OT: Rant about PC World "cashback"

Cash back deals seem to be flavour of the month at the moment. Presumably because there will be an drop out rate that means it will work out cheaper than offering an equal size discount up front (not to mention getting your customers to offer you free credit in effect!)

Just played a similar game on a Samsung Fridge Freezer... There seem to be a number of hoops you need to jump though at each stage. The first was you need to submit a claim, but not until 10 days after the purchase

- so no doubt that means some will forget. Then you need to supply a copy of the invoice plus details of the machine model and serial number. I got that bounced with a "your serial number is not correct" response. Checked again carefully, resubmitted along with close up photo of the number. Bounced again - "number should be 15 - 18 characters with a check letter on the end" - and please hurry, if not submitted by closing date you won't get cashback etc. So wrote a more stroppy email, saying here is my 15 character number with check digit, just the same as last time. Here are photos of it, here is one on a web site in case you can't read the attachment, please look at them this time, and if you still think the number is wrong then phone me an explain exactly how. Also added a comment that I fully expect them to meet their side of the deal since I have done all the things requested in good time!

The response to that was - your claim has been accepted!

Then a few days later you get details of a citibank preloaded credit card they are going to send you. Again this presumably means that some won't use it, and no doubt it will have an expiry date etc. So not exactly cash back either.

They're gaining favour in the USA as a secure (cheap?) method of payment, to the extent that some companies there are using them as the only available method of paying their staff.

On 16/07/2013 17:37, John Rumm wrote: ...

They also allow the company to earn interest on money during the turn around period, provide data on the customers, who are more likely to fill in a cash back form than a guarantee form, allow selective discounts on slow moving products and stopping a cash back produces less negative effect than discounting a product then putting the price back up again at the end of the offer.

Colin Bignell

En el artículo , John Williamson escribió:

Canon and HP have been doing it for years.

Canon is dead easy - I've claimed cashback for several lenses and a couple of cameras over the years, and about to do the same again on a macro lense.

Fill in the webform, upload photo of invoice (or attach PDF of amazon order confirmation) and they pay the cash into your bank account. Simples.

HP microserver cashback isn't much more complex.

Would love to know the drop out rate. What % actually bother to apply.

Darren

That's because retail banking in the USA is in the Dark Ages and many staff are still paid in cash.

Which M$ software does scanning?

There is nothing in the linux world that is anywhere near as good as paperport.

That's the whole basis on which it works (for the vendor or manufacturer).

It died out here 10+ years ago after various people got the money back through the courts, after failing to meet what the courts regarded as unreasonable conditions to obtain products at advertised prices taking the advertised cashback into account.

I bought three microservers with £100 cashback each. First two went like clockwork. Third one, HP rejected the claim as 'non UK stock'. Vendor willingly changed it for another one, same problem. They checked all the remaining stock with HP and weeded out the ones that were unacceptable, and sent me one that was. In all cases payment was within 4 weeks (faster than advertised).

Incidentally, when the cashback finally ended (for good on that model) the vendor sold off the remaining stock very cheaply. I bought one more, and got one of my 'rejects' back!

why on earth would somebody not use a "pre-loaded" credit card?

Other than losing it on the way to the shops surely you just use it to pay for your next purchase(s) that are large enough to justify using a card. You won't be sticking it in the drawer waiting until you buy something special

tim

I usually avoid cashback but I did buy a Samsung tablet from PC World with £50 cashback. IIRC you had to wait a lot longer than 10 days after purchase to start the claim and then you had to fill in pages and pages of data into web forms including the same data more than once.

Like the OP I had no invoice so had to call then more than once before being sent a piece of paper that looked like a bad photocopy. Thankfully it was accepted.

They told me that the money would be paid into my bank account "within

After the cashback offer ended the price of the tablet went up not down.

The cashback on my HP microserver was a bit more straightforward but the money arrived on the last day.

--snip--

I generally buy an Amazon voucher if I get one, then immediately redeem it for credit in my account.

Well looking at some of the other links relating to this, is it a totally free card, ie no per transaction fees, no ATM/counter fee if you just want the cash? And being a credit card can you go past the amount of "pre-load" and get charged some horrendous interest rate?

Don't Amazon vouchers expire after a year? Or worse, a year from the date of purchase. So if you receive one as a gift you have no idea when it is going to expire because you do not know when it was bought.

They don't generally allow that. You have to spend the exact amount (easy in a shop as you can mix with cash).

That's why I buy the Amazon credit.

But this is one I buy *for myself*, and redeem immediately as credit for my Amazon account. AFAIK that credit doesn't expire, and anyway I use Amazon a lot (I spend about £5000 p.a. with them) so it soon goes!

Bloody hell.

me too

I was thinking that I don't even spend that amount on "optional" purchase at all, let alone from one supplier

tim

Then again, he could be using them to supply stuff he uses in his business. Amazon can be cheaper than traditional wholesalers for non-urgent stuff, especially if you add in the cost of actually going to fetch it, even at the national minimum wage.