New Jersey legislators advanced a bill Thursday prohibiting retailers from advertising items at a post mail-in rebate price unless they are willing to offer customers that price at the register.
"Customers should not be deceptively lured into stores by low prices that only exist after they take the product home ... fill out aggravating paperwork, and then wait weeks or months for a check," said Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-3, of Paulsboro, the bill sponsor.
Instead of consumers filling out the required paperwork for a rebate, the bill aims to require retailers to complete the process to claim the money-back offer.
Retail representatives oppose the measure.
"Rebates are a long established well-accepted marketing practice," said John Holub, president of the New Jersey Retail Merchants Association, which represents more than 3,500 retailers. "The problem (with the bill) is that the consumer is going to lose out."
But Burzichelli said the process can be improved.
"Those who are true retailers will work out things to their benefit," he said. "They can still choose at the register to say Here's a rebate' --
it's just a cleaner way to go."
If signed into law, New Jersey would be the third state to adopt this type of consumer protection legislation behind Rhode Island and Connecticut.
The measure was introduced last session but failed to advance beyond the Assembly.
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