By offering nominal savings, retailers can also get these shoppers to spend more — not just in their initial purchase, but also weeks, sometimes months later, when the cash is paid out. The authors analyzed 3. Rakuten, the parent of Ebates, has an app which allows members to make purchases on mobile devices.
The app also includes in-store cashback offers for select stores. To redeem, users need to link a credit card and manually add the offer to their account before paying with the card at the register. Other mobile services include Ibotta , an app that allows users to add offers before shopping trips and redeem them by uploading an image of their receipt. In the early days, concern around cash-back services was focused on the risk of fraud.
In the past few years, name recognition among a handful of brands has helped build trust in the business model, even if its underlying structure has remained largely unexamined.
Cashback services collect a lot of data. Though major companies like Rakuten do not sell information to third parties, they do share it. King says that for cashback users who would like to retain a semblance of privacy, the safest option would be to use a separate browser only for shopping. While many of us feel more secure hiding in the crowd of aggregate information, the vast scale of data collection actually makes the problem worse.
Ebates review! Ebates is a company that gives you cash back when you purchase items through their affiliate links. You may have heard of Ebates and are wondering if you should try it.
Here is my Ebates review where I describe how Ebates works; the good and the bad. What is Ebates? It's not a question of if you should use one of these services, it's a question of which one. Rakuten formerly Ebates often runs cash-back specials with higher rates than normal, like this 2x multiplier at some stores. Cash-back services sound too good to be true. You get money back when you shop online at many, if not most, stores?
And there are no strings attached? Yeah, right. Yeah, right! These are the real deal, and in fact if you're not using a cash-back service every time you shop, you're leaving money on the table. Read more: 4 surprising ways to get cash back. These services work like this: Suppose you're looking to replace your favorite running shoes, which happen to come from, for example, Nike. Normally you'd just go to Nike's site, choose your preferred pair and check out.
To score extra cash back and I say "extra" because I'm assuming you're already using a cash-back rewards credit card , you simply detour to a cash-back service's site -- let's say Rakuten -- and then proceed to Nike via that site. Choose your shoes, check out like normal and you're done. Not a fortune, but also not nothing.
That's just one example. Cash-back rates vary from service to service, store to store and sometimes even week to week, but the end result is the same: extra money you wouldn't have saved otherwise. And just as the reward points you get from your credit card add up over time, so does this.
Speaking of extra money, some cash-back services offer a sign-up bonus, and you can often get referral bonuses for encouraging friends and family members to sign up as well. That's a pretty easy way to earn some cash. Read more: The best travel credit cards of There must be a catch, right? You must be opening a veritable vein in your privacy and agreeing to all kinds of spam, telemarketing and other evils. Otherwise, how do these services make money?
Here's how: Using the aforementioned example, when Rakuten sends you to Nike and you buy something, Rakuten earns a cut of that purchase -- and gives you a cut of that cut.
This is called affiliate marketing, and it's extremely common on the interwebs these days. Case in point: CNET may earn commission when you use our links to buy certain products and services. Now, is there also some tracking and data-gathering involved? No question. These sites use browser cookies to track your purchases, which is necessary to confirm those purchases and give you your rebate.
That's why it's important not to use an ad blocker while taking advantage of these services, as those tools can interfere with proper tracking. Do cash-back services also aggregate and sell this data? If you peruse their terms-and-conditions and privacy policy pages, you'll see that most of them say they reserve the right to do so. Here's my thinking: So what? There is so much tracking of your browsing and purchase activity already -- think Amazon , Facebook , Google -- who cares if Rakuten tells some marketing company you bought a Keurig at Target?
Or a laptop from Lenovo? And examine the details of the process on each site. Consider things such as:. Payout frequency. You may not get paid instantly — the sites generally have different payout periods and conditions. Payout threshold. You may need to accumulate a certain dollar amount of earnings or wait for a designated period of time weekly, monthly or quarterly before redeeming the money. Payout method. Payouts could come in the form of gift cards, PayPal credit or checks.
Payout qualifications. Some offers may have varying percentages for different items at each retailer, and may exclude purchases from particular departments. Also, you can use sites such as Cashback Monitor to compare payout rates at different cash-back websites. What are cash-back sites?
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