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PPM on eBay
Frequent Miler coined the term ‘Perpetual Point Machine‘ (PPM) to describe a situation where you can use a ‘scheme’ (I’d rather use the word ‘idea’) over and over again to accrue points or rewards. Such an opportunity apparently exists on eBay.
We wrote previously that you can double-dip on eBay portal points by buying  eBay e-gift cards and then using the e-gift cards to buy whatever it is that you want to buy on eBay. At the time, I didn’t see any PPM potential here because I was under a mistaken impression that you can’t use eBay e-gift cards to buy eBay e-gift cards.
A couple days ago I tried it out, and the system let me use an eBay e-gift card to buy an eBay e-gift card. I had a $50 eBay e-gift card from Paypal Digital Gifts, and I used it to buy a $50 eBay e-gift card from Paypal Digital Gifts. The order processed without a hitch.
A couple days later I (unsurprisingly) got a notification from TopCashBack that the 1.5% cash-back is now pending in my account.
So you can buy five $100 eBay e-gift cards, and then use those to buy another $500 of eBay e-gift cards, and keep on going forever, all the while earning points or cashback from the portal. Only $500 of eBay gift cards is allowed per order. [UPDATE: Thanks to Mark for pointing out that there’s also a limit of $5,000 in gift card purchases per 180 days, for each Paypal account.]
Is this a smart idea? Probably not. The long arm of eBay or Paypal may catch up to you. It should be safe to do in small amounts, but it may not be worthwhile since eBay portal doesn’t pay out a whole lot. Currently, you can get 1.5% from the portal. Not long ago, it was possible to get 3%, so it may be more worthwhile if that comes up again. Anyway, I found this pretty interesting, though I don’t know if I’ll be doing much with the information.
This can be useful for consolidating eBay gift cards. If you have a few eBay gift cards with small balances, you can consolidate them into one, and earn portal points while you’re doing it. My experiments seem to indicate that you can use an eBay e-gift card or an eBay physical gift card to buy an eBay e-gift card or an eBay physical gift card. But you’ll only earn portal points for buying eBay e-gift cards, as we wrote in the previous post.
eBay Bucks
eBay Bucks are earned on all eBay purchases, is you opt in for it, and the Bucks get issued quarterly. The Bucks expire after around 30 days.
How to perpetuate eBay Bucks so the’ll last forever?
Simply buy eBay gift cards with the eBay Bucks and you’ll have the eBay credit forever, since gift cards don’t expire. You will be fixed to certain denominations that eBay gift cards come in, but at least they won’t expire.
I hadn’t realized that eBay Bucks could be used on eBay gift cards, but I tried it out today and it worked. I decided to order an eBay electronic gift card, which I already received, but it apparently works to buy physical eBay gift cards as well. If you opt for the eBay e-gift card, you can also get portal cashback on the purchase.
Can I have 3 paypal accounts? I’m up to my limit on my 2 accounts. Can I open up another account using one of my LLC’s?
Thanks
It is a shame that you felt the need to take down my comments, presumably because they did not make you look smart(?) I NEVER got the promised callback from ebay, and if you are going to recommend something, your reader’s deserve to know the whole story.
We don’t take down comments unless they are sexist, homophobic or racist in nature.
I would tread lightly on buying ebay GC with ebay GC. My account was restricted right after I purchased an ebay egift card with a code from another ebay gift card. A family member had the same thing recently happen to him.
It has always been clearly spelled out in the Ts and Cs of the ebay gift card program that buying ebay gift card with another ebay gift card is not allowed. They are now cracking down on this.
Thanks, could be they’re cracking down now.
Chuck,
you mentioned that you have used more than one paypal account. Have you ever purchased gift cards from more than one account on a same day(not sure if this would make a difference if you purchased on different days)?
here’s why i’m asking.
i have recently purchased 3 exxon GC’s on ebay during a promotion (limit 3 per buy). then i used my wife’s ebay and paypal account to purchase 3 more. then did the same thing with my mom’s account.
all 3 accounts have the same address. it went through just fine but then all 3 account has received a notice from ebay.
i’m confused because nowhere in the terms and conditions did it state that purchase limit is per household, as a matter of fact when you try to purchase more GC it will say “Purchases are limited to 2 per buyer” or whatever that number may be.
buyer is a buyer, to me it doesn’t matter if there are 20 buys living in a same household.
instead ebay rewarded me with this warning, unless I”m missing something it seems unfair to me, but would appreciate if you or anyone else that has seen this before can chime in and set me straight.
Hello
We’re pleased to have you as part of the eBay Community. However, we are contacting you regarding a violation of eBay?s Site Interference policy.
Listings promoted on the eBay Deals have a limit on the amount of items you can purchase, primarily to maintain an equal marketplace for all members and allow other eBay members the opportunity to take part in the eBay Deals. Using multiple accounts to circumvent this limit is a violation of eBay policy.
We have become aware of purchases using multiple accounts associated to you that exceed the quantity allowed per buyer. We understand that you may not have been aware of this policy, and we invite you to learn more about this policy at the link below in order to keep your experiences on eBay pleasant and successful.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-interference.html
You are still welcome to purchase from the eBay Deals section, but you are advised to limit your buying activity to use of a single account when doing so. Please be aware that additional violations of this policy may result in your purchases being cancelled and a restriction of your buying privileges. We appreciate your understanding.
Thanks,
eBay
Yeah, I’ve been seeing more and more of this. I believe you are completely correct that you really are allowed to buy the cards per ebay account, but their compliance system doesn’t use that factor and just assumes that it’s all the same person.
You probably can contact them and they’ll clear you, but it’s a hassle to do that every time. Let me know if you follow up with them. Thanks
ebay is trash what is there to it.
can someone confirm if they can still purchase these?
I’ve purchased ebay gc with ebay gc recently. (I consolidated a small balance that I had.) Is that what you wanted to know?
What are the limits of buying ebay gift cards (and othe gift cards) from ebay? I mean other than that $5k in 180 day.
I keep getting an error saying i can’t use my PayPal to buy it and I have to use another type of payment! In the past 2 weeks I bought ebay and gas gift cards (total of around $300-400).
Sorry to hear you’re having difficulties. I’d guess it’s some Paypal security measure. These things depend a lot on the Paypal account: is the account “verified”, how old the account is, and many other factors.
Maybe try calling them?
update: Just called paypal and they connected me to ebay when they couldn’t figure out the issue. The ebay agent said everything is perfect in my account but it’s flagged and he had no idea why (he said my account is in perfect condition and everything is verified)!!! so he manually reset my account and asked me to buy an ebay gift card while he’s over the phone and it worked…so he told me it was just a random flagging and blah blah… and it won’t happen again… BUT the moment he hung up I tried to buy another ebay gc and baaam… that error again!!!!!! I’m confused!
Yeah, I’ve had tons on similar kinds of issues with Paypal. Interestingly, sometimes it’s only on one of my PP accounts and not on the other (despite both being registered to me with SSN), so I play around sometimes that way by using the other account.
i have been purchasing ebay gift cards from Staples. In using them, I realized there is a $5K per 180 day limit that is attached to the PayPal account. This is circumvented a bit with two PayPal accounts per person.
Ooh, I forgot to mention that in the post. Thanks, will update.
T&C on TCB Portal exclude CB from purchasing EBay gift cards. I would expect a claw back. It say eBay branded gift cards.
It’s possible there’ll be a clawback. I personally guess that there won’t be, but it’s possible.
Ebay and Paypal are very difficult to deal with. Once they catch you do something they don’t like they wil very likely shut you down and never give you another opportunity.
Yeah, it’s probably not smart to do in big quantities. I don’t plan on doing that.
I guess I’m missing a step. How do you liquidate to pay CC off?
No, the idea is to just keep on going forever (or until eBay stops it), and earning points along the way.