Raileasy / Great British Discounts Cashback Promotion - is this a scam?

waterwatereverywhere

Hi,

I'm wondering if anyone else has applied for the cashback promotion Raileasy are currently running? You book a train ticket and they have on their website a huge promotion saying you can claim a £20 cashback card for taking a trial subsription with Great British Discounts.

It says the cashback card is yours to keep whether or not you take out a full subscription after the free trial.

Has anyone actually received the cashback card - as we're wondering if this is a scam since we have not received our card and emails are just being ignored.

We took out the trial subscription and sent off the application for the £20 cashback card. It has NEVER been received.

Also Great British Discounts make it quite difficult for you to claim the cashback card in the first place. They supply a 'vague' form and require you to fill in your "membership number" and another number but they in fact never tell you what your membership number is and requests to them to find out what the number is are just ignored. Raileasy have also ignored emails on the subject of Great British Discounts. Eventually telephoning Great British Discounts (who seem to be in Ireland) they gave a "membership number" over the phone but we have yet to receive the cashback card.

Since not receiving the cashback card we have emailed Great British Discounts to say we will not be proceeding with a full subscription and asking them to cancel the Direct Debit but they have also ignored these emails and now we're worried they will start taking money from our account.

Just wondering if this is a scam really and if so what action we can take and against whome, Raileasy and/or Great British Discounts?

Alternatively, if others have actually received the card please can you report back on how long it took and if you were able to cancel your trial subscription as we have found that the "discounts" on offer from Great British Discounts are ones we wouldn't use.

Many thanks.

peter_the_piper

Quite likely they will take the money, check with your bank and cancel D/D and card if necessary.

Aimee72

Hi all,
I posted this info to help another form user and came across this tread, thought this may help you lot out too.

I had a similar problem with the same prepaid card, but I'm happy to say i was able to get in touch with company and they were able to sort it out for me :j. I got hold of there customer service dept at 08000 394053 and explained the problem with receiving my card with no credit, they explained that they had experienced a issue with some of the cards and were working on it. they also provided me with an email address which i will pass on to you.
You should contact customerservice@greatbritishdiscounts.co.uk

Hope this of help to you

regards
Aimee

waterwatereverywhere

Hi Aimee72,

Thanks so much for your helpful reply. Glad you got yours sorted out. We still haven't been 100% successful.

A relative who applied for this before I did has only now received her prepaid cashback card and, finally, a confirmation email from Great British Discounts saying that the direct debit and membership has been cancelled - but not before having to chase and raise a complaint.

HOWEVER, the prepaid card only has £6 preloaded on it, when this should be £20! These people don't seem very efficient and had I known it was going to be this much trouble I probably wouldn't have bothered choosing the deal in the first place. So to anyone who is thinking of applying be prepared for hassle ...

Aimee72

Hi waterwatereverywhere,

It seems you have the same problem i did, have you tried to activate your card yet? I was told the card needed to be activated to receive the £20 and it worked for me... below is explanation i got in my email from them about the £6.

Hope you get sorted soon.
Aimee

"What has happened is that Payzone has left a sticker on the card which says £6. So we will be getting onto Payzone to explain that they must remove this £6 sticker as it is causing untold confusion for our customer."

Appletaffy

Just thought I would add that I have recently experienced a similar offer after shopping with very.co.uk only they were offereing a very attractive £50 pre loaded prepay card for taking a trial subsription with Great British Discounts. They ask you to print your sales confirmation receipt from very and mail it along with their very simple form.

Sounds simple enough but then that was my problem and I started to search the net, I've not found much other than what is on this forum and am now unsure as to whether I should continue by sending the required paperwork off (what do I have to lose)? followed by cancelling my card with my bank and cancelling subscription.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

I guess they rely on people forgetting to cancel

Familyguy2012

Not sure if its a scam or not ? Copied and searched for company details from the confirmation email they sent saying print and sent the very invoice and came up with this company l-ev8marketing ,I applied for the £50 card this morning after my wife purchased something from very.
Lets see what happens.

waterwatereverywhere

Hi Appletaffy,

I just wanted to post back and say that our £20 has materialised, in case this gives you peace of mind re applying for your offer. I think the main problem with this offer is they were a bit unclear about what needed to be done, like asking you to fill in a form stating particular reference numbers which you hadn't actually been given!

Their admin was very poor - it was and has been impossible to get Great British Discounts to reply to emails. I've kept copies of all my emails and if ever they charge the subscription to our account I will ask the bank to refund it on the basis that it was cancelled but the company ignored the requests. (I haven't seen any deductions from our account yet.)

The cashback card did eventually arrive from "payzonemoney". It is one of those horrendous preload credit cards that charge you for using it, so in my opinion it is not one to keep. Normally you load the card with money and they then charge you for making withrawals at cashpoints or when you spend on it in shops. BUT because this is part of a free promotion they told us they had "deactivated" the normal cash machine withdrawal charge, so that you can withdraw the £20 "free cashback" from a cashpoint and actually get the £20 and not be charged.

We withdrew the £20 and then emailed payzonemoney to say we wanted to cancel the account as we didn't plan to use it with the charges they applied. These people are very responsive - we got an email back straightaway to confirm it had been cancelled.

PROCEDURE
When the card arrives, you have to go to the payzonemoney website and register the card - give your name, address, dob and passport number. Enter the "loading card number" which is on the back of the card and create a password. Then wait 24 hours and they load your free money on to the card. Then go to cashpoint to withdraw. Then email payzonemoney to cancel the card.

So, a bit longwinded but I guess worth it for £20 free - and I'd definitely do it for the free £50!

sigmund_2

greatbritishdiscounts is a trading name if it could be described as that the holding company is irish it has its head office is in dublin irleand and the company name is L-EV8 MARKETING LIMITED a private limited company by shares, 2 directors with addresses in the republic of ireland and the other 2 with addresses in the u.s.a. the company was formed on the 19.11.2010. there Dublin address is 33 Fitzwilliam Square Dublin 2. Republic of ireland.the landline phone is 0035316694707

amazingly

Hi there,

This thread is perhaps out of date having seen the posts that go back a few years, so not sure if my post will get read at all?.

Paypal every so often allows some cash-back sites to attract consumers into signing up with these sites - have recently joined with Great British cashback because their website was promoted through Paypal.

You don't have to have anything to do with travelling to be part of Great British cash-back then, as I had not been promised a £20.00 cash-back reward just for signing up to their scheme - a reward for using Paypal of some kind. I am yet to get an email confirmation regarding my registration with them and have no idea of when they will send the promised £20.00 cheque - have emailed them to ask, so will wait and see.

Not sure if anyone else has come across this cash-back website the way I have, and will be useful for longer-term travel plans where discounts are viable, yet not for the moment - just want the reward that was promised for at least signing up and being loyal to Paypal - lots of people do this so am not alone I am positive, yet just wanted to see if anyone knows whether or not they do pay the promised cash-back and before any subscription fees are due to them after the 21 days?

I once used another cash-back website and they sent me three lots of cheque's but ended my subscription with them as didn't need their services or products, yet did go back at a later date and pay the subscription charges even though didn't use their services etc.

rubychops

I am being given the complete run around by the Great British Discounts
I booked a train ticket with Raileasy and was attracted by the £20 cashback, but that was six weeks ago and now they say that they havent had the paperwork. Phone numbers, supervisors are unobtainable and now they say I should write in to complain. Part of the deal on the Railweasy site, was that you would still get your card, if you cancelled your subscription, but don't believe them . I rang Raileasy and although very polite, they admitted having problems with the GBD and referred me back to them! The cost of the call to Raileasy is over £1.00 per minute! So bang goes my cashback! Off to check my bank account now, to ensure they are not taking out any funds and will post if they are
Scam? Oh yes! Maybe worth doing an ariticle MoneySavingexpert.com!