Rebate Scams: How I Deceive the Heck Out of You with Consumer Rebates

(PRWEB) May 18, 2006 -- In the last fifteen years, businesses have increased the availability of consumer rebates by over 400%. This is not because it favors the consumer.

An astounding $500 million in rebates go unclaimed every year. For low-dollar rebates, the unclaimed rate can range up to 90%. Even the top-dollar rebates have unclaimed rates around 10%.

As renowned consumer advocate Brian Vaszily reveals in his latest column (accessible to everyone at the URL below), marketers intentionally make rebates difficult to redeem, and they're getting increasingly sophisticated at it. In fact, a key measurement of a rebate campaign's success is how many consumers did not redeem the rebate.

"Retailers in particular are never doing you a favor by offering a product with a mail-in rebate," Vaszily says in his column. "Know this: Retailers could just as easily have a good old fashioned sale on a given product versus offering a rebate on it, where you don't have to fill out any forms or mail anything in but instead get the product at the reduced price right there on the spot. By instead offering you products that require mail-in rebates, though, retailers are very much doing themselves a favor."

In Vaszily's latest column, consumers will learn:

- The 4 savvy, despicable rebate scam tactics everyone needs to know

- The crucial difference between an expiration date versus time-to-respond that they don't want you to know

- Why retailers could make redeeming rebates much simpler for you, or do away with them altogether and just offer sales, but won't

- The 8 keys to avoid getting scammed by rebates

For this and more read Vaszily's engaging and informative Rebate Scams: How I Deceive the Heck Out of You with Consumer Rebates (http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/06/05/15/rebate-scams.htm) column now at http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/06/05/15/rebate-scams.htmSixWise.com is the home of the no-cost "How to Be Happier" e-newsletter, now the #1 most subscribed to personal safety & wellness newsletter on the Web. The weekly SixWise.com e-newsletter includes the popular "How We Get You" columns by Brian Vaszily at http://www.sixwise.com/columnists.htm?lvl=2&clsid=7&clsitemid=1. Subscribe at no-cost now by going to SixWise.com.

Press Contact: Brian Vaszily
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