5% on eBay
We discovered a shopping portal which was offering 5% back on eBay at one point and for a while many of us made use of it for our eBay purchases. The problems started when they weren’t paying out apparently and we wrote up about that a few weeks back. This post is just an update of where things stand.
This will be the final post on the topic; if there’s anything to add, I’ll just add it to this post or in the comments.
Mixed News
Some good news and some bad news regarding payout from Inbox.
The good news is that they do seem to have tracked most purchases. And they do seem to be willing to actually pay out for whatever they have to.
The bad news?Â
- They are not paying out without a claim. They’re apparently trying to minimize their expenses by only paying out for those who follow up with claims. There were a few earlier purchases which perhaps tracked automatically, but none of the later ones did and most people don’t have anything that tracked automatically. This isn’t the end of the world but is obviously a pain to deal with.
- Multiple reports indicate that they are denying any eBay purchases paid for with a gift card. This is disappointing since many of us use gift cards for eBay purchases. Again, they’re apparently trying to minimize their payouts this way. We should note that BeFrugal also writes such a rule regarding eBay purchases which are paid for with an eBay gift card. Also, Ebates has a general policy not to honor claims for any purchases on any site paid for with a gift card and this is actually enforced for purchases which don’t track automatically. (See also Best Shopping Portal for eBay Purchases.)
- One person (I can’t find the link right now) was denied due to the fact that the name of the purchaser and the name on the Inbox account are different. This excuse is absurd.
- Some transactions weren’t tracked properly. They are saying they’ll follow up with eBay on those.
You’ll definitely need to submit a claim with the date and amount of each purchase. They’ll probably ask you to submit the order confirmation emails and possibly the shipping confirmation as well. Go figure. The bottom line is that they apparently resigned themselves to payout when they have no excuse not to.
The best we can do is submit all our purchases and hope it comes through. In the end, it sounds like many people have been getting all of their cashback by filing claims and some people got part of it. This is encouraging.
Note that we were using the portal until 10/15/15 when the eBay category was removed. Most reports indicate that they are now okay with a 30-day wait before submitting claims and we can hopefully file claims now for all purchases made through 10/15/15. You can file a claim via chat (you may have to disable a pop-up blocker to do so).
One Final Caution
Inbox is very trigger-happy to shut down accounts for a slight infraction of their rules, even the rules relegated to the fine print that you never knew existed. A number of people got their accounts shut down and thus any funds confiscated for violating terms they didn’t know about. They legitimately need to be concerned about duplicate accounts and the like, but they won’t even give the benefit of the doubt or second chances before closing your account.
A few important rules:Â you can’t have more than one account per household or per computer or per mailing address. Logging in from out of the country may be problematic and don’t try changing any details when you request a check (i.e. if the name you gave them is a nickname and you want the check to have your legal name). You can see all their rules here.
Tread carefully.
Made 10 eBay purchases in Sept/Oct. Asked for credit via chat. Rep on chat asked for list of dates and prices. Received email within a few hours asking to forward eBay receipts. Sent all 10 receipts. Within 24 hours got email that 9 of 10 purchases were verified, and $70 was added to account. Included purchases made with eBay gift cards. Pretty painless.
That’s great that they took care of you the way they should’ve in the first place for everyone. Maybe they’re realizing poking the bear just isn’t worth it with this group of MS’ers who would actually follow through with reporting their asses?
A quote from the movie Rounders from KGB is in order here:
“He beat me – straight up. Pay him. Pay that man his money.”
Here’s my overall experience. Made several purchases in late September/early October with the bulk being in early October and one purchase on October 15th (the last one).
I manually requested payment on the 30th of October via chat. He confirmed some purchases and told me he’d forward it on to be reviewed and if necessary I’d be contacted blah blah blah. He was able to locate the October 15th transaction but because it hadn’t been 30 days I had to wait (this is absurd on its own because it proves they already tracked the order and still made me wait to request payment). I receive a payout notice a few days later and was not required to submit anything.
Fast forward to the larger purchase ($1.2k) on October 15th. I requested this payout November 29th via chat. Again, told I’d be emailed if they required further documentation. This time like others, I was required to provide the receipts and order confirmation.
Their response came the following day, headlined with “this is not being reported by eBay as a purchase made from your InboxDollars account link in their reporting to us.” Again, a prior colleague already confirmed the order. How else could they if it weren’t tracked by them in some way? Anyways, “Ruby” writes that as a “courtesy” for some other purchases made in the past they’d credit me $32 (I’m owed $60).
I responded today, essentially threatening (with 100% intention of following through) to report them to the BBB/Attorney General. I pasted my previous chat log confirming that the order was found previously and I told them I’d wait a week for compensation before pursuing with the proper authorities.
Literally 11 minutes later I have a response and a payout for $28. This time headlined with “We have again, issued you another courtesy request since eBay is not reporting. No further credits are to be provided.”
I hate to say it, but you have to roll your sleeves up and be willing to go to battle with them. I almost didn’t fight for the $28, but at the same time I realize this is a group issue and that the more of us who pressure them, the more likely they are to pay people what was rightfully earned.
Also worth noting I did receive one check thus far and have two on the way. I received it about a week after getting the notification for check processing.
I’ve been waiting to comment until I got a final resolution on my account. Inbox finally got back to me today and said that Ebay would not confirm that I bought an item through their portal. However, they gave me a “one time courtesy” credit. All of my other purchases were reported correctly by Ebay previously so I won’t be needing any more “courtesies”. Of course they never actually gave me any credits until I sent in all of my order confirmations. I’ve already received my check for the initial round of credits. I just wanted to show that Inbox is not a scam as some of you have alleged. They definitely didn’t do a great job handling this promo though.
And now…To thank you for your loyalty to InboxDollars®, payments requested before Sunday (12 a.m. CST) will be processed on the Wednesday of the same week.
Got my check today! I’ll say that I got it rather quickly since they said it would be processed on 12/2/15. Here’s to hoping it does not bounce like the ones from Junkcard!!!
Does anyone know exactly how long the 5% promo was going on for in terms of date range?
Anthony commented on 9/7/15 that Inboxdollars was paying 5% on eBay purchases and DoC wrote a post on 9/9/15 about it. Then on 10/15/15, another post alerted us that the offer had been removed that day – so at least from 9/7/15 to 10/14/15.
It’s actually to 10/15/15.
They didn’t change the term at 12:00am 10/15/15 at whatever timezone they were. They changed actually in midday if I remember, because I remember buying through their portal on 15th but then I received the removal update from this blog. I was confused a little bit, but it made sense because they changed in mid day.
I submitted a BBB report on November 17th. They contacted me the 18th and the 19th asking for me to send in all of the talked about information (orders, what they were, accounts) and I ignored it. On the 20th, I received an email stating my account was credited all I thought it should be. requested a check immediately.
Same here. After having already filed the complaint with BBB and refuting their initial response with a detailed point by point reasoning I had forgotten about it and moved on.
Today I saw an email from them notifying me that they reactivated my account (I had closed it) and offering to help and review the case if I send them the receipts so I did, but after that I noticed that in fact my account had already been credited so I requested a check immediately and here I’m now hoping that they send it and I don’t get another surprise.
I’m happy that in the end after the pressure increased they’re coming clean but I’m not happy about how things happened so I guess that in the future I’ll stay away from their website anyway.
THey asked you to send in the receipts again even after the BBB complaints?
F. That. I don’t have time to print out purchase receipts and shipping confirmation into pdf files and label them individually for 13 transactions. That’s a royal pain in the ass. I’m willing to do for a few that they couldn’t track, but asking for every single one of them is acting in bad faith. Especially when it looks like they have the tracking process in order. They just don’t want to pay out period.
Right after Thanksgiving, I’ll be complaining to BBB as well. At this point, I don’t care about the cashback that much. It’s just $100. But I’ll make sure they get their hearings from BBB and FTC if ti’s necessary.
I didn’t send it the first time because after I saw the disclaimers they have added in the same email they were asking for the receipts I simply didn’t see the point of sending them if they were telling me right away that my transactions would be considered invalid, so I simply responded letting them know that adding multiple disclaimers retroactively was not an acceptable business practice.
After that and reading the comments here I simply decided to close my account and complain on the BBB website not so much about the cashback money but about the fact that they were not being honest by doing what they were doing (waiting for people to contact, telling different stories, adding disclaimers, etc.) and linking the previous thread here.
So that’s why they asked again for my receipts when they offered to help me investigate, apparently leaving aside their disclaimers.
Just thought I’d let everyone know. I went to my mailbox today and low and behold I found a check from InboxDollars. If you press them apparently they will honor their commitments.
I had to give dates of orders, amounts, do chat, wait on credits, etc.
It was a LOT more work than it should have been to get paid, but hey, I got a check.
great news!! i got my credit finally for all my transactions on sep and oct..
Made purchases between 9/21 and 10/14. Submitted a chat inquiry 2 days ago, they had me list every transaction (annoying) then said they’d open a ticket. I received an email (like others) saying they needed me to send in all of my purchase receipts and that gift cards would invalidate (load of bovine excrement!).
I literally had the BBB website open in a tab ready to make a complaint and lo and behold, an email just now saying I have earnings in my account! Very surprised but they made good on my purchases for nearly the full amount (1500 in purchases). All of the purchases were made with GCs.
I got credit for all of mine too last night! I submitted a request via chat a few days ago, but had not yet responded with the receipts (mostly used ebay GCs). So it’s possible that only people who contacted them via chat are getting the credits.
Now have to wait and see if they actually mail the check on Dec 2 lol.
Just received a confirmation from ID about crediting all my eBay purchases made between 9/12 and 10/13, without any prompts or requests from my side.