Michael is partially correct. There is another reason. They know that only a handful of people will mail in the rebate. So, it appears that you're getting a good deal, but in fact, you don't send in the rebate, so the company ends up getting full price for the product.

>The mail-in rebate.
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>What's the point? I don't understand how so many companies manage to get their customers to give them a loan, interest free (even less than so-called 0% APR, because that includes the official rate, just zero above it), and they even manage to use this dirty trick as a great advertising bait for the customers. And they actually don't have to have the money to give back, they just use the next su... customer's loan to pay the old loans. So that's free money for the manufacturer, and I just wonder how does that money go through accounting. Must be interesting.
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>Who's stupid here? Me, for not understanding the fine points of doing commerce here, or?