Topcashback

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:
It would be interesting to see the legal position of this tested, I understand if another cookie takes the affiliate you aren't due cashback but for technical errors or non-responding retailers I do wonder if the "not guaranteed" holds any weight. 

Not sure what there is to "test"?

Fairness of the term  

I also wonder if the consumer would have cause to unwind the contract with the retailer they go on to purchase with under the CPRs.

They're not linked... you have a contract with TCB to give 95% of all affiliate marketing revenue you generate for them and a contract with the retailer to buy a piano. You'd need to negotiate a special contract with the retailer with additional clauses around the affiliate marketing commissions to TCB but clearly your average online retailer will tell you 

If the retailer advertises buy this from us and get £50 cashback then thats a totally separate matter, the retailer isn't advertising anything about cashback. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

They're not linked... you have a contract with TCB to give 95% of all affiliate marketing revenue you generate for them and a contract with the retailer to buy a piano. You'd need to negotiate a special contract with the retailer with additional clauses around the affiliate marketing commissions to TCB but clearly your average online retailer will tell you 

If the retailer advertises buy this from us and get £50 cashback then thats a totally separate matter, the retailer isn't advertising anything about cashback. 

I just wonder where it sits when you have an exclusive deal with these cashback sites as it implies some kind of connection between the retailer and the cashback site.

Perhaps it may be correct that retailer isn't responsible for the actions of the cashback site but I don't see these businesses can act with impunity with regards to consumer protection regs, especially when using TCB and Quidco and paying a yearly fee (if you opt to) for a service, and don't see the "not guaranteed" aspect as begin particularly fair, unless it solely relates to a error on your part that causes cashback to be declined.  

DullGreyGuy

There is traditionally another party involved which is the affiliate network which provides the tech for the tracking and is a market place for advertisers and advert displayers to meet etc. 

Putting regulated industries aside, your average person with a website can go on there and search for people wanting to advertise products relevant to say their blog. They can auto-sign up via the network, get the code to stick on their website and via the network they will be paid their commission for each sale they generate. The advertiser can go in and see who's showing their adds, possibly remove some if you dont want your brand featuring on a !!!!!! site for example, but can also offer a higher rate to any that you want... some even advertise stepped commissions.

Its still a chain of retailer to network to website owner, normally stops there but in the case of cashback sites there is one step further which is to the end customer. 

I dont see how the end customer could claim anything however cashback sites make their money by cashback being paid out too and inevitably they'd be monitoring who they appear to constantly be losing monies from and take action themselves. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:
unless it solely relates to a error on your part that causes cashback to be declined.  

What are you defining as an error?

Most common reasons cashback doesn't get paid out are
1) the retailer tracks you were referred by someone else first and so does payout but pays to the first company that referred you as per the terms (eg you clicked a sponsored link from Google)  
2) you apply a discount code
3) buy an item not listed as eligible (eg Amazon only offer cashback on electricals and not anything else) 4) Security settings on your device stops the tracking
5) You buy via app rather than website
6) If you return/cancel/amend the order

Sites give you advice on how to maximise your chances like clearing cookies etc to try and drop the previous referrers reference 

Were a new regulation to come in to say you have to guarantee the cashback even if rather than being paid to TCB it goes to Google because they referred the customer first then TCB etc are just going to start retaining a bigger percentage of fee to cover the cases where the tracking fails so everyone loses for predominately those that dont follow the process. 

Certainly with Quidco it has a tracking percentage for each retailer which gives an indication of if its a good or bad one but thats influenced by those with wrong cookie settings which is a user failure not retailer. Unfortunately they dont give a payout percentage but again that'd be skewed by cancellations. I'm sure more people cancel their car insurance in the 6 month qualifying window than say return a dishwasher 

The only two cases I've had that have dropped cashback were both ones I intentionally used a promotion code that gave me a bigger discount than the cashback and was just chancing that they made a mistake and paid out the cashback anyway (have had it happen in the past)

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

As i mentioned above if the cashback goes somewhere else that's user error.

Either the cashback is due or it isn't (for the reasons you mentioned and probably more).

An instant where it is due because the customer did everything right but isn't paid because it's not guaranteed isn't right.

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

As i mentioned above if the cashback goes somewhere else that's user error.

Either the cashback is due or it isn't (for the reasons you mentioned and probably more).

An instant where it is due because the customer did everything right but isn't paid because it's not guaranteed isn't right.

It could be they can show the customer came direct first too which invalidates the referral but no cashback is paid to anyone... think of it like the person that comes, takes a car for a test drive, discusses prices then goes away and telephones to complete the sale thinking they're being clever and will get CCR rights for a distance sale but you won't because you've been there first. 

Its affiliate marketing, companies are paying websites owners to generate sales for them. They aren't going to pay website owners for referring customers they've already had visit. These are all bound up in the long T&Cs the website owner has to sign up to such as its the first referral in the 28 days prior to a purchase which can be a direct visitor. The fact these website owners are passing the money on is broadly irrelevant.

Clearly the website owner, be that MSE who keeps the commission or TCB who pass most of it on, have a vested interest in the monies being paid to them so aren't going to continue advertising a firm which constantly says tracked sales didnt convert. In 100% of cases where TCB is paid it will be passed on based on the rules of the offer (assuming the user was logged in when clicking through)

But this is MSE so according to the user it's always someone else's fault.