Great deal on Corsair RAM?

[larry moe 'n curly]

Anyone have experience with Corsair rebates, and how fast and problem-free they
are?

I've submitted only two. The one from February took 88 days to arrive,
and I'm still waiting for the one submitted 24 days ago.

The best place to learn about the reputations of various companies and
rebate processors is the "Rebate Tracking" forum at www.fatwallet.com.

 

[Barry Watzman]

I do a huge number of rebates, several hundred per year (usually over 50
just from "Black Friday" alone), and I often have more than $1,000 in
outstanding rebates. I do them meticulously, I keep scrupulous records,
and I keep copies of everything, and spreadsheet to show the status.
But I do not use certified mail or anything like that to submit them (it
just costs too much). Even for Tiger Direct, which has a "rebate
guarantee" IF you use certified mail return receipt (which costs $5), I
don't ... I just drop them in a mailbox.

More than 90% of the rebates are processed and received with no followup
or action on my part. A few (and I'd say it's less than 5 each year)
require followup but I get them. The only rebates that I've lost were
two from Tiger Direct, their rebate form requires a signature, I forgot
to sign it and they did not (at the time, last fall) allow
"resubmissions" (correction of submissions after-the-fact) (I've been
told that this policy has since changed).

The number of people who submit rebates is very low. I have worked for
a company that offered rebates, as a marketing manager, and the rebate
firms will offer a chart showing the cost of the item on one axis, the
amount of the rebate on another axis and at the intersection the maximum
percentage of customers who will actually submit the rebate. In many
cases, they will GUARANTEE this percentage ... and if more people than
indicated on their chart submit the rebate, the independent rebate house
and not the manufacturer will pay the extra rebates. The percentages
only begin to approach 50% when the rebate amount gets up towards $50
AND 50% of the item purchase price.

Rebates are generally not a scam and are generally fulfilled if the
requirements are met. What rebates really are is a tax on the
disorganized, for the benefit of the minority who do send them in. In
my experience, if you want to play the rebate game you can get some good
deals (in fact lots of free deals), but you have to have the mindset to
do the rebate right and to do it IMMEDIATELY. If "Black Friday" is
rebate buying day, it usually takes me about 30 hours spread over "Black
Saturday and Black Sunday" to get 30 to 50 rebates processed and ready
for the mailman on Monday.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

I would agree that a one time years ago, there was fraud regarding rebates,
but I believe that government has stepped in fixed that problem. In any
case, large companies like Best Buy, Circuit City, Western Digital, and even
NewEgg rely on their reputation for fairness and honesty, and without that
they would out of business in very short time.

Best Buy has a reputation for fairnes and honesty? Is that why they
denied my rebate, even though they admitted that it was postmarked in
time and filled out correctly, because they had misprinted the date on
the rebate form? Except for one person, everybody I spoke with at
their rebate center, their national customer service center, and the
local store acted like a robot and said that they couldn't do anything.
Two people even said I had altered not only the copy of the rebate
form but also a second original cash register printout of the form. I
finally located a Best Buy manager who credited my Visa card
immediately, and he was very different from the other employees, an
actual human being who didn't belong to a fascist cult.

 

[Mark A]

I've submitted only two. The one from February took 88 days to arrive,
and I'm still waiting for the one submitted 24 days ago.

The best place to learn about the reputations of various companies and
rebate processors is the "Rebate Tracking" forum at www.fatwallet.com.

Many of those reports are difficult to confirm because you can't tell if the
people actually followed the rebate requirements exactly.

Many people are too lazy to carefully read the instructions, although I will
admit that many times the requirements of what is to be sent in are unusual,
precisely because they calculate that a certain percentage of the population
will not read the instructions carefully.

 

[Jack F. Twist]

Rebates are generally not a scam and are generally fulfilled if the
requirements are met. What rebates really are is a tax on the
disorganized, for the benefit of the minority who do send them in.

No, rebates like lotteries are a tax on stupid people -- those who
believe that overpaying for items, allowing third parties to accumulate
interest on the overpayments, and then having money that never
should have been paid in the first place refunded to them weeks or
months after purchase, is a good thing.

 

[Mark A]

Best Buy has a reputation for fairnes and honesty? Is that why they
denied my rebate, even though they admitted that it was postmarked in
time and filled out correctly, because they had misprinted the date on
the rebate form? Except for one person, everybody I spoke with at
their rebate center, their national customer service center, and the
local store acted like a robot and said that they couldn't do anything.
Two people even said I had altered not only the copy of the rebate
form but also a second original cash register printout of the form. I
finally located a Best Buy manager who credited my Visa card
immediately, and he was very different from the other employees, an
actual human being who didn't belong to a fascist cult.

Best Buy does not process the rebates. They hire rebate companies to do that
(even if it says "Best Buy" on the return address).. I don't know exactly
what happened in your case, but it sounds like Best Buy did resolve your
issue.

If I ever got stiffed by a rebate company, I would immediately contact the
retail store, and if no satisfaction ensued, then I would contact the
district attorney. Of course, I follow the directions exactly, and not
everyone does.

 

[Mark A]

Best Buy does not process the rebates. They hire rebate companies to do
that (even if it says "Best Buy" on the return address).. I don't know
exactly what happened in your case, but it sounds like Best Buy did
resolve your issue.

If I ever got stiffed by a rebate company, I would immediately contact the
retail store, and if no satisfaction ensued, then I would contact the
district attorney. Of course, I follow the directions exactly, and not
everyone does.

Oops. I may be mistaken. It does appear that Best Buy processes its own
rebates, or at least they provide rebate tracking on their website.

Some of the large retailers like Best Buy print the rebate information on
your receipt, and they store that information in there computers and match
it up when you send the rebate request in. This reduces the chance of fraud
and probably cuts down on processing costs.

 

[DRS]

[...]

Rebate offers clearly state that you are out of luck if they choose
to deny your rebate request. On its face, that sounds like a bad
deal to me.

What does the law say where you are? Where I am we have laws against
"unconscionable conduct" by businesses. It's one way of saying they don't
get to tilt everything their own way. In the case of something like
rebates, this sort of law prevents businesses from disenfranchising
customers who have done everything they reasonably can to adhere to the
terms and conditions.

 

[John Doe]

I do a huge number of rebates, several hundred per year (usually
over 50 just from "Black Friday" alone), and I often have more
than $1,000 in outstanding rebates. I do them meticulously, I
keep scrupulous records, and I keep copies of everything, and
spreadsheet to show the status. But I do not use certified mail or
anything like that to submit them (it just costs too much).

Certified mail doesn't prove that you've met the requirements
anyway. Rebates explicitly state that you are at the mercy of the
rebate company and that you have no recourse if they choose to deny
your request. It's a bum deal to begin with.

More than 90% of the rebates are processed and received with no
followup or action on my part. A few (and I'd say it's less than
5 each year) require followup but I get them.

That's difficult for me to believe.

The number of people who submit rebates is very low.

I think most people are turned off by rebates nowadays, given their
history.

I have worked for a company that offered rebates, as a marketing
manager, and the rebate firms will offer a chart showing the cost
of the item on one axis, the amount of the rebate on another axis
and at the intersection the maximum percentage of customers who
will actually submit the rebate. In many cases, they will
GUARANTEE this percentage ... and if more people than indicated on
their chart submit the rebate, the independent rebate house and
not the manufacturer will pay the extra rebates.

And that's when the doo-doo hits the fan.

Rebates are generally not a scam and are generally fulfilled if
the requirements are met. What rebates really are is a tax on the
disorganized, for the benefit of the minority who do send them in.

I think more likely they started out being a scam by hiding the
mail-in rebate requirement.

Part of the reason is probably because you have to forfeit your
ability to return a product when you destroy the packaging in order
to request a rebate.

The whole idea sounds funny to me, effectively asking a company for
some of my money back.

In my experience, if you want to play the rebate game you can get
some good deals (in fact lots of free deals),

And the cow jumped over the moon, and other fairy tales. Sometimes
you might be able to get a rebate on junk after you pay a price,
fill out the rebate form, and wait.

You get what you pay for.

but you have to have the mindset to do the rebate right and to do
it IMMEDIATELY.

I immediately browse to another product when I see that the product
I'm looking at requires a mail-in rebate. I start saving time
immediately that way.

Good luck.

 

[Barry Watzman]

I have had both Best Buy and Circuit City local stores fulfill the
rebate directly when the rebate center or manufacturer did not. Best
Buy did it with a gift card (ok by me), Circuit City did it with CASH,
and it was a $200 rebate (and I subsequently got the rebate, following a
letter denying it, and I signed the check back over to Circuit City ....
you can find the story of that saga here, back in March or April).

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Many of those reports are difficult to confirm because you can't tell if the
people actually followed the rebate requirements exactly.

Many people are too lazy to carefully read the instructions, although I will
admit that many times the requirements of what is to be sent in are unusual,
precisely because they calculate that a certain percentage of the population
will not read the instructions carefully.

Considering the vast amount of experience that FatWallet members have
with rebates (some have made thousands of submissions, and one person
received over $1,000 worth of checks in one day), I would be very
surprised if they failed to follow the rebate requirements exactly. If
anything, they follow the rules better than the rebate processors do.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Re: "Best Buy does not process the rebates."

Well, sometimes they kind of do. Some of the rebates come from the
manufacturer, but some come from the retailer themselves. They do use a
fulfillment house for their own rebates (perhaps several, but primarily
one located in Maine), but it's under contract to Best Buy, not the
manufacturer. And it may be an "in house" fulfillment agency (an agency
actually owned by Best Buy), although I'm not sure of that.

If you don't get a rebate, contact the FTC and the consumer protection
office of the State Attorney General's office. It may or may not do you
any good personally, but six- and seven-figure penalties have been
assessed against some retailers for improper rebate actions (CompUSA had
one such incident a while back). Also, after FujiPlus had unacceptable
rebate performance on their large LCD monitor rebates (typically $90
rebates that were either not being fulfilled at all or that were taking
6 months), Tiger Direct stopped carrying the line until they allowed
Tiger Direct's own rebate processor (OnRebate) to process those rebates
instead of FujiPlus.

 

[Dr Wiz]

The above is different than the Corsair XMS memory they had on sale a
few days ago which was
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

It also had a $50 rebate but that memory appears to be faster and
higher priced!

As a system builder and retailer, I do not put Corsair memory in my
machines because I've had too many bad sticks from them. I've even
had Corsair memory that passes burn-in testing, then fail when the
system is fully operational.

We've switched to only using RAM that is certified and from the
primary manufacturers.

Current (06/24) wholesale prices on 1 gb of DDR400 is around $90 each
for certified sticks. A price of $64 indicates these are probably
non-passed (but useable) memory without any warranty. Non-passed
means greater than 1% (not sure of the value) of the memory is
defective. It will still register with full value and will usually
run, but you get spurious memory problems which tends to crash
programs.

You are better served spending a few extra dollars to get good memory.
Defective memory doesn't always surface until you are really stressing
the system.

Good luck!

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Some of the large retailers like Best Buy print the rebate information on
your receipt, and they store that information in there computers and match
it up when you send the rebate request in. This reduces the chance of fraud
and probably cuts down on processing costs.

The rebate forms that the Best Buy cash registers printed for me
contained all that information, including the dates for the purchases
and submissions. One employee even warned me to mail my submission
that very day because it was the deadline. So where was the fraud or
error on my part? And several months later, I received another Best
Buy rebate form with a misprint on it -- right zip code, wrong state
("Sir, Maine IS abbreviated 'MN'!).

 

[DP]

Two points about rebates, which I hate:

1) Some Eliot Spitzer-type attorney general could make a good name for
himself if he were to investigate the rebate scam business.

2) What are the costs to the manufacturer of running a rebate business? You
have to have the rebate forms printed up, you have to advertise the rebate,
you have to put stickers on products letting people know the rebates are
available, you have to run (or pay someone to run) a redemption center.
Presumably, you also have to call back from the stores those products with
rebate forms in them or with stickers on them once the rebate period has run
out. Now, what would happen if you killed the rebate program and took the
money you saved because of all the costs mentioned above and simply lowered
the regular everyday price of the product?

I think finally people are starting to have some scepticism about rebate
programs the same way a lot of smart shoppers know to stay away from most
extended warranties.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

Re: "Apparently Corsair is like HP -- they have better-than-average
technology"

Dead wrong; in fact, they have no technology at all. NONE. Zip. Zero.

Ask them how many fab plants (semiconductor chip manufacturing plants)
they have. The answer is ZERO. Because they don't make memory. AT
ALL. PERIOD. (neither does Kingston, Mushkin, Viking, OCZ, etc.).

These firms are, in some cases only marketing firms that buy memory from
real manufacturing firms and simply apply their packaging and labels.
In other cases, they do manufacture the modules by soldering chips to
the module boards, but that is all (and it's a near-zero technology
operation). The real manufacturers are Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Toshiba,
Elpida, Infineon (soon to undergo a spinoff and name change to
"Qimonda", which sounds more oriental than German) and a few others.

Don't confuse marketing firms with technology firms.

Kingston also buys whole silicon wafers and slices and dices them, but
in my experience their testing isn't very thorough because 8 out of
the 12 Kingston PC3200 modules I tried failed. These were from
different production runs (China, Taiwan, and USA, two different
circuit board designs, three types of markings on the chips), and each
showed different quality. OTOH 5 out of 5 PNY modules (Bravo chips)
were fine.

I've read that the testing machines used by the memory chip
manufacturers cost over $1M apiece, but I can't believe that Kingston's
are nearly that expensive. I've also read that some module makers test
with nothing but regular PCs. Apparently Corsair at least tests at
higher temperatures as well.

 

[The Seabat]

On 24 Jun 2006 19:52:01 -0700, "larry moe 'n curly"


Not for over at least thrity years! Maine is abbreviated 'ME' and
Minnisota is abbreviated 'MN'

 

[itemyar]

FYI

I just received an email confirmation telling me that my rebate is being
processed!

 

[David Maynard]

Two points about rebates, which I hate:

1) Some Eliot Spitzer-type attorney general could make a good name for
himself if he were to investigate the rebate scam business.

2) What are the costs to the manufacturer of running a rebate business? You
have to have the rebate forms printed up, you have to advertise the rebate,
you have to put stickers on products letting people know the rebates are
available, you have to run (or pay someone to run) a redemption center.
Presumably, you also have to call back from the stores those products with
rebate forms in them or with stickers on them once the rebate period has run
out. Now, what would happen if you killed the rebate program and took the
money you saved because of all the costs mentioned above and simply lowered
the regular everyday price of the product?

Well, there are a myriad of reasons for doing rebates, like for a temporary
incentive vs 'lowering the price', targeting an area or a store chain, and
combining with other product incentives (buy one of these with one of those
and get...) but the one perhaps most relevant to your 'simply lowered the
price of the product' is the manufacturer can't control a dealer's pricing
so the incentive would be dependent on whether the dealer decided to, as
the saying goes, "pass the savings on to you" or keep the savings for
themselves, or something in-between.

 

[Mark A]

Considering the vast amount of experience that FatWallet members have
with rebates (some have made thousands of submissions, and one person
received over $1,000 worth of checks in one day), I would be very
surprised if they failed to follow the rebate requirements exactly. If
anything, they follow the rules better than the rebate processors do.

Usually, only the ones who have problems complain. I have used rebates often
and have never posted on any forum about the fact that I got everyone of the
rebates owed to me (although some took awhile).