Extrabux.com reviews and complaints

Watch out! I think that the only people who make extra bucks are the Extrabux people!

I was impressed by a review of Extrabux I saw on a consumer advice site. So I looked up the Extrabux site which was also impressive. But when I started browsing the site, my enchantment quickly dissipated. Extrabux prices for the items I compared (about 30) were all considerably higher than prices for the same item readily available elsewhere online - even after taking into account Extrabux’s coupons (if any) and rebate.

One of the first products I looked up on Extrabux was “SK-II Facial Treatment Essence 150ml.” The lowest price Extrabux showed after coupons (none) and rebates was $142.60. Then I Googled the same product and found it on Amazon for $109.85 and for $104.89 from another store featured on Amazon.

I didn’t find any coupons listed at all for any of the specific items I checked out, and if I looked up a internet store (as opposed to a brick and mortar one) on Extrabux, the coupons available through Extrabux were the same ones that were listed on the store’s own site. The coupons offered are nothing similar to what might be found on a rebate site, which is what I was expecting.

To be fair, this might not be the case for every item or every store, but it was for 100% of the items and stores that I looked up.

Another problem was finding what I wanted on the Extrabux site. Product searches are extremely time-consuming and frustrating because the site has very, very few search filters. A couple of times when I tried to look up an item and got more that 100, 000 results, I tried to look up the item a few more times using different search words, but to no avail. I either got way too many results or none at all. I can’t imagine that some of the very basic products I looked for were not on Extrabux, but either they weren’t or I just couldn’t find them, neither of which was helpful to me.

When I looked up “Fisher Price Tot Rod Battery, ” I got 108, 741 results - which didn’t narrow it down a whole lot. On the first page of 25 results sorted by relevance, I got 9 Fisher Price items including a bassinet, record player, bathtub, 2-in-1 projection mobile and a “rocker activity seat.” The other 17 items on the first page included “Deployment Assistance Services, ” an HP laptop, a “Garmin Waterproof GPS with Compass & Barometric Altimeter, ” “Team Vehicle Installation Labor, ” a Viewsonic 3-d ready projector, a Ricoh laser printer, a Brother fax/ copier, a digital camera, and finally, a “Flake-Stye Ice Maker with a remote condenser (priced separately).”

You don’t have to be a “member” to use Extrabux, but if you don’t register, you don’t get any rebates. That’s understandable - kind of. But what worried me was the fact that Extrabux assigns you your password, and it isn’t possible to change it to one that you pick out yourself. So if you don’t register, you can’t get any rebates, and if you do provide the information necessary to register, you have to use the password that Extrabux assigns.

A couple of times that I tried to use Extrabux (and I have probably tried 10-15 times), the site was down, which wasn’t the end of the world, but did make me wonder if something might be down when my order is supposed to be communicated to the vendor, or my credit card information transmitted, etc.. Even in general, having a site down 13-20% of the time isn’t a good thing.

Extrabux has a couple of press releases that makes the founders look like a couple of young, fresh-faced entrepreneurs. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but one doesn’t get that impression up close and personal. Talk with one of them was friendly until I mentioned that the prices on Extrabux’s website were not that low, and was told that Extrabux “never said that it had the lowest prices.”

Still, after thinking about it, I remembered that adage that things that seem too good to be true probably are. Why did I think that Extrabux could provide the lowest prices when the stores that use Extrabux have to charge the shopper enough extra to cover not only the rebates that Extrabux says it will give its customers (I’ve never had one), but also enough to cover Extrabux’s overhead and profit for its owners. I suppose that I really am the dumb one.

Hopefully this comment will save someone else a little time and frustration.
Bottom line - this place is a scam.