Mattel Disney Pixar CARS Diecast: Deluxe Kmart CARS Mail-Away Loopholes
In theory, the mail away offer for the 2 free Deluxe CARS is straightforward.
Buy 5 CARS singles between 10/19 and 11/16, mail in your receipt and 5 cardbacks to the Mattel website address (fill out the form online), include P&H, and you’ll receive 2 free Deluxe CARS in a few days.
The MAIN problem is that Kmart does not have many CARS singles on the pegs AND the most obvious solution of buying the sealed case of 24 CARS does not quixotically qualify you!
But there are two loopholes.
FIRST, as long as you mail in cardbacks from the current 2013 Themes series or the Porto Corsa card qualifies you.* So, yes, the cards do NOT have to match the receipt. In other words, you can buy 5 Lightning’s at Kmart but you do not need to open 5 Lightning’s. If you have other cards laying around or you have something else you want to open – as long as you bought 5 singles CARS diecasts at Kmart between the 10.19 and 11.16, you are set.
*(you can also mail in lenticular cards from the “Night Skyline” series. It’s unlikely you will actually find lenticulars at Kmart but you can mail in lenticular cards).
NOTE – Your Kmart may have rubber tire CARS or silver metallic CARS from 2011 or 2012 but those DO NOT qualify so don’t buy them for this promo and do NOT mail those in!
I mailed in 5 random cards from the above series and I know others have. We received our two free deluxe CARS.
“Loophole #2”
So, if you’re Kmart does not have enough CARS to buy, you can follow this complicated procedure. Essentially, you buy the case online, return it to the retail store and buy them back. Annoying, yes but it might be the best/only way.
Step by Step
Go to the toy section and find one single – hopefully. Since there are 24 CARS in the case, you’ll need 25 to get 5 sets of the Deluxe CARS for the mailaway.
Take it to a retail Kmart store and explain you would like to return it but you would like to buy them right back. Explain politely there is a promotion going on, you would prefer to buy them from that store but since they don’t have any and it ends on the 16th, you need to do this to get a store receipt. Apologize and blame ‘the man.’ Try to pick a time where you don’t clot up the return line but explain you are not really returning anything but just doing a receipt adjustment. Be polite.
Here’s the annoying thing. The Kmart.com receipt’s UPC’s for the entire case will NOT match anything in their system so they will get confused – life would be simple if they could just scan your Kmart.com receipt, the case UPC, “refund” your money and then ring up 24/25 singles but NOOOOOOOO.
They have to return scan EACH SINGLE individually.
Also, you might need to bring a calculator. There is also the added confusion that the tax you were charged on state-basis might not exactly match your local tax so you might need to calculate the TOTAL you paid to Kmart.com – divide by 24 without the tax BUT adjust it to match the retail store tax IF NECESSARY because Kmart’s registers will adjust your refund by subtracting-adding your local retail tax so it’ll be too high or too low. Yes, it’s crazy but hey, like any good loophole, you need a CPA degree. If the tax you were charged by Kmart.com matches your local sales tax rate, then this portion will go smoother but otherwise you will need to help them out.
You’re on your own if you used reward points or coupons.
Next, they will need to scan in each of the 24 cards and your “adjusted pricing” to fully refund you your case.
Now, the rest is easy, they just scan in the CARS cards again as a purchase. Don’t forget to buy one extra one to get to 25 CARS to get 5 free sets. It’s fine if all your 5 purchases of 5 CARS sets are on one receipt – just use a different mailing address if you already redeemed 1-5 sets already.
Yep, this would not as complicated if you could simply get a voucher if you bought a case to redeem for 4 Deluxe sets and make you go to the store to buy another single but NOOOOO. Instead, you have to buy it, return it and re-buy everything just to GET A RECEIPT.
(well, there is other plan of actually stocking stores with CARS but way too radical of an idea).
BTW, I have had to return a case to Kmart (not this time) so I can tell you I went through the tedious procedure of doing the math on each one plus the difference tax … AND yes, people have told me they went through this time to get their 5 purchased receipts so it is doable if you don’t mind the hassle. Remember time is running short!
Any other questions you have should be answered in this post.
| « Mattel Disney Pixar CARS Diecast: Father Burke & His Flock of CARS | Disney Stores: Mega Giant Hector Vector + 25% Sale Through 11/11 » |
7 November 2013
27 Comments
My 3rd set that I mailed in for on the 31rst; I got a rejection letter for. They stated that I didn’t mail the original receipt. They returned my check, but not the card backs. I sent them an email telling them that the receipt was probably stuck to the back of one of the cardbacks that they failed to return. I printed out a copy of my Kmart E-receipt and the intial e-mail with the reference number. I’m planning on mailing those and a nice letter that I wrote:
11/13/13
To: Mattel Consumer Service
In Reference to Case Number:21972517
A few days ago I received a letter from you stating that you canceled my request for the Muggsy and RS JL promo cars and you returned my check. You stated that I did not enclose the original receipt. You did not return the 5 card backs, so I can’t resend those but here is a copy of the receipt showing that I purchased 5 Disney Cars 2 @ $3.99 each. I don’t have the original receipt because I’m pretty sure I mailed it to you on October 31rst. Perhaps it was stuck to one of the card backs. As you can also see on the receipt, I purchased an envelope to mail those card backs to you. I have also enclosed a copy of the initial email you sent and my check. Please send the promo cars to the following address:
Hopefully that will work. I don’t feel like buying anymore Cars from Kmart I don’t need. I have a 4th set outstanding that I haven’t gotten a shipping notice for and a 5th set I ordered that I’m going to mail in on Friday.
I DO have ONE SET of dinged cards for the Kmart Rebates. If you are an opener, then great, this set is for you.
nascarnbroncosfansATmsnDOTcom
Just out of curiosity, how long between the time you sent in the card backs to when Mattel notified you that they have shipped? Do they notify you that they have received the card backs?
It’s been about 2 weeks without any email updates from them and I’m just wondering if this is normal.
Thanks in advance for your feedback and experience.
(MET: You should get an email pretty quickly – did you check your spam folder?)
Well for most of ours was:
Mailed in 10-21-2013 (signature required)
Received/processing emails 10-29-2013
credit card billed – 10-31-2013
Shipped emails – 11-04-2013
Arrived 11-12-2013
One other thing… All of our orders were Signature Required at Mattel. Anyone else get fast turnaround WITHOUT Signature Required?
Me:
Mailed in October 19
Received October 21
Acknowledged / Credit Card charged October 23
Shipped October 25
Delivered to me on October 29
I want to order more sets. I’ve already ordered 5 sets and received them all. I plan on ordering from another account/ID and having them shipped across town to my sister’s house. Will they know if I use the same computer as on the first 5?
Just DO NOT “sign in” then you can
Thanks. I ordered as a guest. I’m gonna send in different card UPCs from what are on the receipts, but the assortment #s will be correct. I did that with one set from the first order….I cleared the pegs for a 4th time; to get these receipts. One lonely, short card Francesco left. LOL. Maybe they’ll get in some newer CARS next Saturday.
I mailed in like 6 chase card backs including old lenticular chase card backs !
Bmw and Met are correct, ALL of our Utah Group rebate cars were NOT ON EXACT cars / cards purchased, BUT we did have the correct assortment codes.
All worked including a duplicated address/order
Our last Utah group order went out last night… I will truly be surprised if this last one gets returned before Thanksgiving. These have had some good history of getting in and out, Kudos to Mattel for that at least.
I’m getting ready to mail in my cardbacks for the our 4th set of Promo Cars. If anyone in another country that doesn’t have Kmart and need a set, send me a PM. I’m still waiting on my 3rd set to ship and I’ll probably get one more before the 16th.
Wish I’d known that. I was religious about cards matching receipt.
I posted all this back on Oct 21st on cars the toys and people didn’t believe me. I called Mattel twice in one week and confirmed the information with them. Still people were paranoid that Mattel would reject the cardbacks. I sent in 25 cards and only about 3 were from the current Kmart collector day assortment. All the rest were lenticulars, Porto Corsa and Themes cards. Its like the Hot Wheels promo mailins, where people send in cardbacks up to 7 years old.
Yep, that’s what I said, it has to match the case assortment only not the bar codes…
Following these coaching tips, everyone can now go ahead and return their pegwarmers with Shop Your Way Rewards e-receipts, meaning that John & Muggsy are only $1.75 each + postage (to send in the non-matching cardbacks).
Thank you for the continued loopholes Mattel.
Don’t give ideas John!!
I promise I will believe you from now on!! (And read all the comments to the posts which I don’t always do.)
Yup, many people have known this for weeks. Called Mattel on Oct 21. Posted this on CTT.
BEWARE of Hydraulic Ramone from Kmart Day 6 — some of them have a little yellow sticker with a different Assortment Number that does NOT qualify for the promotion. You need to REMOVE the sticker before mailing in the cardback.
I wish they would let us use sears too. I wouldn’t mind getting a John Lassetire; but the nearest Kmart to me is 3 hours away.
comments 1 and 2 again awaiting moderation!
same here. lol
comment 3 now waiting for moderation. Met needs to adjust his spam ssettings
I confirmed all this by phone with Mattel on October 21st.
Highlights:
1. You can have 3 cars on one receipt 2 on another, it does not matter, 10 on one receipt, 5 on another, etc, All that matters is your Kmart receipts show the amount of cars you bought for the mail in promotion. 5 cars per mail- in.
THIS IS CONFIRMED, I REPEAT.
2. Mattel’s Support Personnel again, repeat, again CONFIRMED they are checking Assortment codes on on the cardbacks you mail in NOT UPC codes.
THIS IS CONFIRMED , again NOW TWICE by phone.
So if you don’t want to open up your Metallic Rip you don’t have to!
Send in your old Porto Corsa cards. they don’t care as long as the card is one of the 3 Asst codes that they will accept. (This is being run like the Hotwheels promos that Tom mentioned up thread and others too. Its NOT like the old Sidewall Shine and N20 Cola promos where the UPC’s were specified by Mattel that you had to send in.
OPEN THE OLD ONES OR SEND IN ONES YOU SAVED!
assortment numbers P7001, V2796 and/or Y0471.
The whole idea of the 2 promos was to drive traffic into Kmart retail stores, and not to drive on line website sales.
On line web site sales is a Completely different division of Kmart. As in all big corporations the twain shall not meet.
Kmart retail is watching the Collector event results carefully. It is another reason they cut back on store event orders, and ordered fewer master cases.
IMO Mattel gave Kmart poor case selection this time around but great promotional items which cleared the store pegs of old stock, even Francescos. The snafu was not including the silver series assortment cards. Those should have been included. Many Kmarts could have cleared pegs of old silver series stock. Why they did not include these is a mystery only known to Kmart and Mattel.