Live Search To Provide Instant Cashback On Some Purchases

One of my personal gripes about using the Live Search Cashback program and eBay is that you are typically stuck waiting 60 days to get your cashback reward. Apparently I'm not alone. According to the Live Search Blog one of the most requested improvements was for users to receive cashback instantly instead of waiting for 60 days.

Live Search has listened and responded, sort of. Today they announced the Instant cashback feature with eBay (currently at 30%). Instant cashback will be eligible for some, but not all users. We aren't exactly sure what "some" means as there are no guidelines, but we are certain that it seems to be a completely random selection.

According to Live Search here's how it works:

1. When you search for a product on Live Search — say an Xbox — within the results returned you'll see an eBay ad with the gold coin cashback icon and "Live Search cashback."
2. Click the eBay ad to go to http://www.ebay.com/ and make your purchase.
3. After completing the payment with PayPal, if you are eligible, you'll receive a message saying "you've just earned instant cashback."
   
4. The cashback amount is automatically deposited into your Paypal account and posted to your cashback account.

From the description we are left with several questions: Do we know it will be instant cashback prior to checking out? What makes a purchase eligible for instant cash back vs waiting for 60 days? Is it dependent on the buyers account or the sellers account? Is there anything I can do to qualify for instant cashback?

Personally I think Live Search needs to specify some guidelines. I'd like to know if it depends on the sellers I buy from or if its just my account. I also feel that if there isn't already some sort of notification before completing the transaction that we'll be eligible for instant cashback then there should be. That way I'll have the option of trying another seller, or another item.

What I'd like to see is all transaction moved to instant cashback, I doubt that would happen but I'm pretty sure random eligibility is not what us users had in mind when we asked for INSTANT cash back! If they aren't going to do that then they should cut the wait time down to less than 30 days. Most eBayer sellers don't offer warranties past 30 days so there shouldn't be a concern over refunds. I never really understood why 60 days was chosen to begin with, it seems like a trivial number.