EGG is conning customers!

The_doomed

contact the fsa

s71hj

This is a brilliant site, full of people who are extremely helpful, offering advice that does not profit them in any way, but taking the time and trouble to do so. I have had people respond to posts i have made asking advice on all things from where to park cheap in harrogate, good value / free activities whilst on holiday in south wales, how to unlock a specific mobile phone - which would cost at least £5 to get done otherwise. Yet I am equally struck by how often I feel people post in an irritable manner, because somebody inadvertently does something in a way they perceive to be not 100% correctly. I think we should all spend our time on this site on the positive side and let the people in charge of the site deal with any discrepancies - whether inadvertent or deliberate.

PBA

Useful to know, though I've never returned anything on my Egg Money card. The word "conning" seems a little over the top though, more likely just a glitch in the system. To avoid the problem you could always return the goods onto another Mastercard, assuming you hold more than one.

The_doomed

you generally have to return it onto the same card you purchase the goods with

marybryant

It may be a 'glitch in the system' but EGG are aware of it, having repaid customers in the past (but only when the customers make a big enough fuss - in my case it took 2 phone calls when the Operations team would not accept that there was any error, and then I wrote a letter to the Complaints department). The complaints department promised that they would inform the Operations Team to ensure that it didn't happen again - that was three months ago, but EGG have continued to give me insufficient cash back every month since my last complaint. They are obviously quite happy to continue with a 'glitch in the system' that benefits them, even though it is short-changing their customers. I consider that to be a con.

Kayak_2

OK Mary you nearly had me believing it It took me a while to work out what was going on. Egg are perfectly correct in their calculations.

Egg are different to most cards. If you ask them to pay the whole balance each month by direct debit, they will take any refunds which arrive in time off the total before debiting you. So the balance of the next statement is not the correct one for calculating cash back. Clear as mud I know, so here's an example.

The balance of the September statement is £500. However, before the direct debit is due, a refund arrives for £50. So Egg take the direct debit for £450, not £500. Then you spend a further £500 in October. So the balance of the October statement is £500-50-450+500, i.e. £500.

You therefore expect cashback on £500 since that is the balance of the October statement and it includes the £50 refund surely. In fact it doesn't. The £50 has gone to decrease the September payment. Since your direct debit was £50 short of what it should have been, the October balance is £50 higher than it should be. The correct balance for cashback purposes is £500-50=£450.

In other words the balance of the October statement is not the total of your purchases, net of refunds, since the payment credited for September is not the same as the balance of your September statement. There is a £50 shortfall and that has to be subtracted from the £500.

Difficult to get your mind around I know!

The proof of course is to sit down with a calculator and add up all the purchases and refunds on one of the disputed statements, and you will see that the total does not match the statement balance and that in fact the cash back has been correctly calculated.

This 'glitch' only occurs if a refund arrives before the direct debit amount is calculated and taken. Refunds after the direct debit amound is calculated will appear to be correct.

marybryant

Sorry Kayak but what you say is incorrect as far as payments to Egg are concerned. On 17th of each month my statement is calculated and Egg tell me what they will collect on 1st of the following month. That payment never changes from the amount that EGG say they will collect, despite any refunds arriving later. These are shown on the next statement.

EGG have admitted to me in writing that there is an error in their calculations of cashback but they continue to make these incorrect calculations.

YorkshireBoy

marybryant wrote:

On 17th of each month my statement is calculated and Egg tell me what they will collect on 1st of the following month.

You might want to take this up with Egg as well. With a statement date of the 17th, your DD should be collected around the 5th/6th of the month.

Kayak_2

Are you sure Mary, just because I have had plenty of instances where a refund arriving between the statement date and the direct debit date has reduced the amount of the direct debit. In fact it happened last month. The refund is shown on the following statement of course, along with the reduced direct debit payment.

Also, YorkshireBoy is right, there should be 19-21 days between your statement date and your payment date.

MarkyMarkD

Mary

I started out being very sceptical about your post - sorry - because it's quite complicated to work out what's going on from an Egg statement.

Having worked things out properly, I almost thought that your original point was valid but I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you. I also agree with Kayak, although it depends when in the month the refunds are calculated (as, obviously, there's a time lag in producing the DD requests).

I have checked my April statement (the last one with a refund) and the following summarises the transactions:

(apologies for layout)

B/F .............................................. £538.73
Cashback credited in the month ........ (£67.67)
Payment collected by DD ................. (£471.06)
Balance at this stage ...................... £NIL
Purchase transactions in the month ... £877.37
Refund transaction in the month ....... (£25.00) <-- NB this was not long before the DD date
C/F ............................................. £852.37

Cashback calculated on £852.37 @ 1% = £8.52.

The payment collected was £471.06 rather than £538.73 (difference £67.67) because the cashback was credited to the account and deducted from the DD amount - hence I agree with Kayak. The refund couldn't be deducted from the payment due, as it was credited to the statement too close to the payment due date and therefore after the DD had been requested by Egg.

But the important point is that the cashback has been calculated on the £852.37 statement balance - and £8.52 of cashback awarded - and £852.37 does represent the net purchases. Egg haven't done anything wrong.

Can you summarise your transactions in the same way as I've done, for one of your statements where you reckon Egg are diddling you, please?