Money Back

Ebates has been quite successful with the "shop-through-us-and-get-money-back" portal idea by giving people most of the money that they earn through their affiliate status with the stores and then making the rest of their money from advertising. However, there are two smaller sites doing a similar, yet different, thing:

Stockback... With Stockback, rather than getting a rebate check, your money is stored in a mutual fund managed by Merrill Lynch. An interesting idea, and it even has a little bit of risk involved.

Fatshoe... Now this one's an interesting twist... with Fatshoe you get an actual Visa card in the mail. One that you can use just like any other Visa card, but the difference is that the balance on the card (your "credit limit," so to speak) is increased by earning points on the Fatshoe site. The last time I checked, there weren't too many non-spending ways (like surveys or visiting web sites) to earn money, so I have my Fatshoe Visa sitting at home with $2.50 on it.

I think the Ebates model is still my favorite, especially since I've earned a few hundred dollars back since I started using it. It's just too bad that it hasn't worked for me in the last three months... -ram