We got ripped off by a rebate a couple of years ago. It was a local phone company and their DSL internet service. We told them that we were probably going to be moving within the next six months and we didn't want to commit to a whole year's worth of the service, and also to have to buy a modem if we weren't going to be able to continue to use it. They said we could send the modem back when we were done with it and get back the cost of the modem. Then they sent us a couple of rebates that in the fine print said (where you couldn't really see it) that if we cash in the rebates, we won't be able to return the modem. Modem cost a lot more than the amount of the combined rebates. Having totally missed that part of the fine print, we cashed in the rebate.

We tried to reason with them about it, but no dice. When we (after a somewhat prolonged attempt to get it straightened out) sent in the final payment to that phone company, in the little line for memos, I wrote, "extortion payment".