A couple of readers recently tipped us off to a rebate website called RebateKey which offers free or highly discounted products via rebate. The way it works is you browse various items on Rebatekey.com and find something you’re interesting in buying/getting with a rebate. The rebate is sometimes for the full price back and other times for a partial rebate. Then you go ahead and buy the item at full price from an online retailers. Then you submit a claim, and you’ll get a check or Paypal 35 days later with the stated rebate.
RebateKey works with products being sold on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Jet, and Shopify – those are the retailers you’ll be making the actual purchase from (mostly Amazon, I believe).
For free items you can actually net some free credit card points or use up some gift card balance without incurring any cost at all. You can even use a shopping portal when making the purchase (you don’t need to use RebateKey’s cookies) and get some extra rewards there as well. Just keep in mind that even items which are entirely free you’ll be on the hook for the sales tax if it’s an item and area which has sales tax.
Here’s a few pointers from the RebateKey website:
- Why 35 days? Most online stores allow return of the items within 30 days. To avoid situations when you are given a rebate plus you get a refund for a returned item, we have to hold the funds for 35 days. Also, the seller can dispute the rebate within the last 5 days.
- You are only allowed one account per address/household. You can not claim more than one Rebate for the same product. Please, stay away from cheating or fraud. It’s not worth it!
- Reselling the products acquired via RebateKey is against our Terms of Service, and will result in cancelation of all the Rebates and suspension of the buyer account.
- Buy the product at full price. Products purchased with discount codes will NOT get a rebate.
- You have 1 hour to buy the product and report back with RebateKey. Use Order ID as the Rebate Key to confirm your purchase to the seller. Don’t postpone! If you don’t report the Rebate Key within 1 hour, the purchase will not be registered.
- There may be situations that arise where a buyer enters an incorrect key, or the seller of the product denies a key entered for various reasons. This is rare, but may occur. If it does, we will work with both the seller and the buyer to find a solution that works for both parties.
The main reason sellers use RebateKey, as I understand, is for reviews. There is no obligation to leave a review (if there was, it would be against the terms of Amazon and probably other retailers), but the seller is able to message the buyer through RebateKey and encourage them to leave a review. It’s possible some sellers do it for legitimate feedback on the product as well. Or to artificially increase their sales numbers for the SEO gods.
Overall looks like an interesting way of picking up cheap or free items, and even possibly netting a bit from points or portals. Makes more sense for people who like trying out different things or tchotchkes and enjoy interacting with sellers. Just keep in mind there’s always a risk of the company going under or denying your rebate for some reason.
I just came across this post and noticed that the latest comment was a couple of years ago. Is this Rebatekey still a thing now? Are the things through that portal any good? I mean, is any of the free products useful at all?
The last payment I got was back in March 12 2022. I haven’t used it since as I use another shopping portal. Good for min spend tho.
Anyone notice a delay in checks?
Yeah, they have been a bit slow but the post office has been running slow as well. I am not worried….yet.
I have two checks missing now that would have arrived one week ago and today. I am starting to get worried.
Anyone here go over 20k total rebates for the year, and take payment via Paypal? Wondering if they will send a 1099, which would be a pain to itemize and prove no actual profit.
I know this is an old post but just wondering if anyone has ordered something like the $199.99 stuff just to get the points? I am hesitant to put that much money on one item and get shafted somehow. Any experiences to share?
I did. We’ll see their refund or I’ll dispute the charge in a month
I must have pushed at least 20k with those.
I took the plunge and bought some of those but NOWHERE near 20k. I have gotten paid every single time. I would not be comfortable with having more than 1K invested in rebates at any time.
I just got a PayPal rebate payout from Rebate Key about an hour ago.
Just a red flag, Rebatekey is several days late in issuing rebates. In a post on a private Facebook Rebatekey buyers group, Rebatekey stated that it was a problem with their PayPal account and that it will be resolved in one business week. Rebatekey recommended switching to checks for payment. I am skeptical.
He just outplayed his reasons for being skeptical. I am not taking a side here but generally younger companies with questions in Cash Flow is enough to make most people nervous.
As an update, in the Wallet section (https://rebatekey.com/buyer/wallet.html), there’s now a note:
—
About PayPal payments being delayed, we would like to inform you that we recently confirmed that PayPal decided to update some internal information without prior notification, so when transferring funds from our bank account to our PayPal account in order to proceed with the scheduled payments, these were not accepted. This is the reason why last week payouts were delayed.
We have spent the last few days assessing what’s been going on, and we really appreciate your patience during this time. Unfortunately, this was totally out of our control as we were not notified with time about the updates so we could not take the appropriate measures.
We have been working on resolutions and PayPal payments have started to be sent; however, it could still take about 7 business days for your payments to arrive.
Please contact us via email to [email protected] or via Messenger for further clarification.
I’ve switched to paper check 3 days ago, a rebate on a couple of things was supposed to be processed yesterday (in addition to the one from last week that was supposed to be paid through paypal and still nothing), and it wasn’t processed either. So their message that the issue is with the paypal is a lie. They don’t pay any more period. I think they are just getting what they can before announcing a shut down.
Yikes
Good news – I just got my payment that should have been paid out about a week ago.
Same here!
I’m interested in receiving free products to test. I’m on several social media sites that I give reviews on as well as I have the initial mappings out of possibly starting a blog.
any contact?
Hi, I am wondering if I can buy more than one product from RebateKey in one order? Thanks
Yes, you can! Just copy paste the order number to each rebate.also, sometimes Amazon will split your order info several order numbers – so make sure you input the correct one.
This is banned now, apparently.
I recently tried RebateKey and want to post here about an issue that is not addressed anywhere in their FAQ page. Their system assumes that only 1 person resides at an address. If you have a roommate, and they signed up first, you have to use their account and let them give you the cash after they deposit the rebate check for your purchase. Sounds complicated, right? I live with 5 people. So I tried my work address. No go. I work with 50 people. I wonder what happens if you move and the previous occupant has used RebateKey? I was not able to get any assistance from their customer service. The reply took 2 days,and was nothing more than what the system already told me, “address already in use”. I felt awful, but I had to reach out to the supplier and cancel my order. I did give the supplier an explanation. I feel like this will be a fizzling fad as more people have issues with system. Overall, I’m a 0.5 out of 5.
Damn the secrets out, going to get a lot harder snagging the good deals now lol