Every time I shop for a deal online, I always give eBay a gander even though I hate selling stuff on eBay. If I do find something for a great price, I have a routine so that I can get a lot of cash back.

All it takes is a cashback credit card, an account at a cashback rebate site, and an account in the prestigious eBay Bucks program.

These are the places I get cash back from:

• FatWallet.com. There are many other cash back shopping sites out there but I’m a loyal FatWallet user so I stick with them even those their affiliation with eBay only gives the users 1% cashback. I always visit FatWallet first to use the tracking link to eBay.

• eBay Bucks. Since I was lucky enough to be invited to this program, it never hurt to sign up and get 2% cashback every time I shopped on eBay. Even if the rewards are applied to future purchases, it is much better than nothing.

• Cashback Citicard. The main reason I got a credit card was for the cash back. So, I’m going to abuse it whenever I can. Once again, 1% is not much but it adds up. Because eBay Bucks works only when I use Paypal, I usually move my Paypal balance into my bank account and use the credit card through Paypal.

A few days ago, I purchased 1GB RAM for $33.97 and used everything listed above. My total cashback was $1.36… Every penny counts in personal finance.

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It seems that the economy has driven many businesses to become more innovative with ideas for keeping customers. EBay has dominated the online auction category when it was introduced but it has diminished in influence in the internet buying/selling scene.

Fees seem to be increasing continuously and it has had a drastic effect on the tendency of sellers to put their items up on the site. Buying, on the other hand, seems to have the same feel. In order to increase consumer spending, eBay is introducing the eBay Bucks Program.

From an email to me:

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to participate in a new rewards program called eBay Bucks. We’re only inviting a randomly selected group of eBay shoppers to join as we continue to develop the program.

It’s fast, easy, and free. Just sign up, and you’ll be on your way to earning 2% back on all your qualifying eBay purchases.*

You’ll rack up eBay Bucks whenever you shop on eBay and pay with PayPal. Every three months, you’ll get a certificate to spend on eBay.

See how eBay Bucks works. Take the video tutorial.

With 2% back, it outcompetes the 1% cashback offered by popular sites such as Ebates.com, FatWallet.com, and UPromise. But wait, the 2% back is only available as eBay Bucks, which can only be used to purchase more items on eBay.

For avid eBay shoppers (who have Paypal), this may be more convenient than going to referral sites and being worried their order wasn’t tracked. Then again, occasional eBay buyers may want to stick with the affiliate sites to get cash back.

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Following up on my vent post regarding my discontent with the policies on eBay, I’ve resorted to another method of selling PSP mod kits. Thanks to the glorious creation of Amazon.com, I’ve been able to sell my inventory of kits in just 3 days.

No wonder Amazon was able to grow to its currently dominant Internet status. Although the fees for selling on Amazon.com are higher compared to eBay, transactions are completed much quicker. Everything is laid out for potential buyers, like in a store. I don’t have to wait for buyers to bid/pay nor do I have to go through Paypal to collect my money. They see what they want and pay. Then I ship the next day. The feedback on Amazon.com is of no major concern to me since I provide the best service possible.

Now I’ll be ordering starting materials in larger quantities. In a future post, I’d be describing what steps I am taking to make this side gig more profitable!

Photo credit: BusinessWeek

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Ever since getting my eBay account reinstated after staying dormant for the past year, I’ve been excited to make some residual income with the many selling methods that I have. Sadly it seems that eBay has changed a lot during the past year. They’ve implemented many rules and restrictions that completely eliminated any means of me making some money.

What I Used To Sell

I used to sell “items” in a video game that was represented by electronic data in the form of pixels. So, that was totally removed from selling throughout eBay. Then, eBooks (electronic books in the form of PDF files usually) became a restricted selling category. All information products, which were delivered electronically, became illegal items for selling on the site.

These were the best items to sell because they came at no cost to the seller. Many sellers’ annual income came solely from selling on eBay. Their lives have been ruined. They must make their own websites to sell their goods but that will most likely fail due to the minimal exposure they’d receive.

Recently, I’ve came up with the idea of selling mod kits for the PSP on eBay and as soon as I purchased the materials to do so, eBay started removing those listings due to infringement of Sony’s copyrights (when all coding was actually freeware).

The Future of My Relationship with eBay

This company is bound to lose a lot of revenue from listings if it continues to restrict the selling of items on eBay. It seems to be a dying business model and its sideways-moving stock price in the past couple years seems to be supporting my case.

When eBay was first introduced it was great because it was a great place to sell/buy almost anything possible. Now, eBay’s high popularity is actually ruining its business. When I want to buy an item, I go straight to eBay. I do not go to Dell.com or visit a Gamestop store to purchase something.

Why pay retail when I can go to eBay to get it for less? Now all the big companies realize that eBay is actually causing them to lose money and threated eBay of legal consequences and rights just so that the big companies don’t miss out on the money.

For example: I represent Coach or Gucci. A seller is selling REAL handbags on eBay for a lower price than one would find at the retail store. I would tell eBay that the handbags are counterfeits and demand them to remove those listings immediately. Now, the money spent on the handbag merchandise by the seller is kept by me. AND, any prospective buyer would have to go to the store to pay ME AGAIN to get whatever item that person sought on eBay. By locking up the capital spent on the reseller, a future customer would have to come straight to me to buy something.

Anyway, I might be turning to Amazon or some other site to sell my merchandise. EBay is no good, anymore, for selling but it remains a great place to find bargains for other useful items.

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Here is the sequel to my experience with suspension of my eBay account and there was a happy ending to it!

Recently, thanks to getting my first credit card, I was able to provide valid information to reinstate my account. It felt like a grueling and lengthy process just because they rejected all my previous forms of information over the period of one year. Now that I used my credit card information to reinstate the account… everything went quite smoothly. It took around 7 business days to clear me (that is VERY FAST considering how long I’ve been suspended).

If anyone else reading this was suspended, no matter what the reason, here is the link to reinstate your account: http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/reinstfaq.html. Follow the instructions. Oddly, this page is very hard to find!

You’d be very relieved as I am now. Time to make some money…

Photo credit: http://ebayreplay.info

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Usually on eBay, I sell coupons, trading cards and sneakers. But one year ago, I discovered a profitable business. And… it is also what led my account to be SUSPENDED…

Here’s the how it went:

I played this role-playing video game where a digital character had ‘items’. After learning to exploit a bug within the game, I was able to create replicas of such items and used them for trading in the game’s marketplace. Then, the newly acquired items would be sold on eBay. About 15 of them sold for an average of about $6 USD each within a week. These sales were all digital, quick, and required very little effort for a residual income of about $90/week!!

But… in the first 2 weeks that I begun to sell, eBay began banning these digital items for sale.

WHAT THE HECK?!

Other people have made tens of thousands of dollars in the past several years from selling them and they suspend my account when I just started to do so.

And so, I’ve been trying to reinstate my account for the last 11 months, which requires copies of a U.S. ID and a government or utility bill.

Where the heck am I supposed to get a government or utility bill? I’ve sent in a copy of my driver’s license and my tuition bill… four times. They keep replying that the information I sent in was not legible. I printed in color AND I blew it up for them!!

Guess I’ll wait for my new passport (or they need a magnifying glass)…

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