Rebate scams!

Rebate scams? Is there even such a thing? Yes, there is. It might surprise many, but for those of you with some experience, I am sure it isn't that surprising. This piece of information will definitely open your eyes towards rebate scams.

Think about it for a moment. Why do some companies give you rebates? Most of the times it is to clear out their stock. Most of the times, we do see it with digital products, mostly e-books. But there isn't any stock clearances for digital goods like e-books right? Since everything is stored on a computer, and it never goes bad, what is the point of a rebate?

Yup, you've guessed it. It is to entice people to buy their products. Most of them use a limited offer rebate. It could be only applicable for the next two days, or even the next ten customers. Now it has really gotten your attention, and seeing as this is an opportunity for you to buy it at a cheaper price, you might feel enticed to be take advantage of that rebate.

But the thing that many people do not realize, is that although the rebate might claim to be only available for the next two days, you might be surprised to see that the offer is still there even after two months! Yes, it is true. Most of the websites that use this rebate scams, are only trying to make people buy their product.

The reason is simple, if people go off to other websites, they are afraid that you might find an even better product at an even better price. So they use this method to try to get their visitors to act as soon as possible. I do have to make mention that almost all of the scam websites that I have gone to, used this method.

Although there are many good and legit websites that do use this rebate method fairly and honestly, there are even more of those scam websites that use it as well. It is almost impossible to tell whether or not the offer is a genuine one.

The best advice I can give you, is to never use the rebate as a reason to buy a product. What you are looking for is a product that works. Even if it is a little more expensive, wouldn't it be much better than a lousy product? If you do use rebates as an indication to buy, please only do so at large and branded websites or ones that you trust to provide with quality.

Hmmm...interesting, but the rebate scams surely doesn't fall into dangerous situations, I hear you say. Well in truth that is true. Except for some disturbing rumors that I have heard about. Apparently, there is one special case that I have heard of. It appears that there was one or two websites that claimed that for you to receive the rebate, you would need to register your e-mail with them, to collect a special 50% off rebate coupon.

Again, it doesn't seem like much, but that is not the end of it. In the e-mail that they send you, they will inform you that you are luckily one of the last few people to qualify for that coupon. However, you need to install their software to confirm your coupon number immediately. Why? They claim that the number of people who have received the coupons are now more than what is available. So to confirm your coupon, you will need to install the software as soon as possible to confirm your rebate coupon.

So now you are excited and thinking that other people might beat you to the 50% coupon, so you quickly install that software to make sure that you get that last few coupons. But what happens next? Everything seems normal enough, until your Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware detects a spy-ware installed into your computer. Yes, they are using this as a means of also distributing those dreaded Spy-Wares. While the numbers of websites doing this is only a few, I am sure that the numbers will increase in the future. So if any websites ask you to install a software to be able to qualify for the rebate, don't. It is another one of those rebate scams, but with the added dangers of a Spy-Ware.

There are too many victims that have fallen for those rebate scams. Make sure that you and people you know, never get tricked by them.

Rebate scams: Return to the Online Danger main page
Please click on the link above to learn about other such dangers