It's January - please ecashback, can I have some money! (ecashback.co.uk)

Member Name: annaroos1

Product:	ecashback.co.uk
Date:	04/01/07 (368 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy and quick to use, you can make some money

Disadvantages: I simply cannot remember to use it...

It being January with all that it contains of eating beans on toast 7 days a week and robbing your savings I thought it might be time I wrote a few lines about my favourite cash back site. I may as well start this review by saying the words I read (and write) on here more often than anything else – this site will not make you a millionaire (shock, shock, horror)! It will help make you a few pence but that’s about it. The dream of easy money is true but the dream of huge amounts of money amassed from clicking a few links every day will not come true using this site – so be warned!


I came across this site quite a few months ago when I signed up to pretty much every other rewards- or survey site out there, although this is the only one I use for cash back on my internet purchases at the moment.


First let’s do the boring bits:


Signing up is very simple, just the usual form to fill in where you provide personal details and possibly a referral link. As soon as you’ve activated your account you’re rewarded with a £2.50 credit.


In order to make money on this site the idea is that you use it as a portal for all your internet purchases. Basically this means that if you, instead of going straight to the Amazon website for your David Attenborough DVD, go there via the ecashback site you will get a percentage of the value of the purchase back via your ecashback account. All reward percentages for the different retailers are advertised on the site so if you’re interested you can calculate how much money you will ‘earn’ on each purchase. If you know that you would be tempted to order things you don’t really want/need just because you like to see the money in your account grow then I would strongly suggest that you do not sign up as the rewards just aren’t worth the extra spend. However, if you quite often buy products online then this would be very useful as it is a very simple process that will not cost you anything extra at all or take all that much time either for that matter. The cash back will not be credited to your account until the retailer has confirmed your purchase so sometimes you have to wait for a while before you see it although normally they are very quick at this. If you return items to the retailer you will notice that the cash back will disappear from your account pretty quickly too.


If like me you have a brain the size of a pea and cannot possibly remember to use the site when you make your purchases you will find that you cannot claim the money afterwards. In order to get your cash back you must use the site at the time of your purchase although with Amazon I find I usually have time to cancel my order and reorder it using ecashback. Hopefully you are all a bit better at remembering things like this and will be able to use it for most of your purchases.


There are several major retailers that advertise on the site, the most notable (in my mind at least) is amazon.co.uk which currently offers 3.5% cash back on all purchases. Not a great deal maybe but if you use it fairly frequently then the money will build up quickly. The rates do change so be aware of this. The last few months of last year Amazon’s cash back rate was only 3% - so looks like I have to order that 24 box set soon... If it should happen that you have ordered a product and the retailer hasn’t confirmed it before they change the rate or even pulls out of the scheme you will NOT be entitled to the original rate. Other retailers on this site vary from Ann Summers to Sky Digital. The rates they offer are either a percentage of the cost of the order or a set amount for subscribing to a service etc.


Even if you don’t shop online a great deal or if you’re like me and find the whole idea of having to remember to do click more than 3 times to make an order difficult then there may still be opportunities for you to make some money out of ecashback.


There are many opportunities to sign up to survey sites, join newsletters or enter competitions all of which generally pay you between 10 p up to £2. If you decide to apply for a credit card or a loan via the site you may get a much bigger reward, but this is obviously only for those that actually want these products! Strangely, even though I can’t remember to do my purchases via the site I still seem to be able to log on and do a daily search something which gives me 5p. There are several other search engines that you can use and which will also give you a few pence here and there. If you decide to sign up to news letter etc in order to earn yourself some cash back I would strongly suggest that you create a separate email account simply for this. This way you can have a quick look through the emails once a week and make sure there is nothing of importance in there (who knows, you might win that competition…). Moreover, you don’t risk clogging up your main email inbox with random and irrelevant offers of vanilla flavoured condoms or free horoscopes.


On the website you can click on the easy cash link and you will find lots of offers on how to make money. Read these and choose the ones that suit you. You can also find a link to money off coupons. These give you extra discounts and vouchers with retailers on top of the regular cash back reward. Furthermore, you can also click on a link that will take you to your account, where you can keep track of exactly what has been added to your account and when. This will also let you know whether the money is pending, declined or approved. I must say that they seem very reliable and quick when it comes to adding money to your account; very much unlike many other survey and cash back sites I’m a member of (ipoints and test and vote spring to mind).


As per usual there is a referral system where the referrer gets a rather generous £2 for their referral. The catch is that you won’t get any money for simply getting your friends to sign up; they actually have to use the site and make a purchase (free clicks and searches do not count) before the £2 will be added to your account. If your friends like to shop on the internet then make sure you refer them, if not, I guess you don’t really need to bother!


I realise that this would be the ideal opportunity to compare ecashback to other cash back sites such as greasypalm, free fivers or pigsback but, even though I’m signed up with all of these I have ended up feeling most at home with ecashback so I must admit that I never use any of the others and therefore cannot really judge whether ecashback is in fact better than any of these.


So, let’s get back to talking money. Since I joined in May I have managed to scrape together a rather shameful £22.04. I did tell you – you won’t become a millionaire within the year just from using this site… Considering I can’t seem to remember to use the site the way it’s meant to be used; that is making purchases via it, I still don’t think I have done too badly. The breakdown of my account goes something like this:


£2.50 singing up bonus
£0.30 for setting ecashback as my homepage
£3.11 for signing up to competitions, free newsletters and similar
£2.90 for 5 Amazon purchases
And the rest is made up of a mix of different free clicks and searches


The money is paid via cheque once you reach the minimum of £20. The payments are made 45 days in arrears. This is a bit of a pain as it means that even though I reached my £20 minimum in December it will not be paid out until the 15th of February which is a looong time off yet. As I haven’t yet received payment I cannot tell you whether they are punctual, but as you can tell from above, they are not fast! I guess there’s a reason for the long period between reaching the minimum and payment as this will allow for cancelled or returned orders but I need money now – it’s still 4 weeks until pay day for crying out loud!


I would thoroughly recommend this site to anybody who shops online regularly or at all for that matter. In my experience ecashback is very reliable and I find it an easy way to make a little extra money through some free searches and signing up to different sites. Now, if only I could manage to remember to use it for all my internet purchases too – I might be on to a winner!

Summary: Well worth using when you shop online