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I believe the 35% cash back from eBay via Microsoft live search cashback is the most popular topic on the internet yesterday. I think it’s necessary to write up a post about Microsoft live search cashback program and introduce how to get 35% cash back from eBay via live search cash back.

What’s Live Search Cashback?

Live Search cashback is a new cashback program that combines the power of Live Search with a comparison-shopping engine to bring consumers some of the best deals on the Web (to maximum the cashback rewards for online shopping consumers). The program rewards consumers with a cash back rebate for a purchase, and gives merchants/advertisers the opportunity to sell on a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) basis. The motivation behind Microsoft to launch this program is to beat Google in the search engine business.

If you just use Google’s product search feature, you can get a list of stores that sell the product you want but without any information about tax, fees, and cashback for that transaction. However, Microsoft’s Live Search offers: 1). It tells you which stores carry the product and each store’s price, plus any additional charges (shipping cost and taxes). 2). It will offer certain amount of cashback for if you use the link provided by Live Search. (Of course, you have to register an account there.) It even will automatically determine which store offers the best price after cashback. It saves you a lot of time. Another feature Live Search can develop in the near future is to get store ratings together. Sometimes, lowest prices doesn’t mean best service.

In a word, Microsoft Live Search offer search engine and cashback together which make it very competitive for better online shopping experience. The cashback you can get even higher than some other cashback programs like Chase Rewards Plus, ShopDiscover Program or other famous rewards websites. Live Search Cashback is certainly worth checking out first every time you’re looking for something to buy online.

How to get 35% cashback from eBay?

1. Register an account at http://search.live.com/cashback.

2. Use live search to search the items you want to shop. (Usually you can try the items are known to generate 35% off links and redo the search process on ebay. You don’t have to search on the live.com again! That’s why this deal is damn hot!)

3. See whether you can get “You may get 35% off with PayPal if eligible.” from www.ebay.com. (examples will be shown below) If you can’t get it at the first attempt, you can try other words or you can try some accessories of that item. This is the most time consuming process. For example, I want to buy a pentax camera lens. If I use “pentax 50″, I can’t get any links for 35% cash back. However, if I try “pentax 100″, I will get a cashback link to www.ebay.com.

4. If you can get that link from your search results, click that link and try to find out the lowest price available at eBay and finish that transaction ASAP.

5. Wait for the cashback shows up in your account.

Some terms and conditions you should know:

1. You must successfully complete an eligible purchase on www.ebay.com using “Buy-It-Now” within 60 minutes of clicking an eBay link with Lice Search cashback logo. (this is a “Online Session”)

2. Cashback only applied to the first eligible item you commit to buy during an Online Session. No good for additional items.

3. PayPal payment is required!

4. Purchases of vehicles, gift cards, real estate or purchases made at www.express.ebay.com and www.half.ebay.com are not eligible to receive the cashback.

5. Maximum cashback for each Online Session is $250 and you can only get up to $750 totally. (Limit of 3 Online Sessions/transactions per account)

6. you can combine other coupons or other eBay promotions with Live Search cashback rewards.

Note: If you search for wii, you can only get 10% now. But if you use “wii cheap” you can still get 35% off link. If you search “PS3″ you can only get 10% off now, but if you use “PS3 cheap” you can still get 35% off link.

Update: Only 10% off right now. 35% off seems dead.You can only get 25% cashback right now.Simple search “25%” at live.com and you will get the link to get 25% cashback on ebay.com.

PayPal is the lowest-cost, broad-featured system I’ve found for receiving and sending money online. (PayPal has an opponent now—Revolution Money Exchange which basically has the same features.) Simply with a valid email address, you can request money, send money and manage your money online. Most online merchants accept PayPal as their main payment tool. PayPal is so popular that many merchants often work with PayPal to offer discount for using PayPal as payment method at checkout. You can always find great deals from www.paypal-promo.com. Right now, PayPal is running father’s day promotion which offers up to 20% off at some popular online merchants. Another good news is PayPal just launched PayPal Plug-In—a small module that runs in the toolbar of your Internet browser.

What’s PayPal Plug-In?

The PayPal Plug-In is a free tool developed by PayPal and runs from your Internet browser toolbar to securely pay for purchases online with a virtual credit card number. When you are ready to checkout and at the payment method step, if you are asked for a credit card information, you can simply click “Generate a Secure Card” from the frop down menu and you will be instantly provided a one-time use MasterCard number. The billing information is same as that in your PayPal account. In this way, online merchants treat your transaction as any credit card transaction and the money is debited from your PayPal account balance, or from your bank account or credit card account, or even your debit card account, depending on how you set up you PayPal funding sources. In this way, your chance to be a credit card fraud victim is minimized. PayPal Plug-In also features “address autofill”. Every time at checkout, this plugin will automatically enter your shipping address and billing address unless you turn off this feature.

Another feature is PayPal Plug-In provides a simple method to save and print your receipts. After you completing an online purchase, you can click the PayPal Plug-In and save a receipt for that purchase. This receipt will be saved in your online paypal account, listed by the receipt name, purchase date and the merchant.

How to get $10 off $50 from PayPal Plug-In?

The promotion page of this promotion can be found here. This offer began on June 3, 2008 and lasts until no later than June 30, 2008. To get this $10, you must have meet the following requirements:

• Have a valid U.S. PayPal account in good standing (address confirmed).
• Receive an email directly from PayPal inviting you to participate in this promotion (Did you receive it?).
• Make an online purchase (>$50) using the Secure Cards feature of PayPal Plug-In before June 30, 2008.
• Offer is limited to those who are using PayPal Plug-In for this first time.
• $10 bonus will be deposited to your PayPal account before July 31, 2008. (Note: This is not an instant discount offer!)

This PayPal Plug-In is really a nice tool for secure and convenient online shopping experience. However, this plugin will slow down your browser operations. I hope PayPal will develop this plugin and make online shopping much easier and safer.

The download page of PayPal Plug-In can be found here.

I have a post about how to make money from by taking the advantage of sing-up bonuses (click here). However, you will always see “Free checking with direct deposit” or “$100 bonus when you open a new account with direct deposit”. Most of banks require direct deposit if you want to get sign-up bonus. The reason is very simple: banks exactly know the influence of bank account with the rest of your financial life. They hope you can use their other services like mortgages, personal loans, auto loans, student loans and other financial products. They assume that you are too lazy to go to contact your payroll office to have your direct deposit redirected to another bank account. It’s true we don’t want to change our bank account frequently. However, we are not satisfied with merely one bank account. There are so many sing-up bonuses from so many banks. Then an “unofficial payroll office” is a must in order to jump in so many deals. ING and PayPal are most discussed and used direct deposit tools.

According to the definition from electronicpaymnet.org, a direct deposit is simply an electronic transfer of funds to your account. This is usually done by a method known as ACH transfer. Unless a real person is looking at the detail of the ACH transfer, there is no real way to automatically tell if the ACH is a payroll deposit or not. Most of the time a bank will count these non-payroll transfers as a direct deposit, which allows you to avoid service fees and/or collect promotional bonuses based on the use of direct deposit. (For more detailed information please refer to electronicpayment.org.)

After searching on the internet via Google, I summarized some most common banks that count ING or PayPal ACH transfers as direct deposits.

Bank of America (ING, PayPal)

Bank One (ING, PayPal)

Chase (ING)

Citibank (ING, Paypal)

Citizens Bank (ING)

Commerce Bank (ING, Paypal)

Compass Bank (ING)

E-Trade Bank (ING)

HSBC (ING)

PNC Bank (Paypal)

Principal Bank (ING)

SunTrust (ING, PayPal)

USAA (ING)

Wachovia (ING, no PayPal)

Washington Mutual (ING, Paypal)

Wells Fargo (no ING)

You can set direct deposit alert on Chase checking account. If the ACH transfer is counted as direct deposit, they automatically send you an email to confirm that. Of course, the prerequisite is you should set the alert by yourself. Please note that you should never call your bank to verify whether or not ING & PayPal are counted as Direct Deposit.