Maybe you've wondered why retailers offer rebates on products rather than simply discounting the price at the point of sale? The always cynical Merle Wayne Sneed has long suspected that it is because sellers know that most people are attracted by the possibility of a rebate and most people won't file for them, leaving a lot of free money for the sellers and manufacturers. There was a story about rebates in yesterday's Hooterville Daily Dish. The article said that about 60% of people who are entitled to a rebate, never claim it. That's a lot of lost opportunity. Manufacturers use what are called rebate-fulfillment houses to process their rebates for them. These fulfillers are simply middlemen who collect the rebate information from the consumer and collect the money from the manufacturer. They validate the rebates and send out the checks. All for a fee. Yesterday's article intimated that manufacturers instruct their middlemen to automatically deny a certain number of rebates, in the hope that the consumer will simply give up. Apparently as many as half do. That prelude brings me to my story of the day, involving a rebate submission I made on the Ace Hardware website. Ace is more progressive than most retailers when it comes to rebate submissions. If you have an Ace Rewards Card, their loyalty program, you can submit a rebate on line, without having to fill out any forms or mail any proof of purchase. You simply pick the product you bought from a list of rebate-eligible purchases and the system verifies that you purchased it, using your card records. I bought a portable DVD player at Thanksgiving, which had a $30 rebate. I immediately applied for the rebate and the Ace system validated it and told me that a check should arrive within six weeks. A few days ago I got a postcard from an outfit in Miami telling me that my submission was invalid and that I should send copies of my receipt and the product barcode to them by January 28th, in order for it to be reconsidered. They also provided a phone number for me to call with questions. When I called them this morning, the agent asked for my tracking number and when I provided it, she said my rebate would arrive within 15 days. No explanation, no arguing, no nothing. It left me with the suspicion that the entire affair has been a ruse to see if I would just give up, like so many must do. As I'm fond of saying, bastards! Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky