Pinecone Research is Growing !

MrsB2100

pineapple wrote: »

I don't have a Paypal account and always used to get paid in luncheon vouchers but it seems I no longer have that option?
I liked the LVs - even though you would sometimes get a supermarket cashier who denied they took them and had to check with a supervisor - :mad:.
Now I have to choose from a limited range of rewards against which you redeem your points. I'm not interested in any of the things on offer. At least before they helped with the everyday shop.
So it looks like I will either have to get Paypal or I might just quit the whole thing. I'm going to email them about it because there are conflicting statements under FAQs.

I absolutely, totally, 100% agree with you! I really liked getting LV's - could use them with groceries or even as a take-away treat now and then. I don't get Pinecone surveys very often, so their current range of rewards are pretty useless for me - I'm not going to wait months until I can cash out!
I emailed them and asked if I could change to paypal, which has been done now. But I'm gutted LV's aren't available anymore ... If they gave me the option to stick with that, I would have.

sarah1972

I havent been asked to change my payment option?

I received a LV yesterday for my last survey.

I assume they are rolling this out member by member until we are all done?

BernadetteChurch

This is all very interesting. I signed up recently (thanks Sarah!) and don't recall getting a choice about how to be rewarded. I couldn't believe it when the Luncheon Vouchers started arriving in the post as soon as I'd done a survey. But last week I got the email offering payment via PayPal and jumped at the chance as now I'll be able to use the money on myself instead of boring old groceries!

I'm not surprised their going the PayPal route, to be honest. It must be a huge administrative burden, having to post out all those vouchers for every survey!

minimad1970

Well I've just received more Luncheon vouchers. How do you know they're no longer available? I thought a previous poster was just saying they were unable to use a certain amount of them.

Sarah, I received an email asking if I'd like to change to paypal, but I don't.

littlewren

I'm still receiving LV's and my daughter, who signed up just a couple of months ago and has already completed a few surveys, has also received her LV's. I receive £4 worth but my daughter receives £3 as seems to be the case with people who signed up more recently.

Oh and my daughter went to McDonald's a couple of days ago and tried to use it against some food and was told they didn't accept LV's! Even though it mentions them in the back of the book. The member of staff asked the manager and was told, no, they didn't accept them.

If you agree to Paypal, do they take off a bit for their fee?

littlewren

jaygray wrote: »

They've recently changed their Rewards system. Instead of payment straight into PayPal, as before, you now get an email from Pinecone - the day after you take the survey - to tell you that you now have 300 points in your account. You then have to log in and go through a series of forms which offer you all sorts of products for masses of points. You can search for PayPal, though, and there are two options, £3 and £4 (300 points and 400 points). The process wouldn't complete for me this morning, either in Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. In the end I rang the Rewards Helpline and they put my request through manually - and said if I still had problems in the future then they will do the same for me again. I think there might have been a glitch in the system this morning. You then have to wait three days for the money to be paid into PayPal, instead of receiving it the next business day as before. The lady on the helpline acknowledged that the process is now both longer and slower, and they've had lots of complaints about it.

Just in case anyone needs the Rewards Helpline number, it's 01908 214988, and they're open Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm.

Very strange, both me and my daughter are still receiving luncheon vouchers.

zoeholt

im still getting payments into paypal

BookWorm

littlewren wrote: »

If you agree to Paypal, do they take off a bit for their fee?

No nothing is taken off - you get the full £3 (or £4 for some) that you are due/expecting

dlusman

littlewren wrote: »

Oh and my daughter went to McDonald's a couple of days ago and tried to use it against some food and was told they didn't accept LV's! Even though it mentions them in the back of the book. The member of staff asked the manager and was told, no, they didn't accept them.

It depends if they are franchised ( where they may or may not take them ) - or owned directly by MacD ( where they will take them ). There is no way of knowing if yours is a franchised branch , without asking the manager. Mine is , and they dont take LVs. When I first found out I contacted Head Office and was offered a free meal as compensation for my "disappointment" - so I got the most expensive thing on the menu ( and still had my LVs to spend elsewhere )

pineapple

I've been doing Pinecone donkeys years - but sadly only ever got £3 LVs . My surveys have also dwindled - perhaps as a consequence of getting older and them getting more peeps on the books - but also these days I'm just not a very good 'consumer'. Going by surveys generally, I don't seem to buy all the stuff everyone else does. Not sure whether to feel smug about this or a society reject!
I have emailed them about whether I can opt to stay with LVs because so far I haven't been given a choice and can't find that option on their site. I can understand why they have made the switch but I'll miss my tussles with some checkout operators - as in 'computer says no'. :rotfl: