The Small Print Project                            

A collaborative document of experiences with agreements in the digital age.

November 10, 2006

Apple’s Freebie Flim-Flam

Posted to TOS by Andy Sternberg




This past summer, Apple promised a free iPod Nano to every college student who bought a Mac. A good deal, but only if you happen to purchase the *right* Mac AND remember to send in the rebate in time.

One reader is pretty upset with what he calls Apple’s “wicked marketing campaign going after broke college students who want to jump on the bandwagon.”

Anybody else? Has anyone received their rebate yet?

* Comments(4)

  • http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/zach Zach Lipton

    This worked just fine for me. I bought a PowerBook and a Nano and got my rebate a month or so later. Still a pain clipping boxtops and mailing them in, but it worked fine. The terms and conditions were clearly explained before I bought. Not sure what makes this such a bad deal.

  • ted

    have to agree with zach here, i submitted the rebate and had no troubles. the rebate forms are clear, and apple has a decent status tracking rebate (though i got better information when i called them directly)

  • Jamie

    Apple customer service was especially helpful to me and my extenuating circumstances. I bought a MacBook but FedEx “misplaced” it. Apple sent me a new MacBook in overnight delivery which FedEx delivered a week later (I hate FedEx). During all this, the rebate on the iPod I ordered expired before I even recieved my MacBook. I called Apple Customer Service and since they knew the rebate wouldn’t go through due to its lateness, they immediately credited my credit card with the amount the rebate would have been (without me having to go through any trouble of cutting up box tops and copying receipts) and an additional $150 for the trouble in the late delivery (even though it wasn’t their fault).

    Apple made all its terms very clear and were even willing to break them in extenuating circumstances in order to help the customer. I guess I don’t really see the problem with the rebate system.

  • http://get-your-ipod.blogspot.com Michael

    Thanks for the great article. Keep up the good work.