Buying groups have become my favorite way to manufactured spend on my US credit cards simply for the fact that they are a straightforward and simple way to generate large amounts of spend in a short period of time. However, when I started using buying groups in March 2022 I found that there was limited information out there and I was left to figure a lot of it out on my own in addition to guidance from a few discord servers.
Buying groups can be overwhelming for those just starting out. With that in mind, I wanted to lessen the barrier to entry to an underappreciated manufactured spending method in addition to showcasing one of the newest and emerging groups in the United States.
Let’s dive into our review of Max Out Deals and a tutorial as to how you can get started with your first buying group.
Max Out Deals Overview
Max Out Deals is a major player in the buying group scene in the United States with 10,000+ active members and over $10,000,00 in monthly purchases. Buying groups, like Max Out Deals, are a great and legitimate way to generate a large volume of miles and points through credit card spend.
Related: Manufactured Spend with Buying Groups
Many buying group colleagues and I have recently been purchasing for Max Out Deals and we have been very impressed with the platform and timeliness of all transactions. If you want to get started with Max Out Deals, follow the steps below to successfully complete your first buying group order.
Signing Up for Max Out Deals
If you want to get started with buying groups, you can sign up for Max Out Deals here.
If you are Canadian, you are fine to enter your Canadian details. If you wish, you could enter the details that are tied to your US credit card accounts or US mail forwarder; it makes no difference.
Upon signing up, you will need to ensure that you have a US bank account available to deposit your payments to. Max Out Deals currently supports eChecks and ACH deposits for payment. If you don’t yet have one yet, check out the best US bank accounts for Canadians.
If you want to use eChecks, double-check that you are able to mobile deposit checks and understand any limits/restrictions that may be in place for your financial institution. For example, TD US allows you to only deposit $5k USD daily or $20k USD monthly, whereas with RBC US you can deposit up to $25k in a 3-day period. Certain banks may also not allow you to deposit from a Canadian IP address.
ACH (or automated clearing house) bank payments are the most convenient payment method and what I would suggest you use. With ACH payments, the payment will be deposited in your US bank account when processed which cuts out the need to deal with any sort of paper cheques.
To set up ACH payments, log into your Max Out Deals account and click “ACH Payments” on the sidebar. From here, you will need to enter your US bank account details:
- US Account Number
- Routing Number
- Account Type (Checking or Savings)
- Name of Account Holder
Max Out Deals will send a test deposit to your bank account so you will need to monitor for that deposit. Once the test deposit is received, log into Max Out Deals to confirm the amount deposited. Once validated, you will now be able to request and receive ACH payouts.
I highly recommend using ACH as your payment method so you can skip the step of having to print and mobile deposit a check and have the money deposited automatically to your bank account.
Committing & Making a Purchase on Max Out Deals
Once you are signed up, you are ready to make your first dropship purchase to Max Out Deals. There is a specific order of operations that needs to be followed: you must first commit to the deal before purchasing the item and shipping it to the buying group.
Committing to Purchase
When you are ready to make your first purchase, navigate to the “Deals” tab to see all active deals. At the top of the deals tab, you can switch between “On Sale Now” which shows deals that are at cost or with commission, and “Below Cost” which are deals that are paying less than what you will spend on the purchase.
Within each deal, you can see the retail price, what commission (if any) is being paid, and the total you will be reimbursed. You will also be able to see the retailers that have that product on sale.
Once you have selected the product you want to order, you will need to click the “Commit” button. Upon clicking that button, it will show the deal capacity and open up a text field for you to enter a numerical value identifying how many of that specific product you will be dropshipping. From there, click save.
Typically, you will want to commit to the deal before ordering to ensure that everything will go smoothly. Additionally, sometimes deals have limited space, and as such, you should always commit first to double-check that Max Out Deals is still accepting that particular item.
Of note, committing to the item and amount you are sending is imperative as it is within the buying group’s right to refuse the shipment or payout at a lower price if you are sending non-committed items. Additionally, if you make a purchase and the order is canceled, you can always go in and reduce your committed amount.
Making a Purchase
Once you have selected a deal and committed to it, the next logical step is to make the purchase. Since we are ordering to a US address, we will need to log into or create an Amazon.com account. If it is your first time logging into Amazon.com on a Canadian account, it may say the item is undeliverable. This will adjust once you add a US shipping address to your account as mentioned below.
Note: TopCashBack offers 8-10% cash back on purchases of Amazon items, such as Kindle, Firesticks, Echos, and more. Sign up here.
Before we add the shipping address, it is important to note that the key to buying groups is to ship your items to a tax-free state, such as Delaware. If you are shipping to Max Out Deal’s New Castle, Delaware location, the address on Amazon should look like the below, with your name and ID # (found when you click “Profile” on the top-right-hand corner):
FirstName LastName (ID #####)
473 Old Airport Rd BLDG 4
New Castle DE 19720, United States of America
It is very important that you include your USER ID # in your shipping details when dropshipping items to the Delaware address.
Once you have set up Max Out Deal’s address, you will need to set your billing address. For this, use the same details that you have set up on your US credit card accounts. Amazon does not care if your shipping and billing addresses are different.
When you are starting out with buying groups, I recommend everyone starts with Amazon as your main retailer since they do not care about drop shipping, thus, will not cancel orders on you. Feel free to dropship the maximum quantity of any deals that are listed on Amazon with minimal risk.
Other retailers, such as Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, tend to be less passive when it comes to ordering products to buying groups. They will actively cancel orders and ban accounts if you are ordering to a flagged address. There are ways around this with some creativity involving jigging the address, but I will leave that up to you to figure out yourself 😉
Post-Purchase & Getting Paid
Once you have made your purchase, it’s time to move on to the second part of the process: order tracking and getting paid.
Order Management
Once your order has shipped, you will receive an email from Amazon and you can then view the tracking number attached to the order in your Amazon recent orders. Items may ship using UPS, USPS, or Amazon’s shipping service.
Once the tracking number is available, you need to copy it and open the “Order Management” tab in Max Out Deals. In the “Order Management” tab, you want to click “Show Import Wizard” at the bottom which will open a window on the right-hand side of the screen. This is where you will want to paste the tracking number and click “Submit”. This will generate a new row on this screen, which will show the tracking number and the current status.
Once tracking numbers are added and items are checked in, this tab will start to look like the below:
While you have included your ID # in the shipping details, adding the tracking number to order management is a failproof method to ensure that your order is properly attributed to your account. You should do this for every individual shipment as part of your process.
I also have a basic Google spreadsheet that I use to keep track of what products I am shipping where, the quantity, and the price I committed to being paid. This helps me stay on top of how many products I am waiting on being checked in and ensures that I am not missing anything. Having high attention to detail ensures nothing falls through the cracks throughout the buying group process.
Shipment Check-In & Payment
At this point, your item has shipped and you have entered the tracking number in “Order Management”. Now, all there is to do is wait for the package to be delivered.
Typically, once it is delivered you can expect to wait a few business days or slightly longer (depending on the current warehouse load) for the package to be checked in, depending on the overall buying group load. Once checked in and verified, the shipment will show up in your “Receiving” tab and you will receive an email.
Once your items have been received, you can request payment immediately provided your balance is over $50 USD. To do so, navigate to the “Request Check” tab and submit the desired payment amount as well as the payment method you would like to use.
Once payment is requested, you can expect to wait anywhere from a few business days to a week or two for payment to be processed (as it is done in batches). Once payment is issued, you will receive an email and payment will show as completed under the “Payments” tab.
From there, deposit the eCheck into your US bank account and you have successfully completed the full cycle of your first buying group order. Congrats!
Conclusion
Finding a new manufactured spending method can be difficult, but buying groups are far from a secret and have been existing right in front of us, waiting to be taken advantage of. While it can take a few purchases to get up to speed in the understanding of the buying group process, the juice is worth the squeeze as you can easily print credit card points.
I’ve only been using Max Out Deals for a few months, but have personally spent almost $19,000 USD in purchases with minimal effort. Both check-ins and payments have been timely which are two of the most important things when it comes to choosing a buying group as a purchaser.
Many Frugal Flyer readers have joined Max Out Deals since we posted this guide and have completed over $900,000 USD in total purchases. If you want to get started with buying groups to build your miles and points balances, you can sign up for Max Out Deals here.
If you have any questions about the process, Max Out Deals, or buying groups in general, drop us a comment and I would be happy to share my expertise.
Josh Bandura
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This buying group is not recommended, and tbh if you only used them for a couple of weeks, that’s not enough time to know if they are truly good or not. Many incidents with missing items from shipments and sometimes members’ balances being changed *days* after check in/scan because they claimed they didn’t get the item *days* after. Buy for this group at your own risk.
Hi T,
I think all buying groups have their risks and that is the unfortunate part of the game. I had been using Max Out Deals for a few weeks when this guide was written but I’ve been using them for months now with no issues. I will say, it is definitely important to try a few out and figure out which group fits your needs or have a few groups on the go for a bit of deal diversity.
Must the Maxoutdeals Echeck be deposited via Mobile deposit or can I deposit it in A bank or ATM? Thank you!
Hey Mat,
You can deposit Echecks via mobile deposit. I have regularly used my Capital One US bank account to deposit Echecks using the app with no issues.
Tested out two orders and found following,
1. Most deals have outdated prices
2. Oder management is fast after they’re received shipment
3. Requested payments on 3/6 with ACH and 3/9 with Echeck. No response
4. Created a ticket on 3/6 for ACH. No response
Wouldn’t continue until got paid. 🙁
Completely fair – I can say that I am seeing a week or two lag from MOD and other buying groups at the moment when it comes to payment as well.
Sometimes things are very quick, and sometimes they are slower.
Updates:
1. Join Discord to get the latest deals and announcements
2. ACH is automated and got payment
3. Got Echeck today and deposited to my bank. Hooray!
Will continue for sure.
Josh, Thank you again for the information!
Hi,
Found your blog and tried a test order. Couple points.
1. The Delaware address appears to have changed. Also don’t know if WSEB is still required?
2. The small test order I tried of 2 echo dots got cancelled by Amazon. Then a single order got cancelled. No reason given, but I’m assuming too many had been shipped to that Delaware address?
3. Listed pricing was not current in most cases. Often more expensive to buy. I only looked at Amazon.
I couldn’t find anything worth buying, especially since I wasn’t willing to spend hundreds of dollars on my first order.
Do you basically have to jump on the good deals right away? It’s frustrating that I committed to an order to ship something that surely their system should have known would be rejected by amazon when I tried it.
I mainly use kiva loans now, and would like to diversify, but not a promising start.
Hi David,
Thanks for the note on the address, I have updated our article. Orders being canceled with Amazon does happen, but it is very odd. I’ve only ever had one order canceled on me, which was most likely because I hit QLA (quantity limit allowed) on a specific Apple product.
The listing price may not be current since prices do fluctuate on Amazon, especially if the deal has been around for awhile. One of the biggest things with buying groups is getting in on new deals early, in order to be able to commit and actually purchase the item. For example, another buying group put out a deal for Apple watches yesterday and the ones that were in stock on Amazon filled up in a matter of minutes. If you haven’t already, I’d look to joining the discord group of any buying groups that you are involved in as they may push new deal notifications there.
Hope that helps!
I sent about 100k of items to Maxout deals. 3 of the packages were marked as delivered by FedEx to their warehouse in delaware, but they claimed not to recieve the items. Their reading comprehension is low in tickets as well, and they forget their previous responses. For example they asked me to open a claim with FedEx about 4 times even after I had already uploaded the claim and denied claim documents…. They act like they are going to reimburse for lost packages, but they simply never do just running you around in circles.
Taking a step back, its not uncommon for buying groups to say you are out of luck when they don’t get the items, but Maxoutdeals is worse for 2 reasons:
– the address at their delaware warehouse is germay drive, it is a known shared warehouse that is used by multiple buying groups. I don’t think anyone from maxout deals actually works here, instead they rely on the warehouse to scan items for them. When items are lost, they can’t do anything because it is not their warehouse, so instead they run you in circles.
– they would be better just to say “sorry we cant do anything” but they literally send you on an aggrevating goose chase pretending they might reimburse you, because they hope you will give up or something like that.
In the end, I lost around $3000 of items due to their issues, or around 3% of what I sent to them.
Still, I would not recommend them.
Hi Robert, this was taken care of now. We do cover packages if they have proof from credit card and retailer that it has been denied. You had never provided the credit card denial. Regardless, this issue has been fixed.
Thanks for supporting and sorry for the delays.
So I read your article and based on your recommendation I checked it out. On the surface it seems like a great way to MS if legit, but I have quickly become suspicius after creating a profile on their site and tried to reach out to their phone number when I had questions about completing a transaction, The number provided is “no longer in service”.
Also when you do a search on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRIdawGxOX0 the video seems to be targeted to people who might also have a propencidy to join MLM’s
Then i came back to your sight and a saw the below message from someone who issued a warning based on the purchase from their site.
Do you have an upodate since your purchses in November? Are still using their site? Have you been able to contact them via phone number or email, and if so are they responisve.
Hi Stephen,
I am still using Max Out Deals but not as often currently as I am not working on meeting the MSR for any US cards. I do use them in conjunction with a few other buying groups since the deals can vary. I can say that Max Out has been slow with payments – I just recently was paid out for a payment requested on January 3rd. Whereas another buying group pays out with about a week lag.
The best way to contact them is using the ticketing system on the site – this is typical with many buying groups.
Fraud Alert !!! Beware Would Strongly Avoid or even Report, this is by far the Worst Investment I ever did !! They are irresponsible & unresponsive!! They lost my packages and didn’t get reimbursed!
Hey Jonathan, Curious do you have an update on your purchase? Did Maxoutdeals reslove your purchase? Did your credit card company re emburse you for the transaction?
Hi,
Can you share which retailers you have had success in placing orders with? In my experience, it has only ever been Amazon. I was able to place orders with Dell up until around last September but that is no longer the case.
Hi Daniel,
Amazon is my biggest partner for sure. I have had success with Best Buy and Target in recent times, but have since been flagged with them on my existing account. Right now I have Walmart working as well with an address jig, but that was a recent development. With that in mind, people typically don’t share the address jigs that they have that are working since it runs the risk of them no longer working if multiple people are using the same jig.
Keep on trying with other retailers and you may find a method that works.
Thanks Josh
Hi,
Do you need to absolutely have an address in the U.S. to do work with them ? Also, do you need to deposit your checks in a US Bank account or a simple USD account in a Canadian bank would work ?
Thank you,
Antoine
Hi Antoine,
I don’t believe it is required to have a US address for Max Out Deals, but the article was written under the assumption that most individuals would (since they would most likely be interested in US buying groups since they are working on US credit cards).
If your USD account at a Canadian bank can accept mobile cheque deposits, I would think that it should be fine but neither Reed nor I have experience in that as we both have dedicated US bank accounts. It is quite straightforward to obtain a US bank account, so I would recommend going down that route if possible.
I already got the US Bank account a few days ago.
Only missing the US credit card now !
Thanks for the reply 🙂
what if I upload tracking number after the item arrived.
As long as you include your USER ID on the label (as per my example shipping address) you should receive credit for the item being delivered.
In the future, ensure you are uploading your tracking number before delivery as a best practice.
be careful. Even if you commit because you like the commisiin they are offering. If they lower the commission or worse make it below break even deal and its delivered after the change you will get paid or not get paid what they are offering on day of delivery. This is the response I got to an item I committed with comission of x and had delivered to home. created shipping label and was going to shi pto DE warehouse but after they nuked the commission amount I won;t be sending it there unless things change.
Hi Ari,
I would advise against shipping to your home address if you are a Canadian due to the burden of shipping cross-border. I would recommend dropshipping directly to the Delaware address for ease.
Regarding commission amounts, these can absolutely change and is something to take into account. However, I always view the commission as a bonus as I’m not necessarily looking to make a profit on what I order, but am instead interested in generating credit card spend.
Thanks for this. I have a question – what is WSEB?
Hi Daniella,
I believe WSEB is just the identifying code they use for their warehousing partner. As long as it is on the label, you are good to go.
Should I be concerned if the Group Buy vendors do not pay me back? Sorry newbie here. Many thanks for sharing.
Hey Pikachu,
I would never vouch for a buying group or service that I do not use personally. I’ve already sent them over $10k USD in merchandise and have been paid out timely.
That being said, there is always risk with any manufactured spending like this (e.g. a package could be lost), but it is rare. I recommend starting with a few smaller items to see how the process works and then adjust your spending accordingly.
Hey Josh are you mainly using this to hit MSR on US cards or are you also using this after you’ve already received the bonus?
Hi Ed,
It is a combination for me. I’ve been using it for MSR but also to hit certain goals (e.g. 15k spend on Hilton Surpass for a free night cert). I typically take advantage of the Amazon device deals on Amazon regardless for the easy 8-10% cash back via Top Cash Back as well.
This takes my game to the next level! Thanks for posting.
Hey Raphael,
Absolutely, more than happy to share a great manufactured spending technique that is working very well for myself and my P2. Let me know if you have any questions!