UPDATE:  I regret not knowing how to spell "Cingular."  Sorry.

I hate rebates.  I try to avoid "sale" items where the discount is in the form of a rebate; the transaction costs are just too high.  "Please put every scrap of paper you touched on the day you bought this copy of TurboTax, the packaging of TurboTax, a time-stamped video recording of your purchasing this copy of TurboTax, and a notarized affidavit from the salesperson who sold you this copy of TurboTax, and you will get a check for $5 in 12-16 weeks."  However, in December, when I accidentally put my cell phone in the washing machines (yikes), all the phone replacement choices at SCingular came with a rebate.  So, I paid $80 for a phone with a $50 rebate.

Well, $50 is enough for me to jump through some hoops, (no weirdo offers today, please), so I sent inall my documentation the next day.  I received my rebate this week, two months later.  The time issue is not the point of my post, though.  The point is that my rebate came on a Singular-branded debit card, not a check.

Weird.  So, how is the card concept saving SCingular money?  I suppose that people will lose the card, or just not redeem it, like a gift card.  My trips to stores that take debit cards rarely result in bills of exactly $50, so many people will leave some sort of residual on the card and then just forget about it rather than carry a card around with $1.83.  But don't people lose rebate checks?  I know we have lost small ones before -- in this era of direct deposit, a $3 check requires a separate trip to the bank, etc.

I thought that one catch might be that they want you to reload the card or maybe if you make a purchase over the card then it turns into a credit card that charges interest.  Nope.  The card can't be reloaded or used for over the original $50.  The card is Visa-branded, so I assume that Visa gets some sort of fee when I use it, so maybe that's how SCingular gets more value than from a check.  Anyway, I hope we don't lose it.

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1. Posted by Jake on February 16, 2007 @ 19:33 | Permalink

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3. Posted by Mark Thresher on April 15, 2007 @ 10:57 | Permalink