Filing for rebates isn't for the fainthearted

My mail Tuesday brought notice that the warranty on my brand new computer and monitor, a Christmas present to myself, has expired.

It made me smile, the kind of small, snickery smile you usually accompany with an eye roll. I'm still waiting for the rebate on the super deal I got the day after Thanksgiving, when I scored a machine that I, in theory at least, saved several hundred dollars on.

I'm pretty sure the rebate will eventually come. I did, after all, devote an entire afternoon to following the instructions that seem designed to get 85 percent of the buying population to give up. But hey, if I'm willing to stand in the cold at 4 a.m., do they honestly think I'll let the nitpicky details of the rebate offer discourage me?

Rebates are an interesting animal, depending on who's offering them. When I earn a rebate from the local drugstore, I fill in the form online and the money's usually in my pocket in a couple of weeks.

Rebates on electronics products, though, are more challenging, I've found.

The forms that accompanied the computer were downright dastardly. Although they print out the forms at the cash register (I'm not joking when I say they totaled 27 inches long), you also have to send a copy of the original receipt — which contains the exact same information as the rebate receipt, with the addition of one number — to multiple addresses, since the deal involves three components that each offer a percentage of the total savings: the computer tower, monitor and printer.

You must fill out three separate forms, providing various combinations of model, UPC and serial numbers. One asks for the computer and printer numbers, another for the computer and monitor numbers, for instance. In addition, you're supposed to cut the exact same numbers off the boxes the components themselves came in and send them in. But make a copy first, because you're going to come up one short and have to match that with the rebate form of whichever product accepts a copy, rather than an original.

Only the truly inexperienced forgets to make a copy of everything that's being mailed off, because you'll need it all again when your rebate form is rejected.

I know that, from experience, too, because in all my years of buying their products, I've never had an electronics company offering a rebate actually give me my money as soon as they get my form. Other rebates are more straightforward. You mail in the completed form, including whatever proof of purchase is required, and you get your money.