Edited: whatever was going on with this app seems to have been straightened out! It has been working consistently for a few months now! Thank you thank you!! I love this app and am excited to be able to rely on it again! I have used this app for YEARS! It has been my very favorite rebate app! It is the only one I use anymore but that may be changing. I’ve heard great things about fetch and I think this might be the end of the road with Ibotta sadly. It used to be easy and trustworthy, now when I submit my rebates I always ALWAYS make sure to go back and make sure I got the right credit because 9 out of 10 times I won’t. The rebates match up, it reads the correct credit upon submission but when the money credit actually goes into my account it’s not the right amount anymore. Then you have the fun experience of going back and forth with customer service to get your credit.. sometimes they just give it to you and sometimes you have to send them pictures and bar codes ALL OVER AGAIN. It’s incredibly frustrating and time consuming. If this happened once in a while I wouldn’t care, that’s life. But like I said, it’s nearly every single time. To the point where if it actually does go through correctly I cheer haha. I love Ibotta and I want to stay with them, please fix whatever you changed and go back to whatever worked before.

I’ve earned a lot of money using this app over the years and it has helped in tough times. Unfortunately I have only used it a handful of times in the last 6 months because it has become so inconvenient to use, as well as not having the items I’ve repeatedly purchased over the years available, as they once were. You have to watch a video for 70% of what you want to unlock. This takes a lot of time especially when you go through sooo many categories of items that are on there, multiple times, and separated by a variety of the product. (Size/flavor/etc). And if you’re listening to music to help pass the time, it won’t continue after the ad is over. And fat chance you’ll find it available for the store you purchased it from when it’s restricted to one store, the store you didn’t purchase it from.Also a major thing is that you STILL have to unlock every item. Other apps allow you to just scan your receipt and that’s it. It finds the offer if there’s one available. Ibotta has been around for long enough to have that technology available. Most of the bonus offers now are just to recruit people to join but I’ll be among my “teammates” in no time, non-existent because it’s just become so time consuming and not much to offer after you’ve spent 20+ minutes just looking for items on your recipient, hoping to get cash back for, but sadly don’t end up with anything!

So, some items have a button that says “can’t find this item?” But other items dont. Often times I cannot find a product in the store, and i look on the app to find the button and report that the item is no longer in stock, but the button isnt there. Why not? I have no idea. Most items are in general, not available, and the ones that are available, I dont want to buy. But every once and a while you’ll find a good deal. Just don’t expect to use this to save a lot of money. There are also some weird UI decisions. I shop at a few grocery stores listed in the app, and you can choose to “star” your favorite stores, but theres no list of stores that contain your starred stores. Instead, theres an algorithmic list on the home page that suggests stores to you, and if you want to find a specific store, you have to search for it. “Starring” a store does nothing. Eventually, the algorithm will learn which stores you search the most, and it will start to suggest that store to you on the home page. But this will be a frustrating experience if you’re new to the app, or if you move to different area with different stores. Its just a crazy decision, I really cannot figure out a reason for the algorithm to suggest stores. Its confusing and not user friendly at all. I never even click on the stores that are suggested to me, since I only go to the grocery stores near me.

I used to love Ibotta. I would recommend it to friends all the time, even people who were asking me why I was scanning items with my phone as I shopped. Those days are gone. Offers are often not worth the effort of finding the nitpickily specific type and size of the featured product, and if you do find the right version at a store, the offer won’t be valid for that store, so you’re back to square one. Pay With Ibotta (PWI) used to be a great addition, but now is pointless because it doesn’t work. I have tried using it several times to no avail. The app will display a message saying it can’t connect with a button to “retry”, just to continue showing the same error. Today, an offer appeared via a notification for Dominos Pizza using PWI. I decided to use it today, and of course, Ibotta displayed the same error message as before. Updated my app, and the same thing happened. Ibotta is unreliable, and seems to be falling seriously behind in their attempts to maintain an app that functions properly and is user friendly. They’ve already removed Venmo as a payout option, and continue to reduce availability and value by minimizing/eliminating rebates (especially with PWI), making it pointless to bother even attempting to use the app on a regular basis. I’m a user who’s saved $700 since I started using Ibotta in summer 2014, with 2020 being my lowest-ranking year since all their changes ruined the app for me.