Quidco - Respectable Scammers?

CheshireBumpkin

OK, I know there are a lot of fans of Quidco out there but I'm one of the unlucky ones and pulling my hair out with them.

£70-worth of Sky cashback has been sitting as 'claim raised' since this time last year after I placed an order in February last year. Customer service is non-existent and there appears to be no way to push things other than to use their pointless help process, which I'm not convinced is even connected to anything at Quidco towers.

Surely this is unacceptable? OK, I know it's a nominal annual payment that we as users make but any other website that provided an inducement to buy from certain retailers and then never delivered on their promises would be labelled a scam and shut down.

It very rarely tracks purchases from other retailers, and only ever pays out many months later, and almost never without a claim being raised.

I've stopped using them now as I find it too frustrating.....

Money-Saving-King

To be honest I think your title is a bit ott. It's down to very very complex issue of tracking, that may be a fault at your end. With browsers getting more and more complex with their security that may well result in tracking failing.

If Quidco don't get paid you can't expect them to pass on the money to you. Like is said time and time again cashback is not guaranteed, don't make purchases based on cashback amounts, you might not get it.

Personally I use a 5 year old laptop for cashback and have never accept any browser updates and clean the cookies before I buy anything. That so far works for me.

sparky0138

I've been using TCB for ages and until recently none of my purchases ever tracked. I use Chrome for my everyday surfing so I decided to download Firefox and only use it with TCB. I delete my cookies everytime I use it and since then every one of my purchases has tracked. So while I can't help you with Quidco not paying out, if you do continue using them (or even swap to TCB) my advice would be to try a completely fresh new browser and as Money-Saving-King said, accept no updates or add-ons. Worked for me!

CKhalvashi

I use Chrome for cashback sites and Safari for everyday browsing.

100% have tracked so far (This is a 4 month old MacBook Pro)

CK

cattie

I've never had a problem with purchases tracking & cash-back from quidco & received my sky cash-back & m&s vouchers very quickly after signing up through them.

Like others here, I clear my cookies regularly before using quidco.

CheshireBumpkin

Good advice on the cookies/browser thing - thanks to you all.

I'm still gnashing my teeth at the time it's taking to get the cashback that's already been tracked though...... I'm highly sceptical that in all these cases of delayed payouts Quidco are waiting to be paid themselves - I suspect they're earning a lot of interest from their reserves.

gb12345

CheshireBumpkin wrote: »

I'm highly sceptical that in all these cases of delayed payouts Quidco are waiting to be paid themselves - I suspect they're earning a lot of interest from their reserves.

QuidCo (and all the other Cashbacks) use the Affiliate Networks such as Tradedoubler to get their payments for most merchants. The networks have a lag in paying, so if you generate a click any time in January say, the network will not pay the commission until early March, so there will be upto 2 months delay there (depending on when in Jan you clicked).

Additionally, some programmes will not approve the commission until the service has been paid for for a few month. This is particularly the case where you are getting paid for something like insurance and is to avoid people taking out the insurance getting the cashback and then cancelling after a month or so.

timbstoke

Just a tip - you don't usually need to clear your cookies. Just open a Private Browsing session. This is treated as a completely seperate session by your browser, so any cookies in your normal session won't be carried over. Worth knowing if you don't want to lose other cookies!

keyser666

Think the OP has a point here, what is to say they havent had the money? The retailer is a 3rd party and you have no comms with them to fin out if they have paid it.