Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

If you do a lot of your shopping online and aren’t already enrolled in an online shopping rewards program, you can’t afford NOT to sign up for Ebates.

What is Ebates?

Ebates is a program that gives you cash back on purchases from your favorite online shopping sites. You access your favorite shopping sites by clicking through the links on the Ebates home page. Your rebates accumulate in your account, and every three months, you get a “big fat check” – just for shopping!

Where can you shop?

Ebates offers referral links to a multitude of small and large shopping sites, including Barnes & Noble, Sephora.com, Budget Rent-A-Car, Netflix, Target, and 1-800-FLOWERS, just to name a few. There are hundreds more (more than 900 total); in fact, of all the sites I shop at, I’m pretty sure Amazon.com is the ONLY one for which an Ebates bonus isn’t available (although they do offer Amazon coupons from time to time).

When you want to go to a vendor’s website, just locate that vendor on the Ebates site and click – you will be redirected to the site you wanted to visit.

How does it work?

When you shop through Ebates links, they get referral credit for your purchases. In turn, YOU get referral credit for your purchases.

The catch is that your rebates are actually accumulated and delayed, so that each period’s check contains the rebates from a little while back – for example, payments received in May will reflect rebates earned from January to March. I imagine this is how Ebates makes its money – through interest earned on the funds while they’re waiting to be distributed to you.

Is it a good way to make something for nothing? No. You do have to spend money in order to get money, and you’re not going to earn random money just by clicking on email links. Are you going to get rich from using Ebates? Not likely.

However, if you already shop online, you have nothing to lose and money to gain by clicking to your favorite stores via the Ebates home portal.

Tips for maximizing your rebate

As if the rebates weren’t enough, Ebates frequently provides exclusive coupons to further help you save money. Additionally, you can earn higher rebates by shopping at smaller vendors – as long as you price-check to see who has the lowest prices, you can earn quite a bit by purchasing the same items, at the same or lower prices, from smaller vendors. It can mean as much as a 5%-15% difference in the rate of your rebate!

You also need to be sure that you have clicked through properly to get your credit. I have noticed that Ebates is a LOT more reliable than some other referral bonus programs as far as crediting goes – generally speaking, if you click through, you will get the credit automatically and won’t have to contact customer service to figure out where your money is. That said, it’s always a good idea to keep tabs on your credits, if you are a tabs-keeping kind of person. 🙂

So does it work?

See for yourself:

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