MrVietnam said:I wouldn't count on the ability of getting mail-in rebates for blood glucose monitors that you paid for with ECBs. It is a big YMMV. Some manufacturer's may pay you back only the money you actually paid out.

What if I buy the meter with something else. Will that work? I have $13 that I need to spend by the end of this week.

TIA

Maybe because CVS is loosing SO MUCH money from everyone who knows how to manipulate the system. Take this from a 5 year employee, trust me I know what I'm talking about. The less money you spend, the less money CVS makes and there for the less money that the employees are able to get. I know in the situation of the economy, everyone is trying to save as much money as they can, and so am I. But its kind of hard to save money when i can barely make money due to all the hourly cuts CVS has had to do. I know you guys don't care about my personal situations, but put your self in my position and you will understand why CVS has been cutting down on their extra bucks. Remember CVS gave away 4.5 BILLION dollars last year in extra bucks. Thats ALOT of money. If you had a company that lost that much money in one year would you really continue loosing that much money? I don't think so. Now I'm not saying this to create enemies, I'm just trying to let you guys see it in another perspective. Trust me I like saving my money too and yes I do manipulate the system just as much as you guys probably do, but like i said before, I don't blame CVS for limiting their Extra Bucks.

foxygrl591 said:Maybe because CVS is loosing SO MUCH money from everyone who knows how to manipulate the system. Take this from a 5 year employee, trust me I know what I'm talking about. The less money you spend, the less money CVS makes manipulate the syand there for the less money that the employees are able to get.

Remember CVS gave away 4.5 BILLION dollars last year in extra bucks.

What a load of BS, you have not got a CLUE what you are talking about. I will start with your last point. CVS did not GIVE AWAY extra bucks, except for the small (I assume) portion that was actually paid for the 2% of purchases. The rest was paid from purchases that were in lieu of lower sale prices, and it was their way of honoring a sale price. If they do not want people "manipulating" the system, then don't have half of your ad based around ECB. What do you expect people to do with them? Forget to use them? Use them to buy non-sale items? Also, I am fairly sure that the manufacturer's pay a large part of the ECB promotions. If I buy something at CVS and I get ECB, I then have no choice but to use the money to buy something else, and it is in my best interest to buy something else on sale, which is almost always going to mean more ECB. And if you're complaining about people using manufacturer's coupons on items with ECB to make money, surely you must know that the manufacturer pays the value of the coupon, so CVS is not out any money at all (even though they choose not to pay the 2% ECB on that, which I've always thought was stupid).

Why don't you go to work for Walgreens, your foolish attitude matches the fiasco they've turned their RR into, with people being told they cannot use a coupon on an item that generates RR, or use one RR to buy a different item with a RR. CVS's ECB program is much better than that, at least you can use them as cash.

tabsnlos said:billrubin said:
billrubin said:CVS did not GIVE AWAY extra bucks
How are you so sure about that? You talk about a "small portion"? 2% back to people all over the US is not a small portion first off.
Most of us probably get very little in that 2% because they do not pay it for purchases paid for with coupons, be they manufacturer's or ECB. If I am lucky I get $2 in ECB a quarter. I would LOVE it I got 2% back on all of my purchases, but I don't. If it's costing them too much, let them stop doing it. I'm sure that the reason they do is that it gets people to shop there.

Also, I didn't see anything in the first rant that supports your claim that it was about people with multiple cards.

That’s funny how you say I don’t know what I am talking about especially since I said I have been a CVS employee for FIVE years, now I’m not just talking about being just a regular cashier, I’m talking about being in CVS MANAGEMENT for five years Thank you very much and I do know what I am talking about. How are you going to tell me that I don’t? You have no idea how much I know about CVS and yes people do manipulate the system and just as Tabsnlos said it is because of the multiple cards people use. I said before that I’m not trying to create enemies that I was just stating my opinion on the knowledge that I know being that I am a CVS employee, and I really don’t appreciate you talking down to me just because I’m stating the facts. I love my job and my customers and I want them to be happy with the things that CVS offers to them, but when someone takes advantage of something that someone offers them its just not right. The 2% back is actually a lot of money depending on how much u spend in CVS. Now for those of you, who do manipulate the system; don’t get as much money as those who don’t manipulate the system because your extra bucks are based on the amount of money that you SPEND in our store. Now by Spend I mean the amount of money that comes out your pockets not the amount of money that your have on your subtotal before your coupons and extra bucks. Now I know a lot of you know this but can you imagine all the people that don’t use coupons and how much they will be getting back compared to those who use coupons. I also know that it is a smarter way to manipulate the system because that is less money that you will have to spend, I’m just letting everyone know that for those who don’t manipulate the system actually get a lot of money back and proves that CVS doesn’t just give away $2 of extra bucks back for the quarter, that’s just for those who us a lot of coupons. Which will end up being a lot of money that CVS gives out. I have had a lot of customers who spend A LOT of money that get back about $20-$30 of extra bucks at the end of each quarter, times that by millions of people and you can only imagine how much CVS gives away. Which includes the 50 cents that each customer gets back for each prescription you get there. What other store does that for their customers? I am not sitting here telling everyone to stop manipulating the system, if anything I applaud those who do, all I am sitting here trying to say is the reason why CVS is cutting down on the extra bucks. For those of you who don’t want to listen to me then so be it, I don’t really care. But like I said I know what I am talking about and if you don’t want to face the facts then DON’T. Why do you think CVS stopped letting you print out coupons from coupon web sites? Why are they cutting down on ECBs? BECAUSE WE ARE LOOSING MONEY! Yes manufactures do pay for some of the ECB offers we give out, SO WHAT. If you really think that none of the money that is given back to you was from CVS then you are clearly mistaken. Just like I said before CVS gave away 4.5 BILLION DOLLARS IN ECB last year. That 4.5 Billion dollars is from CVS not manufactures. Billrubin, I said it before and I will say it again and again until everyone understands. I am not trying to create enemies I am simply answering some of the questions that people are asking. So if you want to sit there and not believe what I have to say then fine. I know what I am talking about and if you don’t want to listen to it, then DON’T.

Thanks for that informative post. I guess foxygrl591 knows about as much about their employers as most drug store employees many of us have dealt with in the past.

Thanks tlaxson, for your factual, rational input.

On to the deals, I updated the SS/IS BW prices have gone back to regular, so beware in your calculation, if you are to do this deal.

Also, if you have a price scanner in your store(s), they are printing out a lot more store coupons these three weeks ( I guess to make up for having no ecb offers), make sure you scan your card a few times till it tells you to come back tomorrow for more coupons.

Today they start to print out ($1 off GE water, 6pk or larger) and you can use that on the 24pk which is on sale this week for $2.99 + crv.

Also a crt for $1 off 2 GE nuts, Pretzels or crackers, which you can use on 99 cents pack of nuts, or 79 cents pack of pretzels to get two pks for cheap. (0.98 for 2 pks of nuts, or 0.58 for 2 pks of pretzels)

And for ladies, a lot of the cosmetics are on clearance (50% to 75% off). These are my finds:

1.Loreal HIP eye color is $2.49 (75% off). Use the $2 off MQ (sorry, forgot which insert) to bring it down to 49 cents.

2.Neutrogena MoistureShine Gloss #02 is $3.99, and MoistureShine Lips#15 is $4.37(both are 50% off). So if you have the $3 off MoistureShine crt, and $1 off MQ peelie, they are free/or 37 cents.

3.Bayer Crystal 10 ct is 50% off ($3) this week. If you get the $2 off crt, and $1.5 IP, it's a mm.

A lot of people also reported received a $5 off $30 scanner coupon. So make sure to scan your card! Without ecbs deals to play around, at least we can try to get something for cheap or free this way. HTH!

For the record, I have one card, and my husband has his. I use mine for everything, and he uses his card mostly for the cigarrettes. (CVS has cheaper ciggies than Costco. Imagine that!) but I do have a question for foxygr1591 and tabsnlos.

tabsnolos said:"there are many many people who have multiple cards and they go to multiple stores, different times throughout the day" and
foxygr1591 said:"yes people do manipulate the system and just as Tabsnlos said it is because of the multiple cards people use" and this:"yes I do manipulate the system just as much as you guys probably do"

So, are you saying you also have multiple cards to manipulate the system, and therefore, according to yourself, part of the reason CVS is cutting down on extra bucks offers? or what's your point exactly?

I always thought when people use multiple cards to get deals, it's the fellow shoppers that get effected---the freebies get wiped out faster that way, (therefore the staff have to deal with more disappointed customers is the only draw-back I can think of, but these days they can solve that by giving rainchecks) But I can't really think of reasons why CVS as a company suffers from this situation since the product-generated extra bucks are funded by the manufacturers( as I was told on numerous occasions by the store managers, supervisors etc.), what difference does it make if that product is sold to customer A, B, C, or A1, A2, A3? As a company, why wouldn't CVS welcome more sales in multiple stores even if it's from the same person?

btw, did you two realized you both joined the fatwallet community on the same day (5-26-2008) only 7 hours apart? isn't it interesting?

So, since I had suggested using ECB to buy the CVS glucose meter that has the rebate, I felt I should come back and report that I received my rebate back today, rejected. Included and handwritten on a form was "your meter was free". There was nothing on the form that indicated that coupons would be deducted and there is no phone number on the form to contact them. I will be contacting CVS corporate about this.

billrubin said:So, since I had suggested using ECB to buy the CVS glucose meter that has the rebate, I felt I should come back and report that I received my rebate back today, rejected. Included and handwritten on a form was "your meter was free". There was nothing on the form that indicated that coupons would be deducted and there is no phone number on the form to contact them. I will be contacting CVS corporate about this.

Thanks for the update.