Basically, I joined ebates and through their referral system, got several friends and colleagues to sign up, and make thousands of dollars in purchases. ebates is then supposed to pay $5 per referral once that person makes a purchase.
Every time ebates directs someone through to a merchant and a purchase is made, ebates takes a percentage of that purchase and the ebates user is supposed to take a portion of that percentage.
However, they accused me of 'fake' referrals, even though each person made a bona fide purchase. Since then, not only has a CALEB, a rep at ebates, refused to share the considerable commissions ebates receives from the purchases I and my colleagues made, but also shut down all the accounts this relates to.
So the bottom line: ebates made money off the back of our purchases, but is refusing to share those commissions as is supposedly the whole point of this "rebates" site. This is, surely, not only unethical, but fraudulent on the part of ebates.
It seems ebates just didn't like the fact that they had to make good on their own policy. Imagine that. A racket and a scam if ever there was one.