New eBay 25% Scam?

[Jack Hammer]

Sounds like it to me. I've seen two posts here referring to eBays 25% off promo through Paypal. Note, there is nothing about it on eBay or Paypals sites. The closest is eBay says you can save up to 30%, if you read the link, they say averaging the prices items sell for on eBay vs the MSRP.

Do people really think Microsoft is going to send out millions of dollars to any schmoe who buys something off eBay just for joining up with MS live? I doubt the link even goes to MS.

All I see is you accessing your eBay and Paypal accounts through another site and them now having full access to both your accounts. If it sounds to good to be true...

Jack

I copied this from one of the eBay listings:

1) go to www.live.com
2) click on "sign in"
3) then click on "sign up"
4) setup the account, they will send an e-mail, which you confirm, and then the account is activated.
5) go to www.live.com and login if you haven't already.
6) search for "cheap wii"
7) the results will have a sponsored link to E-Bay on top with a save up to 30% logo.
8) click on that sponsored link. you're now in E-Bay.
9) on E-Bay's search bar, enter my item # (140283238542) You should see "Microsoft Cashback 25%" in a small green banner at the top...thats how you know its working.
10) click to my item, and proceed to Buy-It-Now. You'll now see the discount to be applied.
11) click on "Commit To Buy" to finish off the transaction and pay the total via Paypal. You MUST use Paypal.
12) I ship the item.
13) Within one day, you'll get an e-mail from Microsoft Live telling you to setup your Paypal account so that they can credit the 172.50 back to your Paypal account in 60 days, or you can choose to have a check mailed to you.

 

[haraldo]

If something sounds to good to be true, it is a scam

 

[malovich]

I did it, the site they refer you to after you complete the transaction is in german........

 

[rnatalli]

This is easy to check. Once someone has ordered, all they have to do is close their browser, clear the cache and cookies, and then go to eBay again and login fresh. Go to their orders and see if the cashback still shows up. They can also log into their Live.com account fresh and see if it shows up. I don't see MS trying to screw people as this would be one very large criminal and class-action lawsuit.

 

[lsiberian]

I don't see MS trying to screw people as this would be one very large criminal and class-action lawsuit.

You do realize the majority of MS products are bad engineering. MS is to software what bose is to speakers.

 

[Jack Hammer]

It looks like the link is legit and MS has a rewards program similar to what many credit cards offer. But I still highly doubt MS will pay people to buy stuff from individuals off eBay, unless it is through a legit store that is enrolled in a rewards program who also sells on eBay.

If an individual promises 25% cashback as part of their auction listing I highly doubt MS is going to pay it out. It's still a sham if you are promised a 25% return and you don't get it. If you read the fine print on MS's site, they review all sales and reserve the right to not pay on them. It also says the seller must report the transaction to them for review. Still sounds like BS to me.

Jack

 

[haraldo]

You do realize the majority of MS products are bad engineering. MS is to software what bose is to speakers.

Certainly disagree on this, Microsoft are undeservedly getting a lot of pepper, they do have many great products and whenever there is a problam with a third party driver, like video driver from nvidia, Microsoft gets blaimed because it's windows that gets a bsd. I believe that more than 90% of all problems with windows are caused by software from other parties....

OK, Vista is horrible, but that's only one out of many many products....

So here you are shooting at the wrong target my friend....

MS SQL Server 2008 is not bad engineering
Windows Server 2003 is not bad engineering
Windows Server 2008 is not bad engineering
BizTalk Server is not bad engineering
.NET Framework is not bad engineering
C# is not bad engineering
Visual Studio .NET is not bad engineering
Windows Presentation foundation is not bad engineering
Windows Communication foundation is not bad engineering
Could go on with much more........

 

[rnatalli]

You do realize the majority of MS products are bad engineering. MS is to software what bose is to speakers.

Screwing people legally is an entirely different thing.

 

[ricocetj]

I've used this a few times. It holds your money for 60 days to make sure you don't return the items and I first purchased through the program on October 17, so I still have a little while to wait before it will be available. However, I have $155 in my Microsoft Live Search cashback account pending. Some of the guys over on the av123 forum have done this and I think the last I saw a couple of them had started to get their money back. I would link over to the thread, but the av123 site seems to be down today. Also, my laptop recently crapped a hard drive and I just signed into ebay for the first time since installing the new hard drive (so the cache and cookies had been cleared) and the cashback amount still shows up on my ebay transaction detail.

I'll report back after my 60 days is up whether the money becomes available to me or not.

 

[gus6464]

If you do it the legit way which is to go through live.com it works. You must use buy it now and paypal and you get 25% of what you paid for the item back in your paypal account after a day or two. The only catch is that the cash back return cannot be taken out for 60 days to make sure you didn't return the item and ended up with free money.

Microsoft is doing it to promote their live search engine and there are limits. You cannot get more than $2500 cash back within the year and 12 transactions total. I bought my wife a GPS unit for Christmas using the live cash back and it worked since I got 25% of what I paid waiting in my paypal to be taken out in 60 days. Warp also bought a couple of EP2500 amps and can verify that it works as well.

 

[Jack Hammer]

If you do it the legit way which is to go through live.com it works. You must use buy it now and paypal and you get 25% of what you paid for the item back in your paypal account after a day or two. The only catch is that the cash back return cannot be taken out for 60 days to make sure you didn't return the item and ended up with free money.

Microsoft is doing it to promote their live search engine and there are limits. You cannot get more than $2500 cash back within the year and 12 transactions total. I bought my wife a GPS unit for Christmas using the live cash back and it worked since I got 25% of what I paid waiting in my paypal to be taken out in 60 days. Warp also bought a couple of EP2500 amps and can verify that it works as well.

I'm just surprised they would do a cashback when someone buys used stuff from an indiviual, not just a store. There's gotta be some sort of catch. Has anyone personally bought used goods off eBay from an individual and gotten cash back from MS, or is it just I heard of a guy who did kind of stuff?

Jack

 

[gus6464]

I'm just surprised they would do a cashback when someone buys used stuff from an indiviual, not just a store. There's gotta be some sort of catch. Has anyone personally bought used goods off eBay from an individual and gotten cash back from MS, or is it just I heard of a guy who did kind of stuff?

Jack

Like I said earlier, I bought a GPS unit for my wife and I have $75 in cash back waiting to be retrieved from my paypal account. I have to wait 60 days to be able to retrieve it. The item has to be bought using buy it now and cannot be used if it's an action type thing. Most buy it now items on ebay are brand new. I will be doing the same thing to buy an EP2500 and a sub driver as well.

You are thinking way too much into this. This is a microsoft promotion where they are trying to get people to use their live search engine. This is no different than a company sending out free samples of their product. MS is just enticing people with something people would actually care about ($$$).

 

[mike c]

so it would seem NOONE has gotten their cash in their hands yet? 60 days not up yet, right?

 

[gus6464]

so it would seem NOONE has gotten their cash in their hands yet? 60 days not up yet, right?

The cash just stays in your paypal account until the 60 days are up. I think you can use it earlier though if you buy something else if you don't want to pull it out. It's one of those paypal type holds where you have the money but can't send it to bank account.

 

[jvgillow]

I've used the 25% cashback for 4 transactions on eBay so far.

The first 3 worked great and the cashback showed up right away in my live.com account. The first one is available for "withdrawal" on Dec 25th since I bought something on October 26.

My 4th transaction has not showed up in my cashback account yet even though I bought it on Nov 15th. I have submitted a trouble ticket on the live.com site to have them review the transaction because there's no reason I can find for it to be denied. They are processing a ton of these every day though so I expect there to be a few "bugs" along the way.