Although the most complete data I've seen is about a year old now, the "marketing news sites" were discussing the rebate scams in some detail a while back. Reports by market survey orgs at the time were that less than 10% of rebates (by dollar amount) were ever paid. Of course, the "big ticket" rebates more often do go through, but the little ones add up quite quickly, and are extremely profitable since they do, apparently, influence people to buy.

Marketing schools do teach the premise that "consumers are all idiots."

Rebate offers work because "consumers are all idiots."

Unfortunately, marketing methods only deal with the "herd," so those who actually realize how much of a scam they are have little choice but to pay attention, and attempt to minimize the loss - by applying for the rebates when they're worth it.

And as CarolC notes, fine print is the rebaters' friend. The last few rebates I've had to sort through averaged more than three hundred words of text in the "terms and conditions" one must follow to qualify for the "refund of extortion." In one case, I couldn't read it with 6x magnification, and had to resort to scanning the package so I could blow it up enough to see that "the purchase price must be circled in ink on the original sales receipt" in order to have the application processed. (in paragraph 4 of 11 in "terms of rebate offer.")

CompUSA, unfortunately about the only bit shop in my town, is notorious for showing only the "after rebate price" on items that require purchase of some other item to qualify for the rebate. The terms often are not shown on the outside of the package, so after you buy it and get to the rebate offer inside, you learn that you have to buy another $50 item to qualify for the $30 rebate. (Both Norton and McAfee have done this recently.)

John