Ridiculous Rebates

Most of the time I avoid rebate items like the plague, unless it is an instant in-store rebate.  However, in November my husband needed a new phone, and we were buying it, regardless of the fact that there was a rebate being offered on it.  The rebate was for $100, and it just seemed as though it were an added bonus to get $100 off the phone we wanted.  I put everything we needed together in a bag, and decided to look at it closely when I got home.  Well, the catch was the phone needed to be activated for three months before you could send in the rebate.  So, I put everything back in the bag, and it has sat on my counter for three months.  Most people probably would have tossed it, I am sure that is what the company offering the rebate was hoping, but not I.  It became a mission to send in that rebate information. Today I pulled out the paperwork because the deadline is looming; it must be postmarked by the last day of February.  I completed the forms with ease, attached the upc code and receipt, made copies, and then I notice the fine print.  Please do not expect your rebate for at least 15 weeks.  15 weeks!  Sometime in June we should be enjoying that $100 rebate.  All the wait and the work it hardly seems worth the money.   Really I don't know why companies even bother.  It is obvious that they don't want to pay the rebates by how difficult they make it to even get them in the first place.  A less anal retentive person would, I am sure, never receive the benefit of a rebate, but I shall prevail!