in mind that Visa/MC generally only allow you to fight bills from the last 30 or 60 days (1 or 2 billing cycles, depending on their policy) and the rebate will take at least 90 days, it's yet another reason that Visa/MC will not care at all about your rebate problems.

renaldow

That's fraud. I'm sure if you look at the fine print in any policies/rules about their pricematching, you'll probably find at least 1 item that makes this an iffy idea, and gives Amex a way out.

Otherwise, what would stop someone from creating their own online store, charging $10,000 for a DVD, having a friend buy it, and then getting the difference from Amex?

LightTrinity

Because, in Amex fine print it says $250 top difference pay out per item and up to $1,000 per year.

I just tried to purchase 5 DVDs from cyberrebate :


Subject: CyberRebate.com order 1XXXXXX
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 16:06:17 -0700

Thank you for shopping at CyberRebate.com, the Internet Rebate Company.

Unfortunately, we were unable to ship one or more items on your order
1645196 and consequently these items have not been charged to your
credit card. The adjusted order amount of $0.00 was charged
to your credit card. The items that were not shipped are listed below.

251714 - Chicken Run DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0
251717 - Any Given Sunday DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0
251729 - Shaft DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0
251735 - Thomas Crowne Affair DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0
251736 - Skulls DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0
251743 - Battlefield Earth DVD - Ordered 1, Shipped 0

Please keep this email for future correspondence.
Again, thank you for shopping at CyberRebate.com.

Sincerely,

Customer Care
CyberRebate.com


What's up with that ???

eviljim

Must be out of stock! Weird, I didn't think they'd sell that quick.

Master J

Now I actually enjoyed Battlefield Earth somewhat, but you would have to be pretty hard up for a bargain to lay out 170 bucks for that movie with even the remotest possibility of not getting your money back. At this point everyone knows the pros and cons to this deal. Personally I am not partaking because of the risk and I own every movie they have offered that I want. Just don't forget the old adage about the fool and his money.......

J

thetaz

I bet the only way they're making money is by dumping these charges straight into a interest making bank account
I'm sure the amount of interest adds up very fast, considering you'd be shelling out $170 and not see it back for 3 months just for a lousy DVD!

Applejack

Anyone who takes part in this bargain, I wanted to alert you to a nice piece of land I have for sale under the Golden Gate Bridge....of course it will be free after rebate

Good luck to anyone that goes for this, but unless you can afford to lose $200 on a DVD, not to mention any credit card fraud, you might talk to your wife about this first.

eviljim

I'll accept that there's a small possibility rebates won't come in, but I'd really doubt CyberRebate would go as far as credit card fraud. A lot of people have done business with them and never had problems.

Somewhere else info was posted about the BBB investigation on CyberRebate. I recently read an article on it in a trade magazine... most of the complaints are about inability to TRACK rebates and non-shipment of orders. They ship UPS and offer pretty good rebate tracking, and these complaints come as a surprise.

Anyhoo -- my point -- proceed with caution but it's pretty rude to smear a company that hasn't really done bad by anyone who's posted here.

knitewing

Not 100%, but I believe he's referring to the fraud some people are considering in regards to a low price guarantee.

Pasolini

re: my post on bbb complaints:

yes, i read that they supposedly 'addressed' the issues raised by the bbb complaints, however, with the very low threshold of disatisfied customers who actually go to the effort of reporting them to the bbb, I tend to view any company with multiple complaints as too risky. Couple this with the high risk involved (purchase price over 10x actual value; risk of bankruptcy wiping out CR's obligation to pay rebates or debts; vulnerability to all online companies in current economic climate, and exposure to said risk over more than 3 months), and I find a complete lack of common business or consumer sense in participating in these 'rebate' schemes.

However, since they have 'sold out' of all the dvd's, this leaves three possibilities:

1) I am a paranoid nay-sayer and this is actually the best deal since sliced-bread.
2) There are a lot of gullible people in the world
3) they are artificially limiting stock (or had very little stock to begin with) to create a 'buzz' or excitement over the dvds, so when more are reintroduced in stock, they will sell vigourously.

All i can say is: i sure wish i had their customer list! I'd love to be able to market towards a consumer audience as willing to part with their money as Cyberrebate's customer base!

renaldow

Which very well could be another way they're trying to make money. I imagine a list of people willing to go for their deals might sell for a lot of money.

RCCTD

After lurking for a year now, I thought I would make my first post.

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would leave any balance on a credit card. We pay ours off every month, and use them for convenience and to get a float on the money.

My wife and I have "bought" several thousand dollars of items through CyberRebates over the past year and have never had any problems. Right now, they seem to be taking about 3 1/2 months from when the order is placed to when the rebate checks come back (assuming you complete the rebate forms and mail it back immediately after you receive the products). We have always received all our rebates, and our checks usually arrive before the date that is given on their on-line rebate tracking. We'll place a couple different orders, wait for the checks to come in, and repeat the process.

What we do is only place an order immediately after my American Express bill closes. I don't actually see the bill for another month. And then I pay online a couple days before my next closing date, which means I don't actually pay for the items for almost 2 months. I also place my order through e*****.com and get a 5% rebate on my purchase. So for me, I am getting a 5% return for my money in a one and half month period. This money is otherwise just earning 5.5% over a whole year in a money market account. On top of that, I'm getting something I want for free.

Cyberrebate does have A LOT of items of questionable quality, and yes a lot of their items are ridiculously priced over their true value (but see last paragraph, I look at it as getting a 5% return in 1.5 months). But they also have some good items that come and go on their site. (For example, I got a nice 3-piece Altec Lansing speaker set for my computer). And with my AMEX card, I have called them and asked about this, there's a Return Protection benefit that gives me some protection in case CyberRebate closes shop (and yes, I know there's a 90 day limit).

I know there's still some risk involved, but so far, I've gotten a lot of loot I wanted, and have been getting a decent return on my money to boot.

eviljim

Or a combination of choices

Also noted in the article was that CyberRebate was not very well notified about the BBB complaints. When the magazine tried to get ahold of the BBB (through a 900 number), there was no answer and no way to leave a message... they tried a few times and never got a response. Makes me think the BBB might be a LITTLE responsible for this too.

Like I said before -- I trust CR but even I'm a little weary of this.