A bill under consideration in California could solve some of the most annoying rebate problems for consumers. Although this would only be a one-state law, the size of California tends to cause a ripple effect among other states and federal bodies.

State bill 1737, sponsored by California Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont), would ensure that consumers have 30 days to file a rebate claim and that they would get their rebate within 60 days. The law would also prevent companies from asking for unnecessary information to complicate the process.

The law would force companies to provide web sites or telephone numbers where customers could check the status of their rebates, rather than having to guess or wait forever to find out whether they had been declined or not.

Another helpful part of the law would ensure that customers could use copies of receipts, rather than being forced to always send original versions, when mailing rebate claims -- unless they are given enough original versions to cover all the rebate claims to which they are entitled. Currently, this is a real problem for some customers, because some companies offer two or three rebates on a single purchase, but then require that every one of the rebate claims include the original reciept -- an obvious impossibility when the claims are mailed to different addresses, as is often the case.

The official information about the bill and its status is available on the web at:
The California State Senate website

The publishers of the not-for-profit publication Consumer Reports recently endorsed the proposed legislation, saying it "will help to ensure that Californians receive rebates, rather than runarounds."