Is It Worth Joining Swagbucks and How Do I Do That?

Posted on 2013 12 06 by BetCrooks

Personally, I hate shopping in malls and big box stores especially when they are packed with Christmas-crazed customers. So whenever possible, I shop online for the things I don’t make, bake or ~~steal~~ borrow. Just before I clicked on my Cart at amazon.ca, I wondered whether I could get a discount or kickback on my purchase. An internet hunt reminded me about a website called swagbucks.com. It offers rewards for activities including buying stuff. So I looked into the benefits of joining Swagbucks and how to do so.

Is Swagbucks Available to Canadians?

I vaguely remembered looking into this outfit once before and at that time I could not confirm whether it was available to Canadians shopping at Canadian online stores. This time after some clicking and skimming I discovered that it is. You join the same swagbucks.com site (not swagbucks.ca) and yet when you start shopping, you’ll be connected to the Canadian websites of multi-nationals such as Amazon and Walmart.
Rewards to Canadians are generally paid out in Canadian dollar gift cards that can be used at Canadian online retailers.

What’s the Scheme Behind Swagbucks?

From what I can see Swagbucks is just a large affiliate link website. If you click on their link to a store like amazon.ca Swagbucks will get a commission on anything you purchase. In return, Swagbucks will reward you using a part of that commission.

Is It Worth Joining Swagbucks? What Rewards Can I Get?

Realistically, don’t expect to get much. The most commonly earned reward is a $5 gift card for amazon.ca which you can buy using 500 Swagbucks.

Since most Swagbucks are earned at a 1:1 ratio (you get 1 Swagbuck for paying 1 real dollar to an affiliated company) you can see this isn’t a huge profit maker.

On the other hand, during this Christmas-shopping-season, some retailers like Amazon.ca and Walmart.ca were offering 4 Swagbucks for every $1 spent online. Since I had a few things I wanted to pick up from both of these retailers, it made sense for me to join and test the whole system out. (Note: I had already decided what I was going to buy long before I heard about Swagbucks. I didn’t buy anything extra just because of their offers.)

These may have been “Cyber Monday” offers because these same stores are only offering 2 for 1 points this week.

So I Only Get Swagbucks for Buying Stuff?

No. There are other ways to earn Swagbucks. A common way is by completing a very detailed survey for a miniscule number of Swagbucks.

Other ~~dubious~~ ways to earn ~~small numbers of~~ bucks:

watching videos (I haven’t watched any, but I suspect ads are involved)
playing online games (as above)
using their search engine for your web searches (presumably they either display ads or are selling the resulting marketing information somewhere)

How Fast Do I Get My Reward Gift Cards from Swagbucks?

I hate to say that some people like to scam companies like Swagbucks, but some do. For example, some people would buy stuff online, rack up the Swagbucks, redeem them for gift cards, and then return the merchandise they never intended to keep. Swagbucks would then have to reimburse the merchants for the commission Swagbucks received on the sales, the same commission that was used to purchase the gift cards given to the fraudulent customer. Swagbucks would lose money.

To reduce their losses from this kind of behaviour, Swagbucks puts a hold on your points until they are pretty sure you’re going to pay for and keep your purchases.

I made purchases on November 24 and November 29 and they say the points I earned will be credited to my useable account on December 26 and December 31.

So it’s not fast. But hey it also doesn’t pay much so who cares?!

Does Swagbucks Work?

To be honest, I don’t know yet. I’ve earned some Swagbucks for joining and a few more for filling in my user profile. I made the purchases I wanted to make before I joined and now I have to wait. I’ll see if I can get my $5 gift card in January. I’ll need it more then anyway what with the Year of the Horse galloping into view.

I’ll let you know then.

Thanks to These Financial Writers for Sharing Their Opinions on Swagbucks

These are articles written by some other people who have tried Swagbucks that I read before giving it a buzz myself.

Krystal Yee at GiveMeBackMyFiveBucks described her experiences and the ton of free books she has received in her post “Swagbucks Earned”

Kali at Common Sense Millennial wrote an amusing (to me anyway) article about How I Got My Coworkers’ Christmas Gifts for Free which included using gift cards from Amazon that she earned through Swagbucks.

MochiMac at Save Spend Splurge keeps a running tally on her website and says she has redeemed $2000 using Swagbucks. That’s rather impressive and a tiny bit frightening.

Bridget at MoneyAfterGraduation gives a lot of details about her experiences.

Join Swagbucks: Make Me Richer (or Better Read) !

Ms. Yee admits she earned most of her Swagbucks through their referral program. Being a curious sort, I’ll add my Swagbucks referral to this post in case any of you want to help me earn free books, too. : )

To join Swagbucks, you need to give them an email address and a password. All the rest of the information seems to be optional from what I’ve seen so far. (Just click on the Skip button when filling in your profile if you don’t like the question.)

Click on my link to get to the Swagbucks website (so I get free bucks!)
If the link doesn’t work, please cut and paste this into your browser:
swagbucks.com/refer/BetCrooks
In the fine print below the Facebook stuff, click on the Join Today link.
A new window opens.
1. In the Email address field, type your email.
2. In the Password field, type a difficult to hack but easy to remember password.
3. In the Confirm Password field, type your password a second time.
4. Click on the Free! Get Started button.
Open the Inbox for your email address and find the welcome note from Swagbucks.
Click on the link in the email to complete your account setup.

You’re ready to fill out your profile for a few Swagbucks. (Remember you can skip any question by clicking on the Skip link.)

You can also go shopping by clicking on the Shop tab at the top of the screen. Select a store from the list and click on it. You will earn Swagbucks on any applicable purchases.

Not all goods earn Swagbucks. For example, buying books from amazon.ca would not earn me any points when I tested it a few weeks ago.

You’re done. Revel in your opportunity to earn $5 back on $500 (or hopefully less) in purchases.

Good luck and thank you for giving me some Swagbucks.

(If I understand this correctly, get 1 Swagbuck for each Swagbuck you earn, up to a maximum for me of about 100 Swagbucks. Or maybe it’s only for bucks you earn doing some specific kind of task. Or maybe it’s 1000 Swagbucks. I could spend a great deal of time trying to find the current details but frankly it’s not worth it to me. Tell you what: Join. Earn lots in different ways. I’ll tell you what I get!)

Remember: only spend money you were spending before you ever heard of Swagbucks. Never spend time or money on something just to get points!

Related Reading

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Have you ever heard of Swagbucks? Do you use it? Does it seem really bizarre to you? Please air your views with a comment.

How to Buy a GIC in a RBC Direct Investing Online Brokerage Account

Posted on 2013 12 03 by BetCrooks

UPDATE: This article is historical, from 2013. I no longer invest with RBC Direct Investing.

We keep some of our hard-earned savings in guaranteed investment certificates. It’s true that right now the interest rates offered for them are abysmal. However, they give us a solid base for our portfolio that won’t evaporate during a market meltdown. We need that sense of security. So when I opened a RRSP account at RBC Direct Investing, I checked out how to buy a GIC in this new brokerage account.

Does RBC Direct Investing Offer a Reasonable Selection of GICs for No Fee?

Yes.

In fact, RBC Direct Investing offers GICs from some of the same financial institutions that offer the best annual rates at BMO InvestorLine. (CIBC Investor’s Edge often does not offer a GIC at the highest rate that you can get from InvestorLine or Direct Investing. They should consider fixing that!) In all, RBC Direct Investing offers GICs sold by about 20 financial institutions.

I also double-checked. I do not have to pay a fee or commission to purchase a GIC from RBC Direct Investing.

Buying a GIC from RBC Direct Investing

Go to the RBC Direct Investing website.
1. Click on the Sign In button.
2. In the Client Card Number: field, type your card number.
3. In the Password: field, type in your password.
4. Click on the Sign in button.
Click on the Trade tab.
From the list of links across the top of the Trade tabbed page, click on Fixed Income.
The highest rate for GICs with 1- to 5-year-terms will be shown as a link. The table of links displays the best rate for Compound interest, Annual Interest, Semi-Annual interest, Quarterly interest and Monthly interest.The minimum purchase required for a Registered Account is $3,500.
The Minimum purchase required for a Non-registered Account depends on the term: It is $20,000 for a 1-year term; but drops to $15,000 for 2; $10,000 for 3, $5,000 for 4, and $3500 for 5 years.You can also perform a search for GICs using the Fixed Income Search table.
I just clicked the interest rate link to select an Annual pay, 1-year term certificate for today’s test.
The Fixed Income Search screen opens.
To see the best offered interest rate, I clicked on the light grey downward-pointing arrowhead beside Interest Rate in the table of results. When you hover over this arrowhead, the message says “Sort on this column in descending order.”Eeeww. Bug!
Instead of re-sorting the table, it opened the Fixed Income Search box again with no data selected. It has not even got the GICs radio button selected.Doggedly, I use the browser back button and try again. Same thing happens. And again.
So I decide to fill in the Fixed Income Search box again. So I:
1. Click to select the radio button for: GICs
2. From the Type drop-down list, select: Annual
3. For the Maturity, from the drop-down list, select: 1 yr
4. And click the Find button.
And it just gets me back where I was with the GICs still not sorted by highest rate to lowest!
THIS time, though, when I click on the downward arrowhead beside Interest Rate, it sorts the table properly. Interesting!
To check this again,
I left the Fixed Income screens entirely by clicking on my Home tab.
Then started over again. I clicked on the Trade tab and etc.
The bug repeated.It seems it will only allow me to use that downward-pointing arrowhead to sort the table of GICs by rate if I run a customized fixed income search first.I checked that it sorts properly if you do a customized search right from the beginning. To do so, I:
1. Clicked on the Trade tab.
2. From the list of links across the top of the screen, clicked on Fixed Income
3. Instead of picking the highest listed interest rate for the certificate I wanted on the first screen, I completed a Fixed Income Search:
4. Click to select the radio button for: GICs
5. From the Type drop-down list, select: Annual
6. For the Maturity, from the drop-down list, select: 1 yr
7. And click the Find button.
8. From the resulting table, I can immediately click to sort by descending interest rate.

Why am I bothering with trying to sort the table by descending interest rate?

To avoid missing a higher interest rate when scanning down the table. I could have mistaken or forgotten the highest rate I saw on the first screen.
To see which companies are offering the best rate. Often there may be 2 or 3 financial institutions offering the same highest rate. I might prefer one company over another, especially if I am at the CDIC maximum insurable $100,000 limit for one institution but not for another.

So now I finally know from which institution I want to buy my GIC.

To Buy the GIC at RBC Direct Investing

From the Fixed Income Advanced Search Results table sorted by Interest Rate in descending order:
Click on the linked name of the financial institution offering the GIC.
A “Financial Institution’s Name” Buy screen will open. For example, the screen may be titled: Equitable Trust.
Review the
- security type (GIC),
- payment frequency (annual),
- maturity date (today’s date plus one year), and
- Interest Rate (should be the high one you’re looking for)
If they are all ok,
Click on the Buy button

Which was a bit unnerving as I had not entered how large of a certificate to buy!
Ah. That’s because I’m not done.
Review the info again. Then:
- From the Account #: drop-down list, select which account to fund the purchase.
  For RRSPs be careful to select the CAD account, not the USD one, if so desired.
- In the PAR Value of Purchase: field, type the cost of the certificate you want to purchase. For a RRSP account, the minimum purchase is $3500.
- In the Contact Phone field, type your phone number.
Click on the Continue button.
If you tried to trick it, like me, it will reply:
“The minimum Par Value for purchasing a GIC is $3,500. Please see the Fixed Income Order FAQ for more details before trying again.”If you put in the proper amount, it will take you to the Confirm Transaction Step 2 of 3 screen.
Review the “Important Notice” and the details of your purchase.
If it all looks ok, click on the Confirm button.
The Transaction Complete Step 3 of 3 screen will be displayed.
Make note of your Order ID number by writing it down, or by copying the entire order confirmation and terms into a document and saving it.
To check what’s been updated:
- Click on the My Portfolios tab.
- Check your Available Funds.
  Interesting. So far it has not removed the $3,500 from my available cash even though it says this is my “available cash as of the time it actually is now.”
- Under the list of links for the My Portfolios tab, click on the Order Status link.
  There’s the order. All is as expected. The Status Action is “Pending.”
- So I guess I’ll just have to make a note to not spend that $3,500 while waiting for them to drop my Available balance.
Click on the Sign Out button.
For added security clear your browser cache and close your browser session.

How Did the Purchase Compare to Buying a GIC at InvestorLine or Investor’s Edge?

BMO InvestorLine automatically sorts its table of GIC offers from the highest to lowest interest rate. That seems sensible. It does mean that the BMO GIC product offerings are not at the top of the list.

Investor’s Edge makes you sort the list of GICs you can buy, like RBC Direct Investing does.

On the possible plus side, RBC Direct Investing lets me buy a smaller GIC in a registered account, with a $3500 minimum versus $5000 at InvestorLine and Investor’s Edge.

It’s easiest to buy a GIC at InvestorLine. It takes more steps at RBC Direct Investing, even if it didn’t have any programming bugs.

It’s most profitable to buy a GIC at InvestorLine or RBC Direct Investing as they offer GICs from financial institutions with better rates than those at Investor’s Edge.

Given that InvestorLine sorts the rates for me and requires fewer screens to make a purchase while still offering the same high rates as RBC Direct Investing, I’d say InvestorLine is slightly better for purchasing GICs.