Topcashback - ripped off by the AA!

savemoney

Centrica dont own AA now haven't done so for some years

"In 2004, the AA changed ownership again to a private equity firm"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3855635.stm

2004 - The Automobile Association (AA) has been sold by energy group Centrica for £1.75bn to two private equity firms.

Op insurance often takes months to pay it can easily take 6 or more months. If it hasn't tacked for a week you should raise a ticket, then TCB should investigate this but it would take time. Sometime a claim can be put on ice for a while before its then acted on by TCB

TCB only pay you when n they get paid by affiliate network sometime companies dont honour there obligation although thats rare

aimingforadebtfreelife wrote: »

had same problem with tcb and the aa, took ages to pay out - took about 4 months. prob was with aa not paying the affiliate network who then pay tcb. classic case of a big company (owned by centrica who own british gas) waiting until the last seconds before paying out.

Tigsteroonie

I've just looked back at my experience with The AA thru TCB ... in both 2010 & 2011 I had to submit a 'missing cashback claim' to them as neither of them had tracked automatically. Both years, I received a manual payment in response after about three months. (In 2011, I contacted the TCB Rep on MSE and asked them to nudge the claim!)

Guess what. The 2012 purchase hasn't tracked either - I've just submitted a claim for that too.

ThumbRemote

pmduk wrote: »

The deal with cashback sites is that they pay you after the retailer has paid them.

Yes. This was also mentioned in posts 4, 9 and 10.

Dave_C_2

I don't use TopCashBack and as such I can't understand the OP's problem. If the contract was with TCB then its clearly the fault of TCB.
I assume that the AA membership is valid and they are getting the required service from the AA, so how is the AA at fault?

I've been an AA member for quite a few years and as such I get free homestart thrown in with my roadside assist. Do you get this with TCB?

Dave

crazyfj

Same problem twice with AA.

However TCB did get my money for breakdown insurance (after a long time but in fairness they did try really hard and good customer service).

Quidco not the same level of customer service, straight decline on home insurance.

MeanParent

Dave_C wrote: »

I don't use TopCashBack and as such I can't understand the OP's problem. If the contract was with TCB then its clearly the fault of TCB.
I assume that the AA membership is valid and they are getting the required service from the AA, so how is the AA at fault?

I've been an AA member for quite a few years and as such I get free homestart thrown in with my roadside assist. Do you get this with TCB?

Dave

Doesn't work like that I am afraid. Top cash back act in a similar way to an agent. They can only pay out when they receive the payment from the affiliate network who in turn can only pay out when they are paid by the AA.

It is effectively a pay when paid agreement and the T&Cs state as much.

What is more a transaction may not be valid for many reasons. The most common one is that it may not track.

I have just had a payment from TCB that has taken nearly six months to come through.

Dave_C_2

So as I understand it, Buying the standard Roadside Assist package:
Either I deal directly with the AA and get freebie home start and no cashback
Or I could deal with the AA through TCB, maybe not get any freebies* and only get cashback if I kick up a fuss or wait a long time - as per TCB's terms and conditions.

Either way I'm still covered for AA roadside assist. Shirley this is not the fault of the AA alone. The problem lies with the combination of buying AA services through TCB.

But apart from the freebies* I won't be losing out, and possibly gain, even if I have to wait 6 months to get the cashback. So the title of this thread is misleading as the AA is not ripping me off. I get what I paid for!

* As the AA is a company with shareholders to satisfy, I doubt that the complimentary home start extends to customers using TCB, but I could be wrong - can someone confirm this?.

Dave

KxMx

If you click through Google or TCB the policy offer page is the same.

Cashback is only available on the policy when you pay up front the annual cost- no monthly payments.

So the AA have all those lump sums up front and so can afford the cashback. Rather than a customer that is paying month by month who they can not make so much money out of.

blabberwort

I got my AA policy through TCB and pay monthly, my TCB account has AA as now being payable to me. Maybe I just got lucky though. The cashback took months to go from confirmed to payable though.

KxMx

May be my mistake, car insurance isn't pay up front but the breakdown cover is, thought we were discussing the latter.

Or could be that t&c's have changed and to get cashback on breakdown cover it's now annual lump sum and not monthly payments.