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New Rebate Requirement Easy to Overlook, Hard to Swallow

Over the years, manufacturers have come up with a variety of obnoxious rebate requirements to trip up purchasers or to dissuade them from filing for their money back in the first place.

This new one from Laplink is a doozy, which was required to get the $30 PC Mover full price rebate that Consumer World promoted a few weeks ago as a “Bargain of the Week.”

Laplink rebate

Easy to miss is this fine print requirement to include personal identification.

*MOUSE PRINT:

¹To avoid fraudulent requests, you are required to submit evidence supporting your name and address. Acceptable evidence is a copy of government-issued identification (such as a driver’s license) or the front page of a utility or credit card bill. Account number or similar information may be blacked out. The name and address are required to match the name and address on the rebate request form.

What? They want a copy of your drivers license or credit card statement? Are they crazy (albeit they do allow you to blacken out account numbers, etc.)?

No company in memory has ever conditioned a rebate on what some might consider an invasion of privacy or a security risk. We asked Laplink why they are doing this considering that the rebate is in the form of a check that has to be either cashed or deposited at a bank in an account that matches the payee. The company did not respond.

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12 thoughts on “New Rebate Requirement Easy to Overlook, Hard to Swallow”

  1. My guess is the company’s POV is to try to avoid the type of fraud where someone buys 20+ items, submits rebates for all of them using phony info, then sells them on eBay. But, still, yikes!

  2. What? No DNA or stool sample? Slackers!

    Edgar replies: Rick… iris scan required to cash check.

  3. I went to a tanning salon one time, I do some modeling and it was winter and I needed a tan, I had never been to one before. They REQUIRED a fingerprint scan to get in. I told them I was only doing a one time thing, they said it didn’t matter, to get in they needed all my info plus a fingerprint scan. For a $15 one time thing, I have to be in their computer system.

    It is insane all the information these companies want and if you refuse they just say hit the road.

  4. Retailers will use whatever they can to invade consumer privacy if it means they can profit or lose less money due to the information collected (advertising). It may not be long before DNA samples are required with every purchase.

  5. Just boycott LapLink. I know the “sale” is over, but the best way to teach them a lesson is to NOT buy their product. Let them pay for their past sins.

  6. Since you can block out account info, and since you’re already giving them your name and address, this really doesn’t seem so onerous to me.

  7. As this must be purchased at Fry’s, is it Laplink or Fry’s demanding this?

    Edgar replies: Fry’s.

  8. So you make a copy of your driver’s license, then black out all information except the name and address, which is all their fine print states is required to match what you are submitting on the rebate form. If they reject it, you file suit for deceptive trade practices/fraud and make it not worth their while to think this silly crap up in the first place.

  9. A fingerprint for a tanning session. Never will i give anyone a fingerprint for anything.
    Now we are getting downright stupid.

    So you get a one time shot at tanning salon what do they think your a terrorist and going to hack into tanning bed and steal govt secrets or worse steal the ranning bed.

    When BOA wanted my thumbprint to cash a $5 check from one of their customers to me i walked out.

    Too much invasion of privacy for me

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