Easy money back for your online purchases
Written: Mar 06 '01 (Updated Jul 13 '03)
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The Bottom Line
Overall, easy to use and get you some money back on purchases. However, doesn't offer the best rebate for some stores and misses some large e-tailers that other sites offer.
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| Full Review |
Are you an avid e-shopper? Maybe you're just a casual e-shopper? Well, it doesn't matter! All that matters is whether you want to save a few more bucks on your purchases. This is where ebates.com can fit in.
Ebates claims up to 25% back on purchases, and for the most part it does deliver some percentage back for your purchases. You like to shop at Buy.com? Well, you can get 2% back from your purchase if you go through ebates.com. how about Walmart.com? 3% there. Express.com? 8% back. Even the WWFshop.com is there. Officemax.com? It's there too for 4%. MacMall? 2% there. Outpost.com? Yup, you're covered. All in all, over 400 stores are covered by ebates.com.
How does it work?
Well, when you want to shop make sure that before you go to the checkout, you click into ebates.com and log in. At the ebates.com site, click on the store name you're shopping at. The next screen will put you in the e-tailer's web page with one or two pop up windows. The pop up windows show deals for the etailer (coupons and promotions) in one and the other will state that you are using MS Internet Explorer 6 so the Ebates logo will not appear at the top border of the etailers web page (if you using an older IE browser or another browser, you will see the Ebates logo on the top border of the etailer's web page while you shop through ebates.com. In a few days after shipping the order, your ebates account should register the purchase and the discount! Overall, as long as you follow this routine, you will have few problems!
The money build up in your personal account. Every three months, the account is reviewed. If you have over $10 in your account, you will be sent a refund check by mail within a month. You can also decide to send the money to specific charities if you like or sent a portion of it to charity and keep the rest. Sounds like a good deal so far!
How does ebates.com do this? Well, ebates.com earns money by referring people from their site to other e-tailer web sites. With some of this money, they can offer you a rebate of some type from your purchase. It's a way of e-tailers to advertise to the public.
Well, are there problems?
Well, there are still a few. Some merchants don't always confirm your purchase and ultimately, you don't get your rebate. Ebates.com customer service is generally very helpful and sometimes you can get your rebate back from these stores. Sometimes you can't... I had these type of problems with the now defunct gear.com.
Preorders and advanced orders don't always get rebates back. This is an occassional problem I experienced at buy.com, circuitcity.com, and bestbuy.com (bestbuy is no longer part of the list at ebates since bestbuy's web page redesign). In stock items were quickly listed on my rebate lists, but preordres and advanced orders were very hit or miss.
Some major e-tailers are not on the list! Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, and TWEC.com are not on the ebates.com rebate list. However, other rebate sites may have these merchants on their list (If spree.com is still functional, compare with that site). Also, other rebate sites can give better rebates although they may have other terms that you won't agree with. There are also modified rebate sites like mypoints.com, who offer points for purchases and provide rewards for point redemption... which can be better than a 2-3% rebate for a site.
I personally haven't used ebates' mo' money maker. I prefer not to add additional software to my computer that could possibly tell ebates or some other site about my buying habits or open me up to pop ups and spam from less reputable sites. Note to uncheck the box accepting, downloading, and installing the mo' money maker.
Conclusions and other useful referrer features
Overall, I still use ebates.com for the majority of purchases since it does track your rebates to a point. You can always get a listing of your most recent ebates. It is rather easy to use. Most of all, I've experienced very few problems with it to date! It is fairly reliable as compared to other rebate sites and less hasslesome than sites like mypoints.com and coolsavings.com and the such. I would definitely recommend any e-shopper to go through ebates.com first!
One thing I should mention... there is a referrer system. This has changed since ebates first started. Now you earn $5 for every new member who signs up with ebates and makes a purchase through it. So... now it is a one time $5 referral bonus per new member you refer. Not nearly as good as the older referal system but it what you have now.
One last word...
"The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth!" to see how I use ebates.com and other methods to save the most that I can off purchases!
By the way, if you like to use me as a referral to epinions, the email address used is yusaku@juno.com. This is not the email address I use to respond to emails/questions at epinions, you can check my profile page for that info.
Happy shopping everyone!
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 497 members
About Me: Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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