Top cashback warning. They increase prices to give you cashback

Squirrels_R_US

Hi, doing some shopping today on MLB Europe website, being a savvy shopper after deciding what I wanted I checked with top cashback to see if they offered any cashback. Which they did 4.5%. I clicked the link only to find the jacket I was looking at had increased from £25 to £29 and a T-shirt from £10 to £12. 
Has anyone else come across this, I was under the impression that they made their money from clicks not buy increasing prices. 
I think this could need more investigation.
Just beware and always check direct before using these services.

couriervanman

MLB.......nothing shows up on top cashback or quidco

You must be looking on US site

Squirrels_R_US

No On TopCashback it is called Major League Baseball but the link directs you to mlb Europe website. 

Sorry for for the confusion 

JJ_Egan

<I think this could need more investigation.>

Probably not UK laws to investigate .

dinglebert

You are correct.  I know that they do this with insurance quotes but that much harder to show as you have to go through so many questions to get to the quote.  Never seen on it a retail site before.

First Item I see under clearance on non topcashback

Reduced: £25.00

Regular: £65.00

Boston Red Sox Letterman Jacket - Red - Mens

Via topcashback which for me is 8.25%

Reduced: £29.00

Regular: £74.00

Boston Red Sox Letterman Jacket - Red - Mens

Sandtree

Squirrels_R_US said:
I was under the impression that they made their money from clicks not buy increasing prices. 

Who is “they”? The cashback site? They make money by:

a) Not giving you all the cashback
b) People who click through without being logged in
c) People who dont take money out
d) Some charge an annual fee out of cashback

There has always been stories of differential pricing and no reason why the merchant couldnt decide that they want to charge customers coming via affiliate marketing websites (which cashback sites fall under)  than they charge people that come from say google search. After all affiliate marketing is supposed to pass across hot leads and so the merchant may think they can bump the prices slightly as the visitors will be less price sensitive. 

Plenty others have speculated that if you turn up to a site on a Mac, Windows 10 machine or a Windows XP you’ll see different prices, orderings or inclusion/exclusion of optional extras etc because what it may tell the site owner about your socioeconomic situation and so pricing sensitivity/preferences etc. Few seem to have proven the different prices but certainly the other two customisations appear to happen on some more sophisticated sites. 

mattyprice4004

Interesting - I've just checked this and it seems to be true. I'll have to keep an eye on this as a regular TCB user!
Cheers for the heads up.

robatwork

I do a similar thing with car and house insurance. Just been through it for car insurance and although I can't remember the exact figures, it was cheaper to use the confused.com link than the TCB one with cashback, for exactly the same policy.

ivavoucher

Also the same with Expedia.

Nick_C

I found this when buying contact lenses recently from Feel Good Contacts.  TCB advertised an attractive rate of cashback, but the price was higher than going direct to the Feel Good website.  I got a cheaper price going from a Google Shopping search, which surprised me.

MidlandsGlory

To be fair, Its not Topcashback doing this, its the supplier detecting the TCB cookies and raising prices for people being redirected from TCB and I have seen it myself on a purchase.
If you flag it with TCB they will tackle the supplier as its not acceptable behaviour from TCB's point of view as they have told me.

Referrals can be odd, if I go direct to a certain contact lens suppliers website I get one price, if I go via Google search link I get another price. however if I go via a Google Shopping search link, I get a far cheaper price. Same site, same items.