Cottage Industry, Scam, or Both?

[CowboySlim]

While we were talking about that Best Buy LiteOn/Avery Label bundle deal, I got curious and noodled around Ebay. I noticed an awful lot of deals like this. Notice how it is in original packaging but the UPC has been carefully removed for rebate. I guess that they grab up as many of these as they can and turn the rebates in. Then hope they can sell them on Ebay for more than their cost AMIR.

[Ian]

Yup, its called scalping. I run into this kind of crap a lot when it comes to toy collecting. You have guys that go around and buy up all the figures in one area and they charge 5x as much on ebay.

[CDRecorder]

Actually, I think that terms of the rebates prohibit buying products and redeeming the rebate just for the purpose of making more money on reselling the product...

[Boone]

What a pain. Rebates in an of itself are an exercise in patience, so I couldn't imaging building a side business doing it. I'd rather play the stock market, as the risk is the same but the upside is greater.

[Banshee]

Actually, In CenDyne's case..... the policy was that the warranty was not a PASSTHROUGH warranty. Meaning: If YOU register a drive for the rebate, only YOU can be supported and receive an RMA for the drive. It had to be done due to massive rebate fraud.

Funny part, some of the ebay sellers were trying to give advice to the secondary buyer how to get a rebate on top of the one they got before the sold it to you.