RakutenReviews 2,125

Their tell-a-friend is the biggest lie ever. I have been referred the site to people over a year. I have 6 referral. 2 of them are in the recent tell-a-friend promotion period. Today all of my referral cash back is gone. But what is more upset? My friends' accounts are closed! So are their cashback, sign-up bonus. Also one friend reported that if you book your airline ticket on expedia through ebates there will be a $7 booking fee adding on top of your bill. Ebates will share $1.25 back with you of course! Stay away! They start to become SCAM!

CONSUMER BEWARE!
I purchased a Canon T3 rebel from Rakuten, for $401.72, just the camera and lens nothing else included. The day I got the camera I went online to buy a bag for it and found the same camera with the lens, and a plethora of other things such as, battery, battery backup, 16g storage, the carrying bag, a tripod and a bunch of there tools and cleaning supplies for only $309! WTF! I emailed Rakuten because they have a "low price guarantee policy" they then refused to honor it because they said that Amazon Market place was not considered one of their competitors because it was third party selling. Are you kidding me? SO IS RAKUTEN! My camera was actually shipped from ZeeMo! Also a third party vendor!

They are liars and their products are over priced, wish I would have done more research and read these reviews before purchasing from them! By the way, none of this additional information was posted on their site!

As many others have mentioned, you really have to be on top of things to make sure you are getting the cash back for each purchase. I've been using them for about a year and have made at least 20 online purchases through their site during that time. Without exaggeration, I would estimate that only half of those purchases actually earned me cash back. When I make a "Where's my cash" claim, the usual response is along the lines of "we don't have a tracking ticket proving you used the link on our site to shop at the retailer". I could understand that happening once or twice in the beginning, but after that I've made it a point to be sure I followed their instructions meticulously. And yet, just last week I made a $400 purchase at Sears online and I apparently didn't use the Ebates link to get to the Sears site for my purchase. The response to my claim was the typical excuse. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), that was the last straw. The aggravation of the entire process isn't worth the average 3% discount.

Also, before the Ebates rep makes the reply of "I'd like to gather more information and help you.", I'd like to respectfully decline. It isn't my job to repeatedly hunt down order numbers, purchase dates, and shopping trip tracking numbers on purchases made 7+ days ago. If Ebates had a functional system in place and/or were a sincerely honest organization, they would be doing things right the first time and not asking their consumers to double as online shopping detectives.

I have generally had a good experience with Ebates.com, but today was my first major disappointment. I tried numerous times to go to a store through their site, but doing so prevented me from placing the order (I kept getting thrown into a checkout loop and then it would empty my cart). I tried using different computers and got the same results. I contacted the store's help center and they told me to try different ISP's, which I did. This still didn't work. They told me that it might be an issue with Ebates, so I finally went directly to the site and was able to place the order. I contacted Ebates to let them know that I did have several tracking tickets for store today, but that I was not able to place the order when using their website. I sent them the correspondence from the store's help center and the receipt of the purchase and they will not honor the purchase. Seems a little unfair that I did what I was supposed to do, but was penalized for their site not working.

The advertised item ended up being a poor counterfeit.
Rakuten. Com puts all the responsibility to correct a bad sale on the vendor who just ripped you off. Rakuten.com plays an "arms length" denial position. "Not us"..."we didn't do that!", but they continue to advertise and sell the same product as genuine.
Got my money back only because I used PayPal. THEY know how to support the customer in these situations.
Would NEVER buy another product from the Rakuten.com site.

I've recently purchase 2 sets for dining chairs from Rakuten's website and received only 1 set. Rakuten asked to try work things out directly with the seller-123Stores. 123 stores said that they've had an error on the listing and the price was only for one chair although the listing clearly called out the price for a set of 2 chairs. 123stores refused to ship the balance of my order and asked to accept a small credit against the 2 chairs that I've received. The credit wasn't even 50% of the paid price, therefore I've asked Rakuten to help. After emails over emails and hours on hold they discuss the issue with the seller and provided with a 50% refund for the balance of the order. Now, I have 2 chairs and I need to find 2 more chairs to match the ones that I've received. What a hassle! I've wasted so much time by dealing with these people... I warn you DON'T BUY from RAKUTEN or 123 Stores!

I am not a happy camper! I did not receive Seeing of a4 or anything else regarding a $10 gift God. I was under the impression that I would receive a $10 gift card when I joined which is only a week or so ago. I have not received any $10 gift card you ever heard anything about it in my emails from them It appears that I have money in my account but nothing regarding gift card and I would have snapped up an Amazon card Immediately.

I ordered a cover for my macbook and it came in within 3 days. It also came with a screen protector and keyboard thing. But both things were poor quality so I threw it out. My friend recommended this site to me because the cover only cost $10 plus free shipping. They have a different sale every day. I didn't really have any problems, so I gave three stars. They do email you once or twice a day for promotions. But you can just unsubscribe.

Linked a few of my family members accounts to one account because they havent been using the account for a while and ebates have the nerve to make your balance negative. I usually get $10-20 per quarter with them but after combining the account they brought the account to a negative balance...

There are fine prints on the FAQ that say the account CANNOT go negative. Becareful of their deceptive ways to get their money back.

UPDATE: (from 1star -> 4star)
Was contacted and they fixed the negative balance. I guess it was not hard find because my account was probably the only negative balance for a "cashback" website!

I signed up for eBates, and later shopped at Amazon.com. I waited for my cash back and nothing came. I investigated and found that my free gift card for signing up had expired - which, I was unaware that it expired, but couldn't find out why I got no cash back for my purchase. So I emailed Ebates and said I had not received cash back and didn't think I would be using Ebates anymore and I asked how to close my account. To me, it doesn't work - they don't send money! They emailed back and said they were transferring my question to someone else. The next day I get an email saying they had closed my account and would be sure to not email me again. No explanation as to why I never got cash back and no offer to reissue the gift card in order to keep me as a customer. No effort at all to keep me, and I shop a great deal online.