Leave a Review Ibotta
Used to be easy-to-use
I’ve used Ibotta since 2014. Over time, the app has become increasingly more cumbersome. It’s now getting to the breaking point. Until today, likely the most annoying issue was the finicky barcode scanner. I generally must tap the button multiple times in order to bring up the camera. Also, now the green “verified” pop up is so small and quickly vanishes that you sometimes don’t know for sure if the item qualifies. There are many others; however, today I was introduced to the awful filter system, versus the system of scrolling. There is no way I am tolerating this nonsense. It took some time, but I had gotten used to the recent method, which had been a nuisance because less of the screen was dedicated to the offers themselves (it took much longer to browse). However, this filter is absolute garbage. You now have to manually filter by category, but if you want to look at multiple categories without returning to the filter screen, then you must scroll the the entire current category before reaching the next one. Often, you are looking for one or two specific items, and then you want to move on to other categories; this is now very inconvenient to do. I am likely done with this app if this continues. There are several other issues that have arisen over the last couple years that have been frustrating.Show lessHaibara 4869
Pretty good…when it works
This keeps happening: Before putting an item in my cart, I scan the barcode to make sure it qualifies. Sure enough, I’m told it’s a match, so I buy it. Then I take a picture of my receipt to submit it, and I’m told again, I have a match and will receive the rebate. So I submit it. Then, several hours later, I receive an email saying my receipt was illegible, or the items didn’t match, or something else that keeps me from getting the rebate. Wait—the receipt was legible enough to tell me I would get the rebate, but not legible enough to give it? Or the item was a match in the store, but not after I got home? So I take ANOTHER picture of the receipt and resubmit it, but for some strange reason now I’m also required to take a picture of the items’ barcodes and submit THEM…so I’ve learned not to toss any receipts OR wrappers until I actually receive the refund! There are other common glitches, like getting credit for only one of an item when I purchased more (and yes, I always check to see if there’s a limit). Again, I can resubmit…which sometimes works, sometimes not. If this happened occasionally, I could understand, but it’s about a third of the time. It’s getting old. I used to recommend Ibotta to friends (I’ve had my account three years), but not anymore. The savings aren’t worth the trouble. I’m cashing in and deactivating my account.Show lessJay Pie
It used to be good, not any more
I used to love Ibotta. Have been using it for 2.5 years now, and for a long time it was great to have really good monthly earnings. The average month I would get no less than 25 in cash back. There were months I got 40 something, 50 something and there was even a month when I earned almost 85. The more I purchased, the more offers, bonuses and cash back I would get. Ibotta seemed to reward me more and more, and included me in a beta savers program. I started getting more exclusive bonuses, but that was also when I started seeing less and less offers from the products and brands I like, making it harder to earn cash back, or to achieve the required amount of redeemed offers for certain bonuses. As a result, my monthly earnings have decreased so much in 2021, making it less and less exciting to even use the app. Most of the products I buy and used to be available in Ibotta are not available any more. In the past, I used to be able to add 6-10 offers weekly of my favorite products. Now, I hardly get one or two offers MONTHLY. I see that I’m not alone in this complaint as other users have mentioned the same in their reviews. It’s disappointing. I hope Ibotta pays attention to this and make some improvements about it. If this goes on, I will most likely end up deactivating my account and no longer using the app. If they do make improvements, I will surely change my review and give it the 5 stars I would surely have given it 1 or 2 years ago.Show lessNoemyZambratta
Developer Response
Hello, thank you for your review and for providing your feedback. We apologize for the inconvenience and have passed your message along to the appropriate team for further review. Your feedback may be incorporated into the app in the future. Thank you for leaving an honest review.Its ok, but doesnt quite work as intended.
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.Show lessk9s0
2 1/2 Stars
It feels almost ridiculous to speak negatively about a way to save money, but quotes like “time is money” or “wasted time is wasted money means trouble” or “no man can achieve success if he didn’t first know the value of time”, etc., exist because time is valuable. It’s one thing that can never, ever be gotten back. If this app was as great and simple as it comes across, than the time spent would easily be worth it. Select in-store that I’m going to, select/add to list the products/ savings, shop, upload receipt, done. HA HA HA...NOT! Savings selected prior to shopping disappear when receipt uploaded within hours. Too many products are not offered at the store it was advertised with, so while your list may show a nice amount of savings, good luck saving what you expect to. Then savings don’t get added even when receipt is uploaded and directions are followed, and more time has to be spent figuring out why. Ibotta basically answers your question with a question, that is after it emails you a number of articles you can read to figure it out yourself. This is a beneficial app for those accepting their time being valued at approx $0.25 - $1.00 per hour. For some, they’ll realize the time could be spent with family, pets, friends, volunteer opportunities, etc.Show lessSuebeehoneym
Developer Response
Thanks for your review, and we apologize that our service did not meet your standards.Used to be great, now, it’s a waste.
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.Show lessGame dumper
Developer Response
Hello, thank you for providing your feedback! We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and have passed your message along to the appropriate team for further review. Your feedback may be incorporated into the app in the future. In the meantime, we would love to assist you with accessing the Pay with Ibotta feature. If you have submitted a ticket with our Care Team already, please provide us with your ticket number, and we would be happy to look into this further. Thank you again for supporting Ibotta as we continue to develop and refine our service!Good with an Asterisk
I have earned quite a bit of cash back for items I purchase and have tried some new items and brands as a result of offers. The downsides are that linking your loyalty rewards card is supposed to make the process simpler, but it becomes WAY more of a hassle because it never detects all of the items I purchased. I always make sure I have the offers added before I shop, but somehow things are always missed, or multiple quantities are not registered. Reaching out to their customer service is a huge pain. The response is slow, sometimes you would have qualified for bonuses if the offers were recorded the day of your purchase, but if you don’t add the bonus into your customer service request, they won’t check for them. They also sometimes ask for pictures of receipt, items, and barcodes after not responding for a week (which means your food might already have been consumed) so take pictures immediately and hold onto them in case you need them as backup to your request. It’s honestly just easier to upload the receipts yourself instead of linking your loyalty card. In any case, these companies are collecting LOADS of valuable consumer data, the least they can do is make it simple to compensate you for your willingness to participate in that. So it’s incredibly frustrating when the consumer is the one having to jump through hoops for $0.50.Show lessjjustjjess
Developer Response
Thank you for your feedback! If there's anything we can do to turn this around for you, or if you have suggestions for improvement, please let us know here: http://bit.ly/INeedIBHelp and then update your Review with the ticket # so we can look into this. Thank you!Offers disappear within minutes
It feels a little like bait and switch here. You open ibotta, you see a bunch of great offers, you save/clip them to your account and then you head to the store. But many times between the time you saved the offer and the time you got to the store, the offer is gone from the app entirely. I’ve had this happen at least 7 times just in this last week. I literally had a friend tell me about a deal she had just got with ibotta while she was still at the store. I found the offer in my app, saved it to my account, and by the time I got my shoes on, the offer was gone from the app.
The offers need expiration dates the way coupons do. That way, users can count on them. But what I think the ibotta people don’t get is that most of us budget and plan our grocery trips before we head out the door. I’m not willing to roll the dice with purchases, only to get home, scan a receipt and find the offer suddenly disappeared within the hour. Then I’m stuck paying full price for everything. It feels very sleazy and dishonest to randomly pull offers off the app at any day or time.
I used to love this app. I knew I could count on it. And offers didn’t randomly disappear, and actually would say how many days you had left to use them (some offers still show this). But currently this app has become impractical and wasteful. It’s a grocery gambling game at best.Show lessGamer McGamerton
Developer Response
Sorry for the frustration. On rare occasions, an offer will expire early due to overwhelming popularity and per our terms with our brand partners. We know this can be frustrating and apologize for the inconvenience.At a time was a great app and money saver, now not so much
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!Show lessKepesky
Developer Response
Thank you for your review. We appreciate your feedback and have passed your message along to the appropriate team for further review. Your feedback may be incorporated into the app in the future. Thanks for supporting Ibotta as we continue to develop and refine our services.Terrible customer service
This app used to be great, but rarely works correctly anymore and the customer service is terrible. You follow the offer exactly and still cannot seem to get your credit and customer service is no help. It takes days for them to respond and when they do it’s absolutely no help and solves nothing. I currently have a $50+ pending credit since June(over 6 months ago) for a hotel stay. Originally customer service tried to blame it on me that everything wasn’t done correctly and they didn’t seem to have any of the information on the stay even though the pending credit is right there in my account. I had to provide a bunch of information from a hotel stay that was months ago, even though it was information they should have had. After providing all this, they changed there story and blamed it on the vendor not crediting them. I don’t care about this though as I made the deal with them. If their vendor is not paying them that’s their problem and has nothing to do with honoring their offer with me. I still have this case open today, over a month after I first contacted them about it. The last response from them was over a week ago saying they are experiencing a large amount of customer service messages and not to worry they didn’t forget about my case. Not shocking they have a lot of issues to deal with from my experience. This app seems great in theory, but is more of a hassle than it is worth.Show lessr4321e
Developer Response
We're sorry to hear this! The Social Media Team would love to personally look into this for you, please write in to us directly at accountsupport@ibotta.com subject, "App Store Review - r4321e" Thank you for your review, we look forward to assisting you!
