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Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:31 pm
by PetWatch
I just received notice that my Big Fat Check is on its way. It's a good time for a little accounting.

Even if you don't have exact statistics, please take the poll as long as you have a good general sense.

3 Poll Questions: (Unable to fit poll question above, limited to 100 characters)
(should be 0-49% instead of 1-49%)

1.) Cash Back credit was timely posted, remained posted and was paid.

2.) Cash Back credit did not post or disappeared after posting.

3.) Total # of orders ultimately paid.

This should give us a general, or at least some idea of what to expect specially for new comers to Rakuten CB, keeping in mind it is very much individual user dependent based on user reports.

Proper procedure was followed on all orders. (not all watch related)
Verified CB qualification on all orders.
All Shopping Trips posted.

I am only counting orders worth $10 or more in CB.
10 orders
3 (30%) timely posted, remained posted
7 (70%) didn't post or posted then disappeared
5 (50%) were paid

50% of all orders were ultimately credited and paid.
70% required further follow up, monitoring and required at least one missing cash back request.
Of these only 40% were paid (excluded 2 orders that I canceled)

I will follow up on contested orders that have not been paid until there is a final disposition, one is well into the second month.
Highest and third highest $ amount orders that were not paid are equivalent to the total of the BigFatCheck

One $25 referral was posted and paid without issues.

There it is. I will continue using Rakuten (Ebates) as a practical matter, since good savings are possible, however, I will not consider CB as the reason for a purchase, The Deal, only as a potential extra bonus.

Feel free to post your experience.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2019 12:43 pm
by Dub Rubb
With ebates, I only had 4 orders that got me at least $10 cash back. All of them posted within 1 day and all of them remained in my account the whole time. $98 deposited to PayPal yesterday!

Befrugal on the other hand, about 50% of my purchases registered, and I had to file a dispute and wait almost a month before it showed up in my account. I just send a request to redeem my payment, and they said it should be deposited within 10 days. I will update if it shows up.


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Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:14 pm
by Dub Rubb
Update. My befrugal cash back showed up in my PayPal today! I am liking both of these services, and will continue to use both. However, as of right now, Rakuten/ebates has been better.

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Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:22 pm
by PetWatch
Dub Rubb wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:14 pm Update. My befrugal cash back showed up in my PayPal today! I am liking both of these services, and will continue to use both. However, as of right now, Rakuten/ebates has been better.

Sent from my LG-M322 using Tapatalk
Good to hear that. I have signed up for Befrugal and Lemoney but I haven't done anything with them, maybe it's time to start. I think I have $10 sitting there for signing up with one of them.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:28 pm
by PetWatch
Surprised we haven't had more feedback on here considering all the discussion that surfaces from time to time around Rakuten/Ebates Cash Back.

It doesn't have to be for any specific amount or number of attempts, or even 100% precise. If we can get a good number of accounts in one place, simply sharing your experience on a post would be helpful in gauging how reliable CB is overall.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 7:10 pm
by PetWatch
An update on my 3 remaining unpaid orders from the last pay period. One I canceled, sent back to seller. The second has been credited after submitting another CB missing report. It's still showing after a week, I will monitor it until paid. The third order dating back to Nov. of last year was declined “due to it being credited to another site the vendor partners with”.

Possible causes:

“If you used a coupon or promo code that is not found on Ebates but found on another site, that site will be credited for that order.”

(I have to assume this does not apply to the same site where the order is being placed, since I have used promo's from the ordering site, that are not listed as one of Rakuten's add on promo's without issues.)

“If you visit any other site during your shopping trip (especially other sites that offer rewards, coupons, or discounts), that site will be credited for that order.”

(I believe this refers to referral links when you follow a link from another site. I don't know if this can automatically occur by an unrelated site visit that is not initiated by following a link.)

“If you have a toolbar, plug-in, add-on, etc. installed on your browser (especially for other sites that offer rewards, coupons, or discounts), that site will be credited for that order.”

(Again, not sure how this is auto activated, but who knows.)

I have made it my practice for sometime now to close the browser, which erases cookies and cache, before re-opening and either going directly to the sellers site and activating the Rakuten browser plug in, or preferably going to the Rakuten site and following the link to the sellers site from there.

This claim is so old that I can't be sure what I did when placing the order, so I will take them at their word. When I asked which site got the credit for the order, they said the seller replied that it was the last site clicked before placing the order, and this information is confidential. Rakuten did provide a small credit for being a good customer and provided additional information.

“Please keep in mind that if you start an order by clicking through Ebates, and then search other sites for deals, that the last site you click on will earn the commission for your order. This commission is what Ebates shares with you in the form of Cash Back.”

First time I encounter this issue when placing a larger order, needless to say I will redouble my efforts with future orders to be sure.

Final tally
Total of 10 orders.
60 % - Paid (assuming one credit is paid on the next check)
30 % - Were canceled by me.
10% - Declined (My fault)

The orders paid % goes up to 70 when I exclude the cancellation due to my fault, and to 100% when I exclude the 30% of orders that were canceled because I didn't want to take a chance or to deal with the expected follow up. Promising results indeed, except for the CB disqualifications issues currently being reported on RG/Ebates thread.

At any rate, be prepared to tenaciously work for your CB.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 12:04 am
by Dub Rubb
PetWatch wrote:An update on my 3 remaining unpaid orders from the last pay period. One I canceled, sent back to seller. The second has been credited after submitting another CB missing report. It's still showing after a week, I will monitor it until paid. The third order dating back to Nov. of last year was declined “due to it being credited to another site the vendor partners with”.

Possible causes:

“If you used a coupon or promo code that is not found on Ebates but found on another site, that site will be credited for that order.”

(I have to assume this does not apply to the same site where the order is being placed, since I have used promo's from the ordering site, that are not listed as one of Rakuten's add on promo's without issues.)

“If you visit any other site during your shopping trip (especially other sites that offer rewards, coupons, or discounts), that site will be credited for that order.”

(I believe this refers to referral links when you follow a link from another site. I don't know if this can automatically occur by an unrelated site visit that is not initiated by following a link.)

“If you have a toolbar, plug-in, add-on, etc. installed on your browser (especially for other sites that offer rewards, coupons, or discounts), that site will be credited for that order.”

(Again, not sure how this is auto activated, but who knows.)

I have made it my practice for sometime now to close the browser, which erases cookies and cache, before re-opening and either going directly to the sellers site and activating the Rakuten browser plug in, or preferably going to the Rakuten site and following the link to the sellers site from there.

This claim is so old that I can't be sure what I did when placing the order, so I will take them at their word. When I asked which site got the credit for the order, they said the seller replied that it was the last site clicked before placing the order, and this information is confidential. Rakuten did provide a small credit for being a good customer and provided additional information.

“Please keep in mind that if you start an order by clicking through Ebates, and then search other sites for deals, that the last site you click on will earn the commission for your order. This commission is what Ebates shares with you in the form of Cash Back.”

First time I encounter this issue when placing a larger order, needless to say I will redouble my efforts with future orders to be sure.

Final tally
Total of 10 orders.
60 % - Paid (assuming one credit is paid on the next check)
30 % - Were canceled by me.
10% - Declined (My fault)

The orders paid % goes up to 70 when I exclude the cancellation due to my fault, and to 100% when I exclude the 30% of orders that were canceled because I didn't want to take a chance or to deal with the expected follow up. Promising results indeed, except for the CB disqualifications issues currently being reported on RG/Ebates thread.

At any rate, be prepared to tenaciously work for your CB.
I remember back in my day (2018) everyone said befrugal couldn't be trusted and ebates was the ****. Now they both seem to be on par. I do have another 3 successful ebates trips totaling a massive $40 that have all registered without issue. 100% success rate for the Dub Rubb!

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Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:16 am
by deckeda
I've recently purchased a few smaller things (each far less than $100 apiece) from eBay but didn't manage to pull the trigger until AFTER their recent 6% cash back had dwindled to 2%.

$11.05 in rebates, don't ask me how. I didn't pay any attention to what I was owed, so presumably I spent far more on eBay than I realized (oopsie!) Or maybe some 6% session was somehow still active. Point being, I wasn't counting on getting anything meaningful; eBay just happened to be the best place to buy used photo gear.

What I had been waiting on, however, was 10% cash back from a $49 software purchase. When I bought the software last month I got no confirmation email. That's probably the first time in forever that I never got a confirmation email from anyplace online. I had to email them in order to get the serial # to activate the software because I neglected to copy it from the thank-you-purchase-successful screen.

So ... Ebates knew about the shopping session but I had to submit a non-existent order # to them. Another email later and I got an order number. I submitted that to Ebates and their system instantly applied the missing $4.90 "so that I wouldn't have to wait." I assume they'll now go after the software company to get their $4.90.

I gotta say I'm impressed with how the browser extension works, for eBay. It tells Ebates you made a purchase and takes you back to the vendor page afterwards. I don't think that for the software purchase I made, that little company's system is not setup to report anything automatically to Ebates, and as we all know by now, that's not uncommon. I mean, "Missing Cash Back" is a prominent link right on their support page!

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:24 am
by deckeda
update: This also from Ebates via email,

"... Please note, we may need to submit an inquiry directly to the store for any future missing Cash Back"

So no, they're not going to waste their time retrieving $4.90 from the vendor, but on larger (or repeated) amounts I'm sure they would.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:40 pm
by PetWatch
deckeda wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2019 8:24 am update: This also from Ebates via email,

"... Please note, we may need to submit an inquiry directly to the store for any future missing Cash Back"

So no, they're not going to waste their time retrieving $4.90 from the vendor, but on larger (or repeated) amounts I'm sure they would.
This is one of their standard form replies even for much higher amounts, along with "we applied the credit to your order so you wouldn't have to wait" from you previous post. It doesn't mean much.

I have never had a problem with the shopping trip number registering on my Rakuten account. It's only afterward that the fun begins, credit posts right away, never posts, pending with a date, the date gets postponed to a later date, from pending to not pending with no credit, posted credit disappears, reappears after missing CB request, later disappears again, posted credits are not included in the check. It ain't over til' the Big Fat Check sings by showing up with the full amount.

I now keep tally of important CB info with required documents and print the CB list before the check is issued, makes it easier to see what gets paid when you have more than a handful of orders.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2019 6:46 pm
by PetWatch
Dub Rubb wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2019 12:04 am I do have another 3 successful ebates trips totaling a massive $40 that have all registered without issue. 100% success rate for the Dub Rubb!

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Good, you may be one of the lucky one's that always get the credit posted and paid without issue. Seems like that number is dwindling instead of increasing.

Re: Rakuten Poll - formerly Ebates Cash Back

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 11:54 pm
by PetWatch
Another Big Fat check in the bank.

Cash Back credit posted and remained posted until paid.
20%

Cash Back credit did not post or disappeared after posting.
80%

Total orders ultimately paid
100%
(There was a minor order showing CB when I printed the CB list a few days before pay day that was not included in check. I don't include it in stats, but beware, be very aware, happens for any amount.)

Oldest order from Nov. 2018 that I had to resubmit several times.

The usual, cash back may never post, show pending but never post, or post and disappear, requiring one or more missing cash back requests. Ultimately paid.

Nobody ever said bargain hunting was effortless and timewise free.