McAfee Rebates

did you follow up or is it "too much trouble"?

Security is a concept not a product!

If you're in the USA, then customer support went overseas.

Rebates are a hit and miss proposition, and too many companies use them to drive sales; but make the rebate request process as difficult as possible, or take forever to process.

In general, I do not take rebates into consideration when purchasing something; unless the rebate is of the "instant" variety (i.e. deducted directly from the purchase price).

Other rebate offers are a "crap shoot".

Many companies do that, and the scam is the same: print coupons in newspapers or send e-mails, offer rebates, etc. - in the end, the vast majority of customers will go buy it without the coupon and/or not process the rebate because it is so much work; but they still think they got a "bargain"!

..was buying a McAfee product. Your second mistake was not contacting your Mastercard customer service department to do a chargeback.

Do yourself a favor: Uninstall the McCrappy product, install Microsoft Security Essentials, and be doen with it - AFTER you chargeback the McAfee sale. If Mastercard wants to know why, you say "the product is not as advertised. I was charged more than the advertised price," which is true.

I had a similar experience. I bought a Blackberry Curve 8320 on Amazon.com - It was too good a deal - $100 less a $50 rebate. I dutifully cut the box tops and bar codes and set it all in (photocopying everything first of course.) About 60 days later, still no refund, I called and they said "we have no record of your sending anything." So I resent the photocopied versions to which they replied "we have to have the originals". After I gave the customer support an earful, he was sympathetic and said "I'll take care of it." About a week later I received a VISA debit card with $50 value on it. This is how they are giving out rebates nowadays, so they know exactly what you spend the money on unless you are able to get cash off of it. I guess since the Blackberry is worth a couple of hundred it was worth it, but I probably won't buy any big items that come with a rebate any more.
I'm convinced the whole rebate concept is based on the fact that a certain percentage of the populate never sends them in, and, if they dick you over enough times, another percentage give up on it, hence you end up paying the full price. Either way, it's customer abuse and I now shy away from anything that has a rebate unless it's something I really want. One thing I did learn: always photocopy rebate submissions, and always send them registered so they can't say they didn't get it.

I think they make the rebate so hard to collect that most people just ignore it due to the cost to them to collect it.
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You are exactly right. Rebates are a technically legal means of advertising a product's "Sale Price" without actually dropping the price. Manufacturers routinely depend upon apathy and confusion to dissuade consumers from getting their rebate.
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Case-in-point: Years back, Prestone offered a $5 rebate on the purchase of antifreeze. Only 60% of the gallons sold actually requested a rebate.
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And yet, Prestone cried "Fraud!" - they expected only 20% of the rebates to come back.
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Call me silly, but it's only fraud if the return rate exceeds 100%. 60% is an effective marketing campaign.
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To combat this alleged fraud, the rebate was changed from a single $5 check to two separate checks ($3 and $2), requested from two separate fulfillment houses. Still $5, but even more hassle (time, postage).
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As the other poster said, it's only a rebate if it's instant, applied at the register. Otherwise it's a tawdry trade practice.