santander retail offers

chris5012

I have only just joined Retailers Offers with Santander. I shopped online with Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) which is one of the Retailers. The option was offered on their website to pay using my Santander debit card through PayPal and that is what I did. Because the transaction is shown as "Pay PayPal re EWM" Santander are saying I purchased the clothes items through a third party and am therefore not entitled to my £5 cashback!:( I have disputed this with Santander and am awaiting their response. Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so how was it resolved?

I would add that I have also shopped in Morrisons and their cashback is showing on my online statement correctly.

Frozen_up_north

Chris, PayPal doesn't share your banking details with the payee, so EWM will not know which bank you use. The details of your transaction will show on your statement as PayPal followed by a sometimes cryptic reference to the shop. My guess is the bank only recognises the transaction as being with PayPal. So neither side will be aware of the link and you may struggle to receive cash back.

The same applies to disputes over faulty goods, you would need to deal with PayPal not Santander.

I am assured by staff at my local branch of Santander that payments made using Apple Pay are eligible for cash back, the same as using the card itself.

chris5012

Thanks for your reply Frozen_up. I am afraid that you may well be correct that I won't find it easy to get my cashback from Santander. The person I spoke to at the bank call centre understood what I was saying but he obviously was having trouble getting the staff dealing with the cashback to accept the situation. Unfortunately you apparently can't speak to them direct which seems crazy! I now have to wait for a written response from them.

I do feel that the bank should make it clear on their information pages that payment through PayPal is not an acceptable method of payment if you want cashback.


A few days ago I made a further purchase from Edinburgh Woollen Mill, this time paying them direct with my debit card. That cashback has appeared correctly on my statement this afternoon which confirms that paying through PayPal is not a good idea.

01-10-2016
Santander have at last admitted that their system failed in not recognising the payment to EWM through PayPal. They have apologised and credited the missing amount.

RedImp_2

Must admit there's not usually much on the list that interests me but one of the wife's favourite shops appeared. So I added it and asked her to use the Santander Card not the normal credit card next time she shopped there. So she did. After a while nothing appeared so I sent a secure message, after a bit of toing and froing i was asked to ring CS on a number provided (all this for a couple of £). After being passed around a couple of times (why can't they give you the correct number) I got someone to understand my query. Said someone would ring me back (costing more than the refund by now). I got a text giving me a ticket number. Then a few days later another text saying my ticket had been resolved. Great. No phone call and still no cashback. Said retailer appeared again, again we spoent some money, still no cashback. I've been really busy so haven't had the patience to ring again, but I guess I will but it's frustrating when something simple should work automatically and it doesn't. You start to think it's all a con.

Catslovelycats

I know this is an old thread, but I've only just discovered this. Can't say I'm exactly excited: Sky, British Gas and life insurance are my offers...

SnowTiger

catslovelycats wrote: »

I know this is an old thread, but I've only just discovered this. Can't say I'm exactly excited: Sky, British Gas and life insurance are my offers...

My experience suggests the more you use your card the more offers you get. I have eleven offers at the moment:

Robert Dyas
Debenhams
FunkyPigeon.com
Spar
Menkind
Waitrose
Dunelm
Santander (Life Protection)
Byron
Starbucks
Pets at Home

Halifax/LLoyds/BOS has similar offers.

Nationwide and HSBC (and First Direct) provide offers through Visa.

Barclays Banks offers rewards (cashback) for debit card purchases at some retailers. They don't seem to advertise it much. Mostly relying on affiliate links.

Virgin credit card also offers cashback using affiliate links.

Often general cashback websites trump cashback offered by Barclays Bank and Virgin. And, because they use affiliate links, the cashback cannot be stacked.

EssexExile

I've never seen any useful offers. But I don't think to look that often so that could be the reason!