Deal has expired, view more eBay deals here.
Goes live at 11 am ET / 8 am PT.
The Offer
Direct Link to offer (affiliate links here and below)
- eBay is offering 15% off site-wide on Tuesday, August 28th with promo code: PREGAME15.
The Fine Print
- Valid Tuesday August 28th only, 8 am – 10 pm PT
- Minimum purchase of $25 required
- Not valid on Warranties and Protection Plans, Coins & Paper Money, Gift Cards & Coupons, Real Estate, shipping or sales tax,
- One time use per account
- Coupon is subject to U.S. laws, void where prohibited, not redeemable for cash, has no face value, and cannot be combined with any other Coupon, or when paying with PayPal Credit Easy Payments or Gift Cards (in this past, this wasn’t actually enforced and you were able to pay with gift cards)
Our Verdict
eBay now releases this 15% sitewide offer regularly, last one was almost 3 weeks ago on August 8th. We’ve added the direct link and promo code above.
Max this out with a $667 purchase. Just keep in mind some sellers will raise their prices when the sale comes – always check that you’re getting a good price. Remember to use a shopping portal for your eBay purchases.
Let us know any good deals you see and we’ll add a link. Some suggestions:
- Ebay motors
- Video Game Consoles
- Collectibles
- Tools
- Tickets and Experiences
- DVD and Movies
- Games
- US Postage Stamps
Bought a trunk-lid spoiler for the car. The seller did not raise his prices for this event.
Thanks for the heads up! I buy all of the stamps for our company whenever they do these promos
FYI – I was able to enter both the 15% off code and the ebay gift card code.
ebay has officially trained me to never buy anything at normal price and to wait for a 15+% off day
+1 🙂
This makes ebay look so desperate. I feel bad for them.
They are…it’s pretty hard to compete with Amazon and they’re in the same market.
To be fair, I’ve been using ebay a lot more thanks to these promos
Can you add a bunch of stuff to your Cart and the 15% applies to it all?
Yes as long as it’s in 1 Purchase and not one of the very few excluded items.
I keep getting “Looks like this code isn’t ready yet. Please try again later”.
Valid Tuesday August 28th only, 8 am – 10 pm PT
Starts at 8am PT
It starts in 5 mins
Is there a reason why I’d be getting a “code is not ready yet, try again later” message? I’ve tried a few different times just to see if it was a glitch, but no dice. Trying again later it is!
Where do you enter the promo code?
In the “gift card, promo code” field at checkout.
On the check out screen at the bottom, where it says
‘Gift cards, coupons, eBay Bucks’
Theres a way to generate $632 in spend and actually make money doing these sitewide sales.
1. Have a ebay and paypal account
2. Get a friend with a seperate ebay and paypal account
3. Both list an item for $666. It could be anything since we are not actually shipping a product anywhere.
4. Buy the $666 item from your friend and have your friend buy your $666 item. Remember to USE the 15% off coupon code as this will defeat the purpose of doing all this. To avoid shipping anything anywhere, specify “local pickup” in the listing and select that at checkout.
5. When you have to “ship” your items, just mark them as “picked up” in your ebay seller hub. This way you will “ship” something without having any goods actually change hands.
Now from all this crap that just happened, what is the result?
You and your friend will both see a payment in paypal for $646.39, and you will both owe $66.6 in ebay fees.
But wait, theres more!
When both of you “buy” each others $666 item, it will cost you and your friend $566.1 after the 15% off coupon.
Meaning:
$646.39 (after paypal fees) – $66.6 (ebay fees) – $566.1 (amount you origionally paid) = $13.6 profit + credit card points and portal cash back.
The $13 isnt the real reason we do this. Its because its a way to manufacture spend $566 + $66.6 (ebay fees) for a total of $632 of manufactured spending that actually MAKES you a small amount of money in the process.
But there’s a BIG catch!
If you do this back and forth thing with your friend and your paypal accounts end up with more than $20,000 in total transactions, paypal will send you a 1099-K and will report your “income” to the IRS. Then you will have to prove to the IRS you didnt actually make any money doing this which is more hassle than it’s worth. Technically speaking, paypal will only send you a 1099-K if you do $20,000 in sales AND more than 200 total transactions but I would prefer to stay below both limits.
I use this method with my friend as a way to supplement minumum spend on american express cards since I cant just buy gift cards and turn those into money orders since there are reports of point clawbacks from amex. This method however amex just thinks its a purchase and is okay with it. Of course this method can also be used as a way to liquidate $500 visa/MC/amex gift cards as well if needed in a pinch, or any credit card really. The $20,000 number is why I reserve this practice specifically for meeting minimum spend and not ongoing spend, since $20,000 could be dried up pretty fast.
Hardly worth it given the risk involved.
Thanks for sharing all the specifics.
For me.
$13.60 like you mentioned
$13.32 (2% back from Fidelity)
$9.99 (1.5% back from Topcashback)
$37.19 total
Add a credit card bonus.
Although I’d be a little worried about my account being locked for a fraud alert or some such thing.
Don’t forget the standard 1% ebay bucks. if you categorize your product to ebates category you can obtain 2-3% instead of TCB 1.5%. I would run the auction with a buy it now option at 1k$ with the best offer option enabled and reject any offers in or around $600. Sell some sort of “Limited edition Tiffany like” lamp, haha. I would avoid selling a item exactly at the $632 amount.
Are you sure this is legal?
Theres nothing against this in ebays T&C so in theory no.
I consider this about as risky as buying MOs with VGC since in that situation you could be accused of money laundering (as has happened to some churners).
Both me and my friend are ebay powersellers so this looks like normal activity to ebay.
Worst case scenario is your accounts are suspended. But both me and my friend dont worry about that becuause we both have a long term history of ebay selling.
This will likely only apply to people that have had some history of ebay selling. But this is something you could do if you were close to meeting a minimim spend
“Theres nothing against this in ebays T&C” – pretty sure “selling non-existent items” is against eBay’s ToC.
hardly worth the effort you can MS for more per transaction with less work and risk
As I read the step by step instructions, the terms “conspiracy to defraud”, “collusion”, and importantly, “effective use of time” come to mind. Doesn’t really seem worth it.