TROY>> With "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" fast approaching, a software company is helping shoppers stretch their holiday dollars through its RebateHero.com website that aggregates hard-to-find deep discount rebates and streamlines the process of claiming discounts.

"Before you make a big purchase this holiday, visit RebateHero.com to see what rebates are available," said Annmarie Lanesey, founder of Rebate Hero. "You can even claim rebates through our site after you make a purchase. You really can save a lot of money and our website makes it easy."

Every year $500 million rebate dollars go unredeemed because people either don't know about those discounts or they just don't go through the extra steps required to claim discounts through postal mail.

Rebate Hero, the first website of its kind, helps consumers take full advantage of the $ billions in rebates offered by retailers and manufacturers. The site allows visitors to search the largest collection of rebate forms on the web in seconds and can even help shoppers save money after they've already made a purchase. There are currently 45,000 rebates in the Rebate Hero system.

"Rebates usually offer much bigger savings than coupons, but it's more difficult to redeem those savings because they require more steps. A lot of people forget to send in the paperwork," said Lanesey. "We're making rebates almost as easy as coupons."

The online rebate clearinghouse features a powerful search function that allows shoppers to search for everyday and big-ticket, brand name items from a broad range of retailers and manufacturers. It includes convenient tracking tools that send email reminders for rebate deadlines, to make sure consumers never forget to submit their rebate and remember to include all the required documentation.

Where possible, Rebate Hero consolidates the necessary paperwork or points the user to an online submission process (when available) to minimize the effort needed to redeem the rebate. RebateHero.com can be accessed from desktop, tablet, or mobile devices, and will be releasing a native iOS and Android app very soon.

"People are already used to searching online for coupons," said Lanesey. "But until Rebate Hero, rebates hadn't caught up with the Internet age. We're doing for rebates what the web did for coupons."

The company also uses Twitter, Facebook and email to alert users of special rebate deals, sometimes "free-with-rebate" items.

Retailers and manufacturers can sign on as partners with RebateHero.com to feed their rebates to users.