More on 5% Portal Cashback for eBay Purchases

5% on eBay

We broke the news about the availability of getting 5% back on eBay purchases using the Inbox Dollars shopping portal. We also wrote about another option: many reported being able to go through Topcashback and getting the 5% rate matched using the Topcashback highest cashback guarantee (details here).

Update 9/22: Topcashback is no longer matching these claims, read more details in this post.

Will They Pull Through?

We’ve been getting lots of comments about the fact that no one has  gotten the cashback showing in their Inbox Dollars account and many are nervous that they won’t pull through.

The good news is that it’s been confirmed by some people on Twitter (here and here) that using the chat feature with Inbox Dollars they’ve been able to confirm that their purchases have tracked and are just waiting 30-45 business days until posting. And this was even for gift card purchases. (Most gift card purchases are typically eligible for cashback on most portal programs, but not eBay gift cards).

It seems that this portal will work differently than we are used to in that we’ll wait a month or so until we receive notification of the purchase. Once that happens, the money will probably become available right away in the Inbox Dollars account.

How to file a claim with Topcashback

While many have had success getting the 5% match from Topcashback, not everyone has.  Orensmoneysaver points out that you have to make sure to use the URL of the shopping section on the Inbox Dollars site when filing a claim with Topcashback so that they can see the 5% offer. Here is the URL that you should use:

http://www.inboxdollars.com/shopping

Hopefully, if you use that, Topcashback will approve you with no problem, as many have experienced.

Which to use?

‘Should I use Inbox Dollars or use Topcashback and get a match?’

That’s a good question. For someone who is comfortable with Topcashback and has a running balance with them, Topcashback probably makes more sense, despite the small risk of something going wrong with the claim. It could be worth keeping screenshots of the 5% offer from Inbox Dollars in case the offer gets pulled before you file the match claim with Topcashback.

For those who don’t like Topcashback or who don’t have a running balance with them, it could make sense to use Inbox Dollars directly since it would appear that there is no risk there. (I admit that I’ll remain slightly uneasy about them until we start seeing the cashback posting, but for now it’s looking good.)

It’s also worth remembering that Inbox Dollars has a $30 payout threshold so small-time portal users would do better with Topcashback who doesn’t have a minimum. On the flip side, Inbox Dollars does have a $5 signup bonus (and this counts toward the $30 threshold) so that’s an upside of trying them out.

One other thing to bear in mind is that Topcashback and other have a limit of $50 per transaction for eBay purchases. If you make a transaction of more than $1,000, you’ll probably only be able to get the max of $50 and no more. Inbox Dollars does not have any such stated limit so hopefully you can get 5% on the whole purchase. (HT: runtheroad)

Other eBay Portal News

Two other interesting pieces of news regarding shopping portals for eBay:

• Topcashback lowered their rate from 1.2% to 1% recently. Befrugal is better at 1.1%, but since we intend to get the 5% match, it’s better to use Topcashback since Befrugal will only do a match one time per merchant.
• Many have been noticing that eBay started showing up on mileage shopping portals. For example, today you can get 1 mile per dollar of spend using the AAdvantage or Southwest portals. You can also get .5 miles per dollar using the Alaska or United shopping portals. This probably isn’t worthwhile in place of the 5% option, but when that is no longer available it’s worth keeping in mind.