BigCrumbs

When I think of deals that sound too good to be true - but that are true nonetheless - I think of BigCrumbs. I have a huge admiration of things - art, literature, Geddy Lee's bass playing - that couch brilliance in simplicity, and BigCrumbs is just such a thing. Using BigCrumbs gets you cash back on purchases made over the Internet from a huge number of sites including eBay (yes, you can get cash back on every purchase you make on eBay - except Best Offer purchases, which are excluded by eBay's rules) and, as of this writing, the websites of 301 other major (and not-so major) retailers including Adobe, The Apple Store, iTunes, drugstore.com, The Gap, Home Depot, Staples, Petco, PetsMart, Hewlett-Packard, numerous online travel discount sites, and the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, when I say "cash back," I mean "cash back." Not credits that can (or more likely can't) be turned into cash through some convoluted process, not coupons, not gift certificates, but real, honest-to-goodness cold, hard cash, paid directly into your PayPal account once a month.

It's simple

BigCrumbs is simple, because the entire system basically boils down to this: retailers pay commissions to BigCrumbs for sending customers to their sites, and BigCrumbs turns around and gives the customers a cut of those commissions. And that's it. Simple, right?

It's brilliant

This simple system is brilliant for several reasons, not least of all that it's a win-win (-win) situation: it benefits everyone involved. Here's how:

1. You, the customer, use a BigCrumbs link to get to a retailer's site.

2. You buy something during that visit; the retailer benefits.

3. The retailer notes that you came to their site through BigCrumbs, and pays BigCrumbs a commission for having referred a paying customer; BigCrumbs benefits.

4. BigCrumbs turns around and pays you a cut of that commission; you benefit.

And once you've used this system and seen first-hand how well it works, you're likely to keep using it, so the benefits are likely to continue for everyone.

BigCrumbs does it right

BigCrumbs knows a good thing when they create it, and they're not about to go messing it up by adding drawbacks, pitfalls and hassles. To this end:

- BigCrumbs costs you, the customer, nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Period.

- BigCrumbs never sends unwanted emails, nor do they share your email address or other information with anyone else. They offer two newsletters, "Daily Discounts" and "BigCrumbs News", to which you can subscribe if you wish but certainly don't have to, and aside from those, I can think of three types of emails I've received from BigCrumbs in the year and a half or so that I've been using it:

1) notices that I've earned money by using BigCrumbs. These are sent after I make a purchase at a website I got to through a BigCrumbs link;

2) monthly notices that BigCrumbs has deposited money into my PayPal account. This email, with the happy little subject line of, "It's payday at BigCrumbs!", comes around the middle of the month in any month in which you made a purchase through BigCrumbs in the previous month, as BigCrumbs pays a month in arrears; and

3) account alerts, intended to make sure I get paid according to schedule and that my tax forms, if needed, are up to date and so on. (More information on BigCrumbs and taxes is available by clicking the "Tax Info" link on their site.)

And that's it.

- BigCrumbs employs honest practices. Their site tells you right up front exactly what the system is and how it works. Unlike the many systems on the 'net that try to rope you in with grand promises before they even begin to tell you how they work, BigCrumbs just tells you. They can afford to, because understanding how BigCrumbs works is more likely to make you want to join than run away.

They don't even throw in any niggling little annoyances like making you go to their website or send them an email to "claim" the cash you're owed. They just send it to you, every month, like clockwork.

Save more or earn more? The choice is yours

Okay, so, as you've likely deduced (and with all due respect to Ben Franklin), the money I've talked about so far isn't really earned so much as saved - it's paid to you in cash, but it is, after all, money you spent in the first place. So how do you actually make money with BigCrumbs? Well, there's a way, and it's almost as simple as the saving part: referrals.

Once you're signed up with BigCrumbs, you can go to the Referral Center section of their website where you'll find tools to create links, emails and other such goodies that contain your referral information. When you send such a goodie to someone you know or post it on your website and that someone uses your referral link to get to BigCrumbs' site and then proceeds to join BigCrumbs, they become...you guessed it: your referral. Exactly what that means to you will depend, in part, on whether you yourself are signed up with BigCrumbs as a CrumbSaver or a CrumbEarner...but it stands to make you money either way.

To quote the BigCrumbs site, a CrumbSaver earns the highest possible cash-back reward on their own shopping and they earn cash when anyone they directly refer to BigCrumbs makes a purchase. A CrumbEarner, on the other hand, will earn a somewhat lower (but still very competitive) cash-back reward on their own shopping and also earn when their direct referrals shop. Unlike CrumbSavers, however, CrumbEarners earn when other CrumbEarner referrals of their referrals shop, up to 5 generations out.

So regardless of which membership type you choose, you're going to save money on your purchases, and you're going to earn money whenever your direct referrals shop through BigCrumbs. The difference lies in how much you'll save, and whether you stand to earn cash back on purchases made by your referrals' referrals. And their referrals. And their referrals. And their referrals.

Remember...remember remember remember...

The thing I've found most difficult about using BigCrumbs is simply remembering to use it.

In order to be credited for your purchases, you have to remember, beforehand, to use a BigCrumbs link to get to the site from which you plan to make those purchases. BigCrumbs provides extremely easy-to-use links, called QuickCrumbs, to each affiliated site, and I've made using them as easy as possible for myself by creating a folder called "BigCrumbs" in my browser's bookmarks bar and filling it with the QuickCrumbs to all the sites I use (and to all those I think I might ever use) so that I never have to make an explicit trip to BigCrumbs' site to use the links, but rather can just click the BigCrumbs folder in my bookmarks bar, choose the QuickCrumb for the site I want from the drop-down list, and I'm there. But it can still happen sometimes that I forget to do that...and getting one's referrals to remember to use their QuickCrumbs can be tricky too. One can find oneself trying to walk a delicate line between reminding and becoming a major pain in the tail. But who remembers is rewarded, so it's a line worth walking.

In conclusion

BigCrumbs is simple, brilliant, profitable to use, and most importantly, it's real. It's a genuine opportunity to both save and make money, in return for nothing more than simply remembering to use it. I advocate its use to everyone who'll listen, and once you use it, you probably will too. So go, refer, profit and enjoy!  :)