25% Cashback on Anything* Bought at eBay
An extension of the new Live.com Search Engine cashback system mentioned previously, it has been discussed ad nauseam here, here, and here. At first glance, I thought it would be a short-lived misprint/typo kind of deal, so I didn’t bother. It did disappear, but now it is back, so I guess Live.com is consciously choosing to continue with this promotion (for now).
In short, the cashback system is currently offering 25% off any item purchased on eBay, provided it is bought using the “Buy It Now” feature and using PayPal for payment. There is a limit to $200 in cashback per purchase, with a maximum of 6 purchases. Fine print is here. A quick and dirty walkthrough:
1. First read up on the general idea of Live.com cashback. You’ll need to wait 60 days to withdraw the cashback. If interested, sign up for an account.
2. Click on this link, this link, or this link. Look for the following:
3. Click on the circled link, which will send you to eBay. Find an item that you want with the Buy It Now option and that accepts PayPal. Click on “Buy It Now”. You should see this icon on the next screen:
4. Check out and pay with PayPal. You should get an e-mail or message from eBay with confirmation afterwards.
Clever people have been buying highly liquid items like gold, silver, and popular gift cards at 25% off. However, supply and demand has driven many prices up, making it harder to find profitable opportunities. Isn’t economics neat?
Find more in Deals & Offers | 8/15/08, 4:32am | Trackback
August 15th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Quick search shows that not too many items are eligible, even though they’re BIN items w/ PayPal payment. Seems like an incredibly great deal though…
August 15th, 2008 at 7:38 am
And considering you’re using eBay, 25% cash back may me all that you receive!
August 15th, 2008 at 7:46 am
i agree it is gonna jack up prices for buyers. so it is more of a boon to sellers, raise the price of something sought out for, like a dslr or such, by 20% and people will buy it
August 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I made over 10 grand buying and flipping gold over the last 60 days with this deal. Easy money.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:43 am
@dood:
over 10 grand with a maximum $200 per purchase (for up to 6 purchases)? Something doesn’t add up mathematically. Maximum savings seem to be $1,200 by my math…
August 15th, 2008 at 8:58 am
This is unbelievably vulnerable to fraud. Have a friend put an item on sale on ebay for $800. Make it overpriced so no one else will buy it. You “buy” the item, your friend returns the money to you, you and friend split the cashback. Repeat as often as possible.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I actually used this a couple of weeks ago on buying a $359 TV. It looks like everything went well and I just have to wait 60 days to get my $89.75. Great deal if you can find something that works.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Wow, this is superb! Thanks for posting. I can’t believe microsoft is willing to give away so much of it’s money. It’s too bad the ebay marketplace caught up so quickly, but there are still plenty of deals to be had.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Just a note: You can’t use this on giftcards bought on ebay. When this first hit a lot of people were actually selling cash at a 10% premium. The limit to the number of purchases is per ebay id. You are allowed to make multiple accounts per email address. Only one live.com account per email address, but there’s not limit on cash back per live.com account… the gold flipping is completely feasible! (Wish I had done it…)
August 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The more people that use this, then the cashback % goes down. Now at 15% from 35% when it started.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I don’t want to turn this into a fat-wallet type thread, but the rate is now 15% off.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Seems to only be 15% for me.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I purchased a new Apple computer with this deal. The cashback went through well and is now sitting in my Live account, should be transferred to Paypal in 6 weeks.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
If you are looking for cash back at eBay you can check out bondrewards.com, they give 15% all the time on items purchased from paypal (30% in bondrewards which equates to 15% back). They do alot of other sites too.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Good god, don’t use paypal. You will regret it.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Yeah, looks like 15% now. It probably will continue to vary. Still not bad if you are buying on eBay anyway.
To be clear, this is 15% off of the winning bid! So a $1,000 laptop would only cost $850. Other cashback sites only offer 15% off the the eBay commission.
August 16th, 2008 at 5:15 am
when i did it, it was 20%
i bought expensive football tickets for $700
i have $140 in cashback waiting to be available
its awesome. i would never pay $700, but $560 was a deal!
(i did get the tickets already, they are legit)
August 16th, 2008 at 8:24 am
There is no limits as to the number of ebay accounts one can have. If you feel “dirty”, put them in name of family.
I made of 10 grand without a single fraudulent shilled bid.
August 17th, 2008 at 1:13 am
This ebay live.com cashback has been going for 2 months exactly (since I just received the cashback after the 60 days period). It started at 35%, jumping between 10% to 25%, and as we all know it’s now at 15%. The terms of $200/trans, 6 transactions/account is something they changed few days ago. It was $250/trans, 3 trans/acct before that. There are many ways you can take advantage of this program, but do so carefully because you will risk losing your ebay/paypal account (I just received a warning from Paypal as many other people did, even though they are all legit transactions).
August 18th, 2008 at 11:34 am
This does look like a nice deal although even if you buy a highly liquid item like gold silver etc that you plan on selling later, you are exposing yourself to price fluctuations.
Thus I wouldn’t do this deal unless I was buying a consumer product.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Dont forget that if you do become a seller of item you got with this cashback deal, consider the seller’s fees (listings, selling, paypal, shipping if you provide free or half). Those fees are about 6 or 7%. And, of course, using your 1% rewards or cashback credit card will help add salt to this deal as a buyer.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Is this a limited time promotion? When is this scheduled to end does anyone know?
August 20th, 2008 at 6:30 am
[...] 25% Cashback on Anything* Bought at eBay [...]
August 20th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
This is whats wrong with the American consumer these decades. Spending money they don’t have, or wasn’t planning to spend, on something they don’t need. But what the hell, I’m getting 25% cash back, might as well do it cause I’m saving money. No! Your actually spending money.
August 26th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It’s down to 8% today.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:11 am
[...] for under 350 on ebay if you use the livesearch cashback thing…here’s a link on how to do it… 25% Cashback on Anything* Bought at eBay My Money Blog here’s a screenshot i took on the seibon hood’s buy it now [...]
October 25th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Thats great shame they offer it to the UK market yet. Perhaps they will in the future.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Today I used cashback and it is at 20%. A very good deal if you are buying an iPod, which has very little deviation in price from vendor to vendor.