Thomas Cook decline my £69.58 Topcashback AND decline my Mum's £34.79

MarkBargain

I just thought I would post about how Thomas Cook have left my family over £100 out of pocket. We booked holidays with them in September 2013 through Topcashback, choosing them over other companies due to their generous cash back offered. However the cashback did not track in my Topcashback account for my booking or my Mum's account for her booking. I logged a claim and chased it up, but ultimately I was told the following.

We have recently heard back as regards to the status of your Missing CashBack Claim.

I’m afraid that the merchant has taken the decision to decline your missing commission claim, no information in helping to clarify as to why this decision has been reached has been provided but we would like to provide some possible reasons…

• The merchant could not prove that your queried transaction has been the result of a Top CashBack referral, and therefore is not eligible for a commission (or cashback) payment.
• The merchant does not feel that you have met their terms for qualifying for cashback.
• There may have been another entity involved prior to or during your transaction that your commission may have been awarded to, as they may have been marked as the referrer to this.
• The merchant is not happy with the validity of your transaction.
• The merchant believes that you have already received the correct amount of cashback in response to this transaction.
• The merchant may not have been able to locate your queried transaction, based on the information that you have supplied (especially that in which you have provided as your main ‘Order number’).

Whilst no reason has been communicated on this occasion, when a claim is declined there is invariably a solid reason for this.

We are sorry that we have not been able to recover anything for you on this occasion.

I hope that any transactions you go on to make in the future go a lot more smoothly for you.

My Mum had the exact same message in her Topcashback account. Our purchases were perfectly valid and it is annoying to lose out on over £100 without Thomas Cook even providing any sort of reason why not. Perhaps they just felt like keeping the £100+ in their pockets rather than handing it over. :mad:

If any representatives of Thomas Cook read this forum perhaps you would like to comment? Otherwise, future customers may be left with the impression your company does not keep it's cash back promises so people may choose to shop elsewhere. I certainly have for holidays booked since!

photome

you are not £100 out of pocket as cashback is never gteed.

Are you sure you met all the conditions, if you are then I would post on thomas cooks facebook page (if they have one)

tomtontom

Did you clear your cookies before booking, were any other discount codes used?

balletshoes

cashback is never guaranteed, so i always only pay what i'm happy to pay and class any successful cashback as a bonus.

MarkBargain

photome wrote: »

you are not £100 out of pocket as cashback is never gteed.

Are you sure you met all the conditions, if you are then I would post on thomas cooks facebook page (if they have one)

I don't have a Facebook account, but maybe they will respond to this thread.

MarkBargain

tomtontom wrote: »

Did you clear your cookies before booking, were any other discount codes used?

I didn't clear cookies, but Topcashback always works for other sites and I hadn't used other ways of accessing the Thomas Cook website. I didn't use any discount codes.

MarkBargain

balletshoes wrote: »

cashback is never guaranteed, so i always only pay what i'm happy to pay and class any successful cashback as a bonus.

The holiday was a similar price at several websites, so I went with Thomas Cook as their Topcashback rate was highest. While I could treat cash back as a bonus, to be honest if a company offers me £100 and I meet the T&Cs I do expect them to honour that £100.

Topcashback works fine 99% of the time, but note the 1% of failures are always the biggest amounts. Funny that.

vegasvisitor

I always use a separate browser (firefox) for Quidco etc. That way you don't need to clear cookies. Just switch browser and log in to do your purchase. I don't browse using firefox, I keep it solely for when I am ready to make a purchase using quidco. I've signed up for topcashback too but haven't used it yet. I assume it would work the same anyway.

callum9999

MarkBargain wrote: »

I don't have a Facebook account, but maybe they will respond to this thread.

Of course they won't.

MarkBargain wrote: »

I didn't clear cookies, but Topcashback always works for other sites and I hadn't used other ways of accessing the Thomas Cook website. I didn't use any discount codes.

Then it's most likely your fault then. If you don't clear your cookies then the sale could be attributed to a different website and they would have been paid the £70.

It may have always worked for you, but it doesn't "always" work - hence why TCB specifically tell you to clear your cookies before going through it.

I'm not trying to criticise you - it's an easy mistake to make, it just looks like it was your fault not their's.

MarkBargain

callum9999 wrote: »

Of course they won't.

How can you write of course they won't? How can you be sure? I wrote a similar thread about Axa recently and they did respond and paid the cash back. In fact you even commented on that thread!! So why is this so different?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5109486

As for the cookies, I only ever visit retail sites through Topcashback.

MarkBargain

lesley74 wrote: »

I always use a separate browser (firefox) for Quidco etc. That way you don't need to clear cookies. Just switch browser and log in to do your purchase. I don't browse using firefox, I keep it solely for when I am ready to make a purchase using quidco. I've signed up for topcashback too but haven't used it yet. I assume it would work the same anyway.

By the way, my Mum used a different browser altogether and a separate Topcashback account. She booked the same holiday on the same day, yet both were declined. Coincidence?!