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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

The Internet's Couch Cushion

FatWallet should be one of the most popular sites on the web, yet when I mention it to people, they have no idea what it is. I like to think of FatWallet.com as the couch cushion of the Internet.

FatWallet.com has referral partnerships with dozens (maybe hundreds) of online retailers. When you make a purchase on a web site after "clicking through" FatWallet.com, FatWallet gets a certain percentage of the sale. Cool for them, right? But what would make you visit FatWallet.com first? Here's the great part: they split their referral money with you. That's right--by simply logging in to FatWallet.com and clicking on their own link to your online retailer, you could get cash back on your purchase.

For example, let's say you were going to buy a digital camera, and you found that Buy.com had the best price ($300). If you visit FatWallet.com first, and you click on their Buy.com link, you'll get 2% ($6) back on your purchase. Once you have a FatWallet.com account established, the amount of time it takes to do this extra step takes about 5 seconds. Sounds too simple? Ok, I'll tell you the two caveats:
  1. You have to log in to FatWallet.com first. This is actually easier than it sounds, since you can have FatWallet.com remember you. I don't have to log in anymore. A visit to FatWallet.com, a hop over to Buy.com (or VisionDirect.com, or whatever), and I'm on my way to cash back.
  2. Your cash back isn't available immediately; it takes about 90 days. Why? Well, I assume it's because FatWallet doesn't get any referral money if you return the merchandise. If you could get cash back immediately, what would stop you from buying thousands of dollars in merchandise and returning it, reaping the cash back profits?

FatWallet's own site does a pretty good job of explaining the process. See http://www.fatwallet.com/tmm/rewards.php. If you're interested in establishing an account and getting cash back on your purchases from here on out, just visit www.fatwallet.com.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dog, I wish I had known about this. With my last couple of purchases from Dell alone I could have made about $100!