Marc Serafino
Paribus is one of those service everyone should sign-up for. There’s nothing to lose and no extra work on your behalf. Simply sign up — it’s free — and it will watch for price reductions on items you buy from select merchants. When Paribus sees a price drop, it will contact the store to get you a refund. And if you get the money back, they take a success fee of up to 25%, and you keep the rest.
The service will ask to access your email — don’t worry, they take good care of your privacy — to scan for shopping receipts from such retailers as Amazon, Best Buy, NewEgg, Target, Bloomingdale’s Staples, GAP, Zappos, Nordstrom, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Macy’s, Walmart, Costco, Sears and Home Depot, to name the few. If they find that you have purchased something from these merchants, they will track that item and when the price changes — do the magic on your behalf. You simply wait for the money to arrive.
That’s their tagline – “Stores owe you money. We’re gonna get it for you.”
In case you wonder, Paribus has a long history of developing advanced data structures and algorithms for some of the world’s biggest companies, and was able to develop what it calls the Paribus Receipt Fetcher, which can identify purchases in any mailbox.
Users on their end just have to keep buying stuff as they normally do, and let Paribus do the hard work in the background. Paribus will be the one contacting merchants to ask for refunds, and if they succeed — you’ll get a piece of the money back. They too will get a small piece of that money for their work.
It’s a win-win with automatic savings on your end. Plus, you get to watch the progress (and ask for refunds) through a mobile app. Pretty cool.
