Should I go through e-bates to buy my carseat?

[nofeea]

Is there a down side to using e-bates to buy my carseat? I've never used it before and that whole page of terms and rules made me nervous. On the other hand, 7% back sounds good if it's for real...
Can someone tell me how this really works? Is there any reason NOT to do this?

[lynettefrancois]

I did, and bought several other things that way. Just look at the list of retailers that use them (Target, Gap, etc) and you'll probably feel better. And if you don't feel comfortable giving referral credit to somebody ($5 I think), you can always just go to ebates.com and sign up without a referral.
The only downsides... if you choose to download the "Moe Moneymaker" software which instantly alerts you if you're on an ebate affiliated site, sometimes if you click through an email ad (from Target, for example), it might not end up where it was supposed to because the ebates notification loads at the top. But I like knowing what my final cost will be and don't have to remember to go to ebates.com first and then click through to the website I was looking at, so I like the software (but it's not required at all- they are just trying to make it convenient). Also, you don't get a check until you have at least a certain amount of rebates earned ($20? I think) to save on postage I assume. I have received a check from them... I think they send them quarterly. I have no complaints. HTH!

[mominjune]

The first time I used ebates was to buy a carseat also, LOL! I think I got 6% back, so I thought it was cool. I can't think of any reasons why not to do it. We didn't download the software and it's fine without it, you just have to remember to check if a website is listed through ebates and to log in and link from ebates before you buy something. The only frustrating thing I experienced was it was sometimes hard to figure out if I linked correctly or not, so that it would register me as an ebates customer and automatically give me the rebate.

I've done it 4 times and it was easy, except when I bought our crib the discount never went though. You have to keep your confirmation email from the company you buy it from as proof of purchase in case ebates.com has to research it later. I deleted my email after I received the crib. If I can get it resolved, it's another $8 for me, but if I don't get it resolved, I don't really lose anything since I would have bought the crib anyways. The ebates rebate is more like an "extra" thing for me rather than the deciding factor whether not to buy it. As a side note, a while back, DH bought a laptop through his ebates and never got the rebate, even after contacting them, so he was quite disappointed b/c it would have been a substantial one.

I think ebates just makes money off advertising from the different vendors, and as far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be any "catch" to it. The only reason I can think of not to do it is if you already go through another rebate program like fatwallet.com and like it.