The very concept of rebates ought to be illegal:  It is a dishonest, psychological marketing scheme which makes people believe they are getting a bargain, when in fact what they are getting is this:

A desired good at market-value price PLUS the required immediate payment of an interest-free, 3-6 month loan to monied interests. The loan which consumer makes to vendor has low probability of ever being repaid unless consumer carefully follows all fine-print instructions for obtaining repayment, and often requires the lender (consumer) to undertake extensive debt-collection efforts.  

If banks made loans to consumers in the same way that consumers make these loans to the banks, the banks would quickly be out-of-business, of course.  

But consumers often have little choice.  Goods are now advertised at "regular" prices which are in fact above market value (about the rebate $ value above true market value). So, in order to purchase at true market value price, consumer must agree to pay inflated price (i.e., make the loan) at purchase time.  

When banks make loans to consumers, of course they charge interest on your use of their money, at rates usually in the 8-24%/year range.  But you lend your money to the rebaters for free, thus losing the use of your money for the 3-6 months, and thus losing the 8-24% you should be earning on it.  Or, to look at the flip side, the banks are using your money for free, and "earning" an additional 8-24% profit on its use, for free! What a deal!  It is a huge golden cash cow, the biggest scam of the 20th century.

Now, add to this all the time spent by individuals painstakingly preparing rebate submissions, reading the fine print, photocopying proofs of submission, tracking when checks are due, following up with phone calls, etc.  It's a huge waste of human time and energy which could be put to (much-needed) more productive uses for our country and economy.  

And add to that the huge $ amount of unsubmitted rebates, and submitted-but-not-received rebates, the amount that consumers pay above the "real" market price of goods - this is money which fattens the pockets of banks and money men instead of going back to consumers who would spend it and recirculate it into economy.  

In "normal" times (e.g. 1940 to 1980), it was government's job to protect "the people" from such criminal robbery.  Rather than talking about filing individual FTC complaints, or even class-action lawsuits, we should be talking about congressional lawmaking to prevent this scam.  

But it is not normal times.  Instead of protecting consumers, our current government is protecting the banks -- e.g., the recent "reform" of personal bankruptcy laws, which make it almost impossible for laid-off or medically-bankrupted consumers to escape from usurious credit card debt.  

ReplayTV denied a rebate of $200, because my "billing address" didn't match my rebate address. When I phoned and pointed out that a "billing address" had nothing to do with my purchase of their product from Amazon, and wasn't mentioned in their rebate rules, they validated the rebate. But I continued to receive postcards telling me my rebate was rejected, even after I got the check!

Fry's has risen to #1 on my "don't buy anything that involves a rebate" list. I submitted a "Fry's Rebate" -- printed on their own Fry's form -- and got a reply that no rebate was available for the product. The denial message cited the exact model number that was on the original Fry's rebate form, claiming there was no such rebate! I lost $20 and Fry's lost most of my business.

The other thing to be wary of is Fry's selling old products. I bought a "new" Netgear WiFi router -- a current model, but the Fry's version had pre-1.0 firmware that didn't fully comply with 802.11g specs! In fact, the firmware date was so much earlier than the copyright date of the product box that I suspected it had been reboxed. Rather than spend hours downloading and applying several flash ROM upgrades with unpredictable results, I took it back. The clerk was honest enough to admit that lots of them came back for the same reason. Did Fry's buy a truckload of obsolete gear that Netgear dumped? My experience is that when Fry's puts something on sale, there's a hidden reason.

HP has had its last chance to rip me off. I bought an all-in-one printer, got the rebate "pre-approved" at HP.com, printed out and submitted the provided pre-approval, which showed the printer, model, and even a bar code to presumably speed-up the rebate processing, along with the full product label/model/serial number/barcode from the box. But the denial claimed HP couldn't identify the model number of the product! They pre-approved the model number, they printed it out on a form, they printed it on the box label which I sent in, yet when it came to sending me $50 they couldn't recognize their own product!

There are other reasons to avoid Best Buy and CompUSA -- mainly their return policies and restocking fees -- but their reliance on unreliable rebates pushed me out the door last year.

There is another reason that explains why a valid submission is rejected. A lot of these rebate fulfillment houses offer the store, manufacturer, etc. an incentive for using them. They tell their client that they will not only handle the entire rebate promotion, they guarantee that the redemption rate will not be over a certain percentage. For example, they might guarantee that only 10% of customers who purchase a monitor will actually send in the rebate. They agree to reimburse the client for all responses that exceed the promised redemption rate. Their customers like this because it reduces risk. They know exactly how much a promotion will cost them.

The rebate house clearly does not have your interest at heart. Your rebate might come out of the rebate houses pocket, not the manufacturer or retailers pocket. Obviously they try to increase their profit margin by invalidating valid submissions.

The rebate fullfillment houses are not going to be responsive to your complaints. I would put heat on the manufacturer or retailer to halt these dishonest practices.