What is Ebates?

What is Ebates? Good question. I think the best way to explain what Ebates is and how to use it is to show a few examples.These examples of purchases and cash back are from my own personal account.

If you want to go straight to the examples, scroll down a little.

Ebates is a free, simple to use cash-back program for internet purchases. It is not a discount program for purchases. In other words, you won't get a reduced price at check-out, but you will get a rebate back on your purchases in cash.

I learned about Ebates about a month before Christmas in 2008 and skeptically gave it a try. By the end of the Christmas shopping season that year, I had earned $16.27. This was an accumulation from several purchases. It was a nice little perk and enough to buy a couple of pizzas.

Oh, and just for the record, if you'd rather donate your earnings to charity, you can do that too.

Earning cash back is really easy. Let's say you want to buy a book from Barnes and Noble. Normally you'd go straight to the Barnes and Noble website and make your purchase. Doing it this way, you'll earn no cash back. BUT if you open a free account at Ebates, this is how you'll do it: Go to Ebates, click on the Barnes and Noble logo (which will take you straight to Barnes and Noble), then check out as usual and you'll earn 3%-6% cash back into your Ebates account (some stores are more than 20%) . That's all you do.

In a day or two you'll get an email from Ebates with the details of your cash back amount. When you earn $5 or more, they'll send you a check (or deposit the amount into your paypal account). Enough rambling!

Take a look at these examples.

Here's my first example. It's a purchase I made in January 2011.

What I purchased:  A dishwasher (kitchen appliance)

Website purchased from: Home Depot

Cost of dishwasher:  $278.00

Cash back I earned by using Ebates: $8.34 (3% of my purchase)

Why did I purchase my dishwasher by clicking through Ebates? Because I earned 3% cash back, shipping was free and I didn't mind waiting a few days for delivery.

Do you trust and recommend Ebates?

Yes, I do. I've used them for almost 3 years and have no complaints.

Have they ever messed up one of your cash back amounts?

Yes, they missed one, but corrected it as soon as I notified them of it. I knew something was wrong when I clicked through to make my purchase because there was an error in the link. So I kept my eye on the cash-back for that purchase.

Once you sign up do they send you a million emails?

Well, no. But during special double cash back offers, they'll send you emails. And, of course, they send confirmation emails after you earn cash back.

Is this a scam?

No.

What if you go to Ebates, click through to your store of choice, then get distracted and click away, then go back to your store? Do you still get the cash back?

NO!!!! If you do that, you'll be "breaking" the path. You MUST click through Ebates and don't leave the store's website until you make your purchase. Sometimes if I get confused as to whether or not I've clicked away, I'll just close out all my tabs and start over.

Can you use coupon codes with Ebates?

Yes. Matter of fact they offer lots of coupon codes you may not find anywhere else. Basically, you make all purchases as you normally would - except you click through the Ebates website.

When does Ebates pay out the cash back?

Here's the schedule. It' quarterly. Feb 15, May 15, August 15, and Nov 15.

How do you get paid?

There are a few options. You can get a check in the mail (I'll try to add a photo of one of mine). Or you can get paid by Paypal (I just signed up for this). Or you can give your money to a charity or someone else. Update: I've added pictures below.

Home Depot     Target     Magazines.com     Kmart

Abebooks     Apple Small Business     Office Depot

Groupon     WalMart     HSN     Disney Store