In an earlier post, Michael commented on the price discrimination scheme/scam of rebates. (He was following up on an Arnold Kling posting at EconLog and has a link to Kling's post.)

In late December, I bought a shredder and one of the scanner/copier/printer combos for my home office from Staples. (Note the timing of the purchase--since I had some consulting income last year, Uncle Sam kindly picked up about 45% of the tab.) The two items came with combined rebates of $30. Staples has a web set-up called "Easy Rebates" where one can enter a couple of long numbers from the purchase receipt instead of clipping UPCs, mailing receipts, etc. About 4 weeks later I had my rebates.

One happy rebate recipient--so what? But wait, as they say in the bamboo steamer commercials, there's more. Last night, while watching Michael's Blue Devils defeat Wake Forest (hard to take ACC hoops out of this NC native), on came a Staples commercial. What was Staples pitching? Its "Easy Rebate" program. Evidently the capitalist pigs at Staples have figured out that it is good business to provide and advertise a consumer-friendly rebate program. And this is just what the folks using rebates as scams need--some good old fashioned competition. As Dickie V. might have said had he been calling the game--Wow, can you believe it?

ADDENDUM: There's a certain health insurance company that I'd happily direct Michael's wrath and attorney wife toward. A few years back I filed a claim (I didn't have my card when I went for treatment so I put the bill on my credit card). After several months of no response, I called the company and was told it never received the claim. Though I'm no great fan of the postal service, I think this is unlikely (my mortgage company, two credit card companies, etc. have always received my mail). So I sent a new claim, return receipt. The bastards' response this time came promptly--the (12 month?) deadline for filing a claim had elapsed.