yougov.finance bribe

Band7

It's one of these almost-too-good-to-be-true stories, but it is true.

First mentioned by @Bridlington1 in the Natwest Regular Saver thread, but I reckon this deserves its own thread as it could be of interest to those who have at least 10 current, credit card and savings accounts and not everyone reads the Natwest RS thread.

If you are prepared to let yougov snoop (using Open Banking technology) through your current accounts, some savings accounts (not Regular Savers, sadly) and credit card accounts, they will credit you with 500 points per current pr credit card account (only 100 per savings account). As soon as you have 5,000 points, you can request a £50 payout. Payouts can be bank transfers into one of your current accounts, or £50 vouchers for Amazon, Tesco, John Lewis,TK Maxx and many more well known brands.

They say the accounts must be 'active' but don't say what they consider 'active'. More details on https://www.yougov.finance/

I have thrown caution to the wind and registered 34 accounts (12 providers) with them on Monday this week. Those were all the accounts they would let me add. Many of them are dormant but I added them anyway. I added them on my iPhone, where I have apps for all the providers, so it took me less than 10 minutes to get all the accounts registered, incl sorting one or two Open Banking (Truelayer) timeouts. They said they would add points within 48 hours. 

Today, they emailed me one of their annoying surveys (hate them) but I thought I play nicely for once and fill it in. At the end of that survey, they said I had 12,275 points, which seem to be mainly from the banks I had added. I was invited to redeem them, 5,000 at a time. So I requested 2 bank transfers at £50 each. Alas, I now have 2,275 orphaned points left - so I'll have to create 5 or 6 more accounts to get another £50. But in any case, my 2 x £50 have already been paid    and I can now revoke the snooping authorisations for yougov. EDIT: I have since learnt that if you keep the registration for an account active, you’ll get points every quarter. Whilst if you delete and later re-add it, you won’t get further points. So I have not revoked the snooping authorisations, after all.

Obviously it is your decision whether you want to do this. Good luck if you do!

flaneurs_lobster

I've been a "member" of YouGov for some years, fill in the occasional survey, got my points level up to something I could cash in once.

When I click on the yougov.finance link above I get a page inviting me to sign in using my YouGov credentials, doing this gives me the usual survey home page and no mention of Finance or bank account linking.

Have I missed a step? @Band7 did you get some kind of invitation to join? 

Wheres_My_Cashback

Or you can just leave the accounts there in situ, let them naturally expire in 90days time and then re authorise to get the same value points again.

For those that don't know, even though the name YouGov might suggest a Government connection, that is not the case in any official sense.

They are an independent data gathering, market research organisation, however it was set up founded by none other than Nadim Zahawi, Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Band7

flaneurs_lobster said:

I've been a "member" of YouGov for some years, fill in the occasional survey, got my points level up to something I could cash in once.

When I click on the yougov.finance link above I get a page inviting me to sign in using my YouGov credentials, doing this gives me the usual survey home page and no mention of Finance or bank account linking.

Have I missed a step? @Band7 did you get some kind of invitation to join? 

No invitation needed.

The login approach/your email address is the same for your 'normal' yougov account, and for yougov.finance but they are quite different websites (neither is terribly userfriendly). Are you 100% sure that you are trying via https://www.yougov.finance/?

Band7

Wheres_My_Cashback said:

Or you can just leave the accounts there in situ, let them naturally expire in 90days time and then re authorise to get the same value points again.

Are you certain that you actually get another lot of points every 90 days, for the same accounts? That would be like a money printing machine......

Section62

Band7 said:

...As soon as you have 5,000 points, you can request a payout. Payouts can be bank transfers into one of your current accounts, or £50 vouchers for Amazon, Tesco, John Lewis,TK Maxx and many more known brands.

Worth noting (at least when I last tried doing it) YouGov may say they need extra personal information from you (for AML reasons) before they will make good on the payment.  For some people that won't matter, but for others who might sign up using minimal personal information for privacy reasons, the AML information required to cash out might be an issue.

It would be interesting to know which payout method you used Band7 and what (if anything) extra they asked you for as confirmation.

flaneurs_lobster

Band7 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

I've been a "member" of YouGov for some years, fill in the occasional survey, got my points level up to something I could cash in once.

When I click on the yougov.finance link above I get a page inviting me to sign in using my YouGov credentials, doing this gives me the usual survey home page and no mention of Finance or bank account linking.

Have I missed a step? @Band7 did you get some kind of invitation to join? 

No invitation needed.

The login approach/your email address is the same for your 'normal' yougov account, and for yougov.finance but they are quite different websites (neither is terribly userfriendly). Are you 100% sure that you are trying via https://www.yougov.finance/?

Well something's changed, tried again and it worked. Suspect that signing into classic YouGov may have set a cookie (or something).

I'll try adding a few (quiet, resting) accounts and see what happens. Do you recommend using phone for signup since that's where the bank apps live or is it easy enough on laptop?

MikeJXE

In my situation I joined yougov finance sometime ago, not sure how long but a couple of days ago I received an email to update which i did

Yep I got 500 points added for the same bank account and 100 for the same credit card as previously 

Wheres_My_Cashback

Band7 said:

Wheres_My_Cashback said:

Or you can just leave the accounts there in situ, let them naturally expire in 90days time and then re authorise to get the same value points again.

Are you certain that you actually get another lot of points every 90 days, for the same accounts? That would be like a money printing machine......

100% certain, been doing it for quite a while now.

In fact I'm not actually sure you can revoke as when you add you authorise 90 days access. They will send you an e-mail requesting re-authorisation just before expiry.

Be aware that if you run into any difficulties, customer service can be terrible.

Band7

Section62 said:

Band7 said:

...As soon as you have 5,000 points, you can request a payout. Payouts can be bank transfers into one of your current accounts, or £50 vouchers for Amazon, Tesco, John Lewis,TK Maxx and many more known brands.

Worth noting (at least when I last tried doing it) YouGov may say they need extra personal information from you (for AML reasons) before they will make good on the payment.  For some people that won't matter, but for others who might sign up using minimal personal information for privacy reasons, the AML information required to cash out might be an issue.

It would be interesting to know which payout method you used Band7 and what (if anything) extra they asked you for as confirmation.

they asked for my address, DOB, sort code and account number. I am happy for yougov to have that information. Even Tesco have more than that about me.

You make a very good point, though - others may not be happy to share this information, or indeed may not be happy to let yougov snoop on their accounts.

Band7

flaneurs_lobster said:

 Do you recommend using phone for signup since that's where the bank apps live or is it easy enough on laptop?

It was much easier for me to do it on the phone as I can use biometric login on the phone. It can be done on laptop/PC/tablet browser, too, but you'd have to enter the login details for the banks you want to link.