[geeks] I was wrong (big 2.5" PATA drives)

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Jonathan Groll <lists at groll.co.za>
>Date: 2008/02/03 Sun PM 11:54:47 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] I was wrong (big 2.5" PATA drives)

>On Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 11:50:54PM -0500, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> My best guess is that I have gotten roughly 50% of my rebates back,  
>> and I'm being generous.
>> 
>> Most of the time I never see the money.
>> 
>> The most common reason is they claim they didn't get the information  
>> they needed.  That's a very convenient excuse for them to give since  
>> you no longer have it, and can't prove they received it.
>> 
>> It's the most common way for companies to rip you off on rebates.
>> 
>
>And then there's my personal favourite - we can't send you the rebate
>because you live in somehwere other than mainland USA (but we're still
>happy to ship to you)...

<Dave McGuire>
   Time to move
</Dave McGuire>

Personally, while I've never tracked success vs. failure with rebates, I can 
say that I think I do better than Shannon's stated "generous 50%". What amazes 
me is that many rebate checks are mailed as post cards, with nothing covered - 
for example, my recent Antec rebate on a Sonata III case (a very nice desktop 
case, IMHO) for $50 came as a post card. I guess this is an example or 
security through volume (of mail).

On a related note - I didn't realize that WD now makes a 320 Gig 2.5" SATA HD, 
priced about $179 for internal version[0] or $199 for an external version[1].

Lionel

[0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197

[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136211