Home Depot sure likes to waste money issuing rebates!

[Brian Elfert]

I’m with Mark Bolton. The problem isn’t with Home Depot; it’s with your ethics. You figured out a way to “beat the system” by taking advantage of a loophole that clearly wasn’t the way the rebate was intended and you came here to brag about it. Personally, I think this thread should be removed, as it serves no purpose other than teaching people to take advantage of Home Depot.

Huh? THE POINT OF MY POST IS THAT HOME DEPOT WASTES MONEY ON HOW THEY PROCESS REBATES. I SUBMITTED 48 RECEIPTS TO HOME DEPOT IN FIVE BATCHS FOR MY SOLAR PROJECT LAST YEAR. THEY SENT ME 48 GIFT CARDS IN SEPARATE ENVELOPES INSTEAD OF JUST SENDING ME FIVE GIFT CARDS. THAT IS WHAT I CALL WASTE.

Back in late 2020 I was at Home Depot almost every day for six or seven weeks working on my solar project. Due to shortages on electrical supplies I sometimes went to multiple HD stores in a single day. I spent $2049.03 in 48 separate transactions for an average of $42.69 per receipt. If I was trying to rip off Home Depot I would have a heck of a lot more than 48 receipts for the 173 items I bought on those receipts. I have a spreadsheet of every expense for my solar project I can attach if you need to see that.

[Scott Brader]

Huh? THE POINT OF MY POST IS THAT HOME DEPOT WASTES MONEY ON HOW THEY PROCESS REBATES. I SUBMITTED 48 RECEIPTS TO HOME DEPOT IN FIVE BATCHS FOR MY SOLAR PROJECT LAST YEAR. THEY SENT ME 48 GIFT CARDS IN SEPARATE ENVELOPES INSTEAD OF JUST SENDING ME FIVE GIFT CARDS. THAT IS WHAT I CALL WASTE.

Back in late 2020 I was at Home Depot almost every day for six or seven weeks working on my solar project. Due to shortages on electrical supplies I sometimes went to multiple HD stores in a single day. I spent $2049.03 in 48 separate transactions for an average of $42.69 per receipt. If I was trying to rip off Home Depot I would have a heck of a lot more than 48 receipts for the 173 items I bought on those receipts. I have a spreadsheet of every expense for my solar project I can attach if you need to see that.

Brian, bragging about individually checking out items that cost less than $1 in order to get $1 rebate cards is scamming the system and that's what people are commenting about. No one would have had a beef with your post had you left all of that out and merely commented on HD's habit of sending individual cards.

[Mark Bolton]

A few individuals scamming the system leads to ruining it for the rest of us. It's not just the Home Depot rebate issue; it's everything. People are always looking for a loophole and it hurts the people following the spirit of the rule.

On the flip side I honestly do think its a good thing for people like Brian who are willing to put in the work to exploit this foolishness to the fullest extent. The bottom line to me always boils back to the fact that there is so much fat (gross profit) in completely obliterating other countries, other countries lack of environmental standards, labor standards, that they can afford to not only implement and execute such a policy but still be profitable at the end of it all.

Do any of you (Brian included) think about what it would be like for you to be making a product as a business and deal with 10-15% return rates? You make a product and 1 in 10 come back, you cant repackage, no restocking fee, its just junk in the landfill. This is going on at these and higher rates nationally to where the bulk of returns from Amazon are going to the landfill? Im not making this some green environmental thing but what the heck are we doing? Its absolutely insane....

I would argue people like Brian (not beating up on you) who exploit these offers, if they were in manufacturing, would be fighting every return tooth and nail trying not to give money back. "I dont like the color once I received it", "product is fine, I just changed my mind"... "Hey, I can buy something similar down the street for $3 less", "I bought 10x what I needed so I could get done and want to return the unused, beatup, stuff I bought extra".. They would fight it to the ends of the earth.

I know my initial post makes it kinda clear that I find exploiting these things kinda gross but in hind sight Im rooting them on to take down the system. No different that some fat-cat with high paid corporate lawyers who gets elected as president but had the corporate law representation to exploit every legal exemption and pay next to nothing into the system from which they benefit. I find the practice gross,.. but you know what... you've got to expose all the legal holes in the system to ever have them addressed.

I can only imagine HD is either at the point where so few customers are willing to take it to the level Brian is that they dont care, or they will squash the loophole at some point as theyve done with all sorts of other policies in past years.

Im rooting Brian on... bankrupt the suckers I say!!!