Mail In Rebates

So yesterday I received an $80 rebate check for some items I purchased back in early January from Linens-N-Things. They had several Black & Decker items for $10 after rebate and being a new home owner, I figured I could actually use the products that were on sale. This was one of the fastest turnovers I have had for a mail in rebate. This rebate did not have any electronic filing process involved, which was great that I got my rebate so fast!

I know a lot of people are not bent about purchasing items that offer a mail in rebate, since majority of the times you do not get a rebate back. The processing center "accidentally" messes up and with time, one will forget about that paper they mailed in. I have a process that I use for mail in rebates, which may help others as well. Before I send any information related to the rebate, I photocopy everything (the receipt, the rebate form, the UPC, whatever is requested). If I made more than one photocopy that is related to a particular rebate, I staple all of the papers together. Then at the top of the first page, I mark the date when I mailed the rebate. I have a filing cabinet with a folder just for rebate. The photocopies are sorted by the date I have sent the forms out. Each month I go back and look over what outstanding rebates I have not received and if it has been over 8-10 weeks (the normal rebate wait period listed on most forms) I pull the photocopies out. Eventually I make a call to the processing center and find out what is going on. I notate on the photocopies, who I spoke with and when I spoke to them. Once I receive a rebate I will shred the photocopies that pertain to the rebate. If I didn't have to send in the original receipt, I keep that. This process has worked well for me so far and hopefully someone else can benefit from it as well. The key is to organize your information.

I was thinking about digitizing this process and instead of having photocopies I could scan everything into a pdf file. The problem with this idea is that if I had to call a rebate processing center over a rebate in question, they normally ask for copies of the forms submitted or at times they may ask for an original, which is rare, but possible. I am still contemplating this idea, especially since it would save cabinet space and such.