By JACKIE TAYLOR | October 28, 2026

Rebates

Bahhh, on rebates. What a gimmick.

Every time I see a rebate on a product, I wonder why the manufacturer doesn’t just put the product on sale.

But no, we, the purchasing public, have to jump through hoops to get money back from the manufacturer, or distributor, that they promise in the form of savings.

My dislike of rebates is not a new one. Bless my vet’s heart that they fill out the rebate forms on pet meds for me; that saves me from the stacks of rebate cards that were on my desk losing value every single month they sat there.

Now, they fill them out for me – seems simple, but on the to-do list of life, filling out rebate forms is/was on a negative scale of importance…unless it’s really big money.

Frustration with the system came in mass when I built my house. I purchased my cabinets over President’s Day and saved big money – the savings were to come back in the form of a rebate from Lowe’s. Easy-peezy, right? Not so much. There were a few thousand dollars in rebate I was dealing with – so I filled out the form pronto, sent the receipts to their rebate center, and waited.

Nothing – for almost a year; despite multiple calls and follow-ups to the company. Finally, I got hold of someone and shock shock, their computer system crashed and they had lost all of the information during that time period.

Luckily, I made copies of everything and resubmitted it; finally, I received my rebate check – literally, a year after the purchase.

The other day, I made my periodic purchase of chicken, horse and deer food; well, the deer corn had a $5 rebate on the $9 per bag purchase. So, I filled out the paperwork and sent it in.

What makes my head spin is how many people don’t fill out the paperwork. 

According to Level6.com, rebate redemption is low. “There is no universal benchmark; the right consumer rebate redemption rate varies dramatically by claim mechanic, from roughly 30% for low-value mail-in offers to well above 50% for frictionless digital and instant formats. Below we break down realistic ranges by offer type so you can benchmark against the right comparison set rather than an industry-wide average.”

So, take my $9 deer corn. If they sell 100 bags of corn, that is $900. The distributor sends $500 back to consumers, leaving them with $400 – if 100 percent of buyers send in the rebate form.

Well, if the statistic is accurate that 30 percent of people send in rebates, that equates to $270 returned to consumers leaving the distributor with $230 more in their pocket, netting them $630.

Small potatoes? Not so much when you multiply every retailer out there that has some kind of rebate form that the consumer has to send in, email or QR code for. Many Americans don’t have the ability or capability to do some rebates leaving them at full retail price.

My dad, for instance, would no way be able to handle an online rebate form. How many other adults in our nation are in the same boat?

Just put the product on sale! Rebates are a scam to lessen the impact of a sale on a manufacturer – and a pain for the consumer.