S.P.A.M. - Ebay ending cash back June 16

Just an FYI, got this email from ebates today:

We are sorry to inform you that eBay is temporarily suspending cash back shopping with Ebates.com (and all other rewards-based programs) on June 16.

Because we know cash back is important to you, we want you to have the chance to make any eBay purchases by June 15 and still earn cash back from Ebates.

We plan to bring eBay back to Ebates.com by October 1 this year.


So get your purchases in!

There was mention of this on the MyPoints thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/16499785-post209.html

I hope this isn't the reason: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/s-p-m/1205091-ebates-scam.html

I hope this isn't the reason: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/s-p-m/1205091-ebates-scam.html
It could be... eBay could be aware of the scam, and decided to suspend and then rework their programs to try to minimize that possibility.

seeing that Mypoints accrual will also end, I suppose this will affect all programs, although I haven't seen any communication ...

Yes, it's already gone from Marriott's mall.

Yes, it's already gone from Marriott's mall.

It ended yesterday. My guess is that Marriott pulled it early in the day.

Gone from Mr. Rebates with zero warning (made a purchase just a few hours ago).

At eBay’s request, in accord with a test they are currently conducting, cash-back rebates for eBay has been temporarily suspended. This means cash-back will not be available on Mr. Rebates (or any other site on the Internet) for any purchases made on eBay on or after 6/16/11.
While we are sorry for any short-term inconvenience this may cause you, we feel it is important for Mr. Rebates to be good partners to its merchants and advertisers in order to maintain the best long-term loyalty program available anywhere in the world.

We will let you know as soon eBay completes their internal test and eBay cash-back resumes at Mr. Rebates.

P.S. Supposedly Ebay is running a test through October 1st and might resume cashback after that.

Gone from Mr. Rebates with zero warning (made a purchase just a few hours ago).

At eBay’s request, in accord with a test they are currently conducting, cash-back rebates for eBay has been temporarily suspended. This means cash-back will not be available on Mr. Rebates (or any other site on the Internet) for any purchases made on eBay on or after 6/16/11.
While we are sorry for any short-term inconvenience this may cause you, we feel it is important for Mr. Rebates to be good partners to its merchants and advertisers in order to maintain the best long-term loyalty program available anywhere in the world.

We will let you know as soon eBay completes their internal test and eBay cash-back resumes at Mr. Rebates.

P.S. Supposedly Ebay is running a test through October 1st and might resume cashback after that.

Same issue for FatWallet Cashback, with the same reference of "We will let you know as soon eBay completes their internal test and eBay cash-back resumes."

I also got an email from Ebates about Ebay points ending.

Man this isn't good. Hopefully they come back, but there is a lot of money lost between now and October 1 if that is true.

Just a datapoint on the official reason they stopped it (though I agree it was probably to get a handle on the abuse out there)

JJ McCarthy, head of eBay's U.S. Partner Network, explained that the move is only provisionary as the company reassesses the business value of its cash-back programs, noting that they could be reinstated once it crunches the numbers.

"One of the challenges associated with running a large-scale affiliate program is understanding the incremental value of each individual partnership," McCarthy said in an emailed statement. "In recent weeks, we have been studying our cashback and loyalty publisher segment in detail in order to feel more comfortable with the ROI we are receiving from those partnerships. After careful analysis and thorough internal debate, we decided that the only way to gain a definitive (quantified) understanding of the value of these partnerships is to conduct a "go dark" test.

"While we understand that administering such a test in the live environment will create hardship for our Loyalty partners and their users, we feel this is a necessary step in order for us to maintain our confidence in this marketing method. The goal of this exercise, in the end, is not to reach a binary decision between continue/discontinue this form of partnerships, but rather to quantify the incremental value of these partnerships and to price them properly so that we can all continue working together with full confidence going forward."

Well that makes reasonably good sense. I know if I was running ebay I would be extremely curious how much business is being driven by cashback motivated buyers. I know that almost ALL of my ebay purchases are motivated by cashback since they are based on a small percentage of arbitrage which cashback is a large part of.

Of course if sellers simply lower prices to keep sales going then ebay is the winner and sellers are the loser.

I wished one of my sites had warned me...well I'm glad I made my big purchase last month. Hope they bring it back, but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't since eBay is counting every penny nowadays. The scammers also really ruin for everyone else.

Just to rant, I really hate what they did to My eBay.

I'm sure it is just a drop in the ocean, but if you want to help get it back you have to stop buying from eBay as much so it looks like the cash back programs had a positive net effect for their business. Yes, I realize someone else will just buy the item instead of you in most cases, but lower average prices should be accounted for. One person can't do much, but if a bunch of people, particularly in a single sector, stop bidding for months, the average price of specific goods should go down slightly.

I for one will stop using it, except for very cheap items. By the way, for a while purchases haven't registered/earned points for me (Marriott). Hope they fix it.

Does BigCrumbs still pay for ebay purchases? I know their payments were different -- not based on percentage of price, but more like a rebate of a portion of the fee. Plus I thought eBay owned BigCrumbs or they were involved in some sort of partnership.

No, the only program left is ebay own - ebay Bucks.

So apparently a work around for getting eBay cashback still exists. You need to go through eBay Canada's site which BigCrumbs still has.

http://www.bigcrumbs.com/crumbs/retailerDetails.do?id=398

I'd recommending following cashreporter.com to see if other cash back merchants follow suit but for now looks like this is the only way:

http://www.cashreporter.com/merchant/5975/ebaycanada/

I'd think they just didn't update the page.

So apparently a work around for getting eBay cashback still exists. You need to go through eBay Canada's site which BigCrumbs still has.

http://www.bigcrumbs.com/crumbs/retailerDetails.do?id=398

I'd recommending following cashreporter.com to see if other cash back merchants follow suit but for now looks like this is the only way:

http://www.cashreporter.com/merchant/5975/ebaycanada/

Thanks for the info ^

I can confirm that at least the Mr Rebates canada (http://canada.mrrebates.com) + eBay.ca combo it's working fine.

I can't test Big Crumbs (it's not available in my country).

Definitely boo-urns about this.

Makes me miss the days of Bing Cashback even more! :(

As of today, Bigcrumbs has removed eBay.CA (the Canada site) from its cash-back page.

Disappointed to see the Ebay Canada deal disappeared... anyone know of any alternate way to get cashback or perhaps reward points or other perks from shopping on Ebay? I've googled and can't find much. For the Ebay US site the cashback was supposed to be 'temporarily suspended' wonder if it's coming back?

I've had mixed luck clicking through from BigCrumbs to eBay.co.uk and earning that way. Not as many items seem to show up but you get credit last I tried it. The eBay Bucks program is decent, or at least it was until they pulled bullion purchases from the program. I was buying a lot of silver rounds and earned quite a bit of Bucks that way, but they just removed bullion purchases from eligibility.

After much reading here on FT and online, I have only found 1 source for miles with Ebay. I haven't verified because I haven't placed an order yet. It looks like you can still earn Air Canada miles through the Aeroplan estore through Ebay.ca. So I assume you will need to go find your item and put it into your cart. Log off. Then go to the Aeroplan estore, login and then click on Ebay.ca and you should be able to complete purchase and receive the Aeroplan miles.
Does anyone know of any other miles or points option for Ebay that is still working??? Has anyone used Aeroplan estore.
Right now they are offering 5miles per dollar on all purchases through their mall till 2/16. I will give it a try and report back.

BA and BMI still work (got some miles recently)