[TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] "Shopper Discount & Rewards"

gardner1

has anyone had refunds yet

marleyboy

Yes they do refund - merely to stop it going any further, out of the thousands that sign up, regardless of how many they refund, the interest alone should be enough to ensure they are still in profit. It is interesting to note that when asked - they refuse to say how many or what percentage of people who signed up, apply for a refund.

However they claim many many happy customers are signed up, except they are STILL nowhere to be found. Possibly because the service they offer is freely available elsewhere on the internet.

NonGeographicalMan

marleyboy wrote: »

Yes they do refund - merely to stop it going any further, out of the thousands that sign up, regardless of how many they refund, the interest alone should be enough to ensure they are still in profit. It is interesting to note that when asked - they refuse to say how many or what percentage of people who signed up, apply for a refund.

I don't think that the interest at current rates would really be enough to cover the cost of even the telephone call conversation with a member of their staff for every victim that they refund. As far as I know they do not handle calls in India and handling calls in the UK is reasonably expensive.

Their big money here clearly comes from the majority of people paying them who either never claim a refund at all (a few but not many) or who will eventually ring up to complain at a certain point and manage to get future payments stopped at that point but don't realise that they are entitled to get all the historic payments they have already made refunded.

If the average person doesn't manage to cancel for 2 to 3 months and the average person doesn't get the historic payments they have made so far returned then this is actually a very profitable and lucrative line of business.

The only satisfaction for those of you who have had all of your payments refunded is that SD & R will have lost money on the deal in your individual cases.:T

marleyboy

They are much bigger than you think - indeed in the States it has already got to court........

A previous post of mine (sorry to dredge it back up).......

I totally agree with you that these companies are just as responsible, the only thing I cannot agree on is that SD&R are not. Yes its true a lot of people will see a saving coupon and click it readily, anything to save a bob or two, indeed Pizza Hut could just as easily offer a free drink with every pizza, to tempt customers into buying a pizza.

SD&R pay each company a cut depending on how many customers click on their link via a company, we are not just talking Pizza hut - which is far worse, as customers can easily assume its a pizza offer. Big companies, from Airlines to Train lines are involved.

A good example of companies becoming aware can be found here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...y-1628626.html

However in respect of the Data Protection Act - if a company wants your personal and financial information they must ask you for it, not get it from a third party.

Then there is the T&C relating to the various companies promoting them, who as far as they are aware you have read and understood the following.

Shopper Discounts & Rewards is a special rewards promotion offered after making a transaction at our website. The promotion offers a 30-day free trial in Shopper Discounts & Rewards with all the money saving benefits they have to offer, as well as a £10.00 cash back voucher to be used on your next purchase at our website.

If you have signed up for Shopper Discounts & Rewards you would have entered your home address and specific billing information. Additionally you would have created and entered a password for your membership, and also clicked a button to accept the membership.

If you have any further questions, please contact our partner, Shopper Discounts & Rewards at 0808 234 1539 and they will be more than happy to assist you.

This is up until you have clicked the SD&R link, and entered out of the various companies onto SD&R site where that part of the T&C suddenly becomes;

"By entering my email address as my electronic signature and clicking YES, I have read and agree to the Offer and Billing Details and authorise Interflora.co.uk to securely transfer my name, address and credit or debit card information to Shopper Discounts & Rewards for billing and benefit processing."

But by this time, you have already signed up, no matter what you click. Here is a perfect example from this very thread;

And here is a letter I sent to petplanet:

"In October I ordered some cat food from you. I do a lot of shopping online, including pet food of course, and always buy whenever I see the best offers, which happened in one occasion so far with your company. However, because of something which has happened, I may cancel your company from the list of my favourite shops in the future. In November, until February, a company called Shopper Discounts and Rewards, P.O. Box 454, St Albans AL4 0YE, has debited £10 every month from my credit card. It appears, on researching their website, that I am said to have signed up to this monthly debit at some point and am now a "member". I would not knowingly have done so and, so far as I am concerned, I have not. I have certainly not knowingly authorised the £10 monthly debit from my card account. Especially with an account that I have only used in one single occasion, when I purchased the cat food through you. If I sign up for any monthly payment, I would use my other account which I use regularly. As a matter of fact, I went overdraft as I only had a few pounds in that account, the very few money I spent with it, was by purchasing the cat food with you.
Can you explain how this may have happened? My suspicion is that, somehow, my details have been passed to Shopper Discounts and Rewards by you. I'd imagine you will deny this, however you might not be aware that shopperdisounts may be able to access private data when the transaction is still open (namely, their pop-up window opens at the moment of purchase, so there might be some encrypted data that they might be able to access, such as my debit card). Be sure that I have never disclosed my debit card details, even less, have I ever authorised to take £10 every month from my account (the one I used only once with you, where there WAS very little money), for a non-service such as theirs. At most, I have signed up with a secondary email address (one that I only use for unimportant registrations) to receive their coupon. As it was through your company, I kind of trusted them, I never sign up with unknown companies, especially those that promise free products, huge discounts etc. I am a careful and experienced web surfer.
If you haven't done it yet, I strongly exhort you to contact this partner of yours and cancel any agreements you might have. Please be aware that I don't want any of my details to be disclosed to them (you can refer to this email, but not to who wrote it, I'm still waiting for all my money to be refunded, if they don't want my lawyer to contact them).
Be also aware that you'll find a lot of complaints online against shopper discount and their frauds.
Should there be any wrong development of the story (such as they don't pay me back my money, or delays whatsoever) I will intend to sue that company, in which case it might result in you having to provide convincing evidence that my debit card details have not been knowingly or unknowingly provided by you. I hope this won't be the case."

And the reply;

Thank you for your recent email regarding Shopper Discounts and Rewards. Further to your comments and emails we have had from a couple of other customer with similar experiences we have taken the decision to remove the programme with immediate effect from our website. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused.

There are two ways in which the Shopper Discounts and Rewards can be implemented the first being that when a customer agrees to sign up to the programme there credit card details are sent automatically - we do not and have never used this method.
The second way and the method we use is that if a customer wishes to sign up to the programme then they must enter their credit card details again. We do not pass on any details to Shopper Discounts and Rewards directly without the customer signing up for the programme.

Once again please accept my apologies and should you wish any further clarification on this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards
Kirsty

There are only 2 ways that our details could be passed on -

1) By the original company that we purchased from passing on our financial details to Shopper Discounts presumably for some sort of financial reward.

2) Shopper Discounts somehow snooping on the financial transaction.

Somehow a very low level of consent is required to start up the monthly payment - You do it by entering your e-mail address twice, or by pressing Yes twice.

In all cases the assumption is made by us - "I have not put in my financial details so all I am signing up for is a one off discount should I purchase from the referring site again"

Yet it has also been reported that if you've been caught by the Shopper Discount and savings co.uk scam, to check your pc for their software. It's called savingsuk.exe and savingsuk.pf.

Most likely you'll find it in a folder called savingsuk in C:\Programs folder.
In the folder there is a Readme file which says you can uninstall the program by going the usual route: Start\Settings\ControlPanel\Add or Remove programs where it's listed under SavingsUK.
If you go this route and click on Chnge/Remove you will get a popup with WARNING! in large letters against deleting the file. If you ignore it and try to delete the folder, it will disappear from the list of programs BUT IT HAS NOT BEEN REMOVED!!!
Trying to remove it by blanking the ReadOnly box on Profiles/Attributes doesn't work -- nor does attempts to Wipe it or Shred it.
I found the only way to get rid of it was to move it to a blank disk on the A-drive and then either deleting it from the disk or formatting it.

Remember to go to Start\Run and enter regedit. Then click on Edit\Find and enter Savingsuk. It finds only one entry. click on the containing folder (in the left column) and click on Delete.

Which is very very naughty if it is the case (I dont know if that is factual).

Another interesting article is http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/money/...ckefeller.html where they STILL claim "Credit card and personal details had to be entered".

One case (also in this thread) didnt even involve an online transaction as follows;

The shoes I wanted were out of stock so the assistance advised that they can order them and they will be sent directly to me, however in order to do so I need enter my details (address etc), on to their computer, which I. No harm there, but this was a simple, in store, online terminal (the till in fact). There were no tick boxes, I did not visit/sign up to the website etc and so there was NO money off vouchers offered for me to accept. My details were simply passed on to SDR without ANY authorisation and bang, there goes my money each month.

So who is to blame? Does a company willingly pass on such details to them, or do they somehow sabotage them.

An interesting forum is by fotobox, who after numerous complaints felt compelled to discuss it and claim;

"PhotoBox wants to make it clear that we do not sell or transfer any of your details to Shoppers Discount and Rewards, that level of integration does not exist on our site.

It’s not automatic, the only way a person’s details can be entered into the Shopper Discount and Rewards scheme, if this person re-enters all their details on the Shoppers Discount and Rewards website and hits the confirmation button that enrolls them in such scheme.

From our perspective we are being completely transparent and honest."

They do seem oblivious to it, you can find this here;
http://blog.photobox.co.uk/shopper-d...page-1#comment
I should add here that as a result of complaints photobox opted to sever all links with SD&R.

Of course there is a lot more revealing information about this company here;
http://www.callferret.com/800-889-8776.html

And if we are to boycott all the companies that promote them, we need to include; -800-flowers.com, 123inkjets.com, A & E videos, A1Books sellers, AccStation.com, AirportParkingReservations.com, AllPosters.com, Amazon.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Americart, AmericaWest, BARNES AND NOBLE, BHphoto.com, BIDZ.com, bigceramicstore.com, Bizrate.com, Broderbund, BrylaneHome.com, Buy.com, campusfood.com, Carol Wright Gifts Cataloge, CasualLivingUSA.com, Chadwick’s, CheapTickets.com, ChoiceHotels.com, Classmates.com, COLLECTIONSETC.COM, ColoradoGiftBaskets.com, columbiahouse.com, ComputerGeeks.com, CoolSavings.com, DeepDiscountDVD.com, DELTA.COM, DrLeonards.com, Drugstore.com, dvdmarketplace.com, EBGames.com, eCost.com, eGreetings.com, etix online, Expedia.com, Fandango.com, Freecovers.net, FTD.com, gamefly.com, Geeks.com, Gevalia, Haband Online, Half.com, Hotels.com, invitationsbydawn.com, JC Whitney, JGHOOK, Joann.com, Juno, kingsizedirect.com, Lane Bryant, lernercatalog.com, Lillian Vernon, MapBlast, Marketworks.com, Movies.com, MovieTickets.com, MUSICSPACE.COM, MyFamily.com, MyLotto, Mypoints.com, MyRatePlan.com, Netzero, One Spirit, OneTravel.com, Orbitz.com, PersonalCreations.com, Petco.com, PetMeds.com, Priceline.com, Redcats USA, Ritzcamera online, Riverdeep.com, Romans.com, SandBox, skinstore.com, SmartBargains.com, sportsnmore.com, STAPLES, Strawberry.com, The Learning Company, theshoeplanet.com, TigerDirect.com, TimeLife.com, Travelocity.com, uBid.com, United Online, videomoviehouse.com, VistaPrint.com, vitacost.com, Walter Drake, Webstakes.com, WeLoveMacs.com, WirelessEmporium.com, Yahooshopping.com, ZDnet.

Leaving us kind of limited in our choices.

Yet SD&R still claim

"We make every effort to be clear and straightforward in our marketing. Our offer page describes the programme and its benefits in detail; the cost of membership is referenced 6 times throughout the page and the fact the credit or debit card will be billed is referenced 3 times. To join the programme, a consumer enters his / her name, home and email addresses, credit or debit card details and a personalised password."

Which is strange because once you are on their website it clearly states;

"To become a Shopper Discounts & Rewards member, you will either be asked: to (a) provide a basic profile about yourself by filling out an online registration form with your name, mailing address, email address and payment information (including credit and/or debit card number and expiration date); or (b) expressly authorize a marketing partner of ours to transfer certain contact and billing information to us (including your mailing address and payment information (including credit and/or debit card number and expiration date). We process such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Our marketing partners may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies."

It seems to be the case that all these companies rely on the fact that the terms state (to them at least) that members input their own bank details, yet this only changes as soon as you have left one site to be forwarded onto another. (its not too difficult for a company to grab any other details about you if you have specifically been forwarded on to them - especially if they can inbed themselves into a website as a link (think how pop ups work)).

This is why it is too easy to reclaim your money, ALL OF IT, because their is definitely something dodgy going on by someone, its far safer to pay off the ones who discover them, than have them scream louder attracting more attention from those still "unaware".

Phew!!!!!! Sorry its so deep and long, but I am sure you can see what I mean now .

agostini

I signed up to Shoppers Discounts and Rewards a couple of years ago after booking an Easyjet flight. I must say it has worked out well for me as I have received cheques from them over that period totalling over £400 which more than covers the £8 a month. Depends which online stores you use though.

marleyboy

I guess thats the difference between knowingly and willingly signing up to them, or finding yourself signed up to a service you not only wasn't aware of, but that is offered COMPLETELY FREE from other site services.

marleyboy

I would not worry, there is nothing but the truth posted on here, as will continue to be posted, MSE have nothing to worry about nor does its members.

Vixxi

I phoned my credit card M&S and they gave me the same number to call to cancel. 0808 2341539. I explained that I didn't know my membership number but was reluctant to give my credit card number. M&S said it was safe because you are not giving expiry date or security number. They also said that Shoppersdiscount is a legit company (?) and they would honour the cancellation. I phoned Shoppersdiscount and cancelled, then held on for an operator and asked for a refund. I explained that I did not think I had clicked the Accept button and although I'd put in my card details, had exited the site without accepting. They said they were perfectly happy to refund and would refund 3 payments to my card and email me a form to apply for the remaining 2. So, don't panic if you haven't got membership details. Persist and ask for your refund!



Just thought I'd add to this thread as I have hopefully just sorted out this problem. I was checking through my bank statement an hour ago and saw this £8 charge called shopper discounts. I didn't know what it was so I googled it and up came this thread, I read it and saw someone posted that it might be to do with EasyJet. Well the only thing recently I've bought online was an EsayJet ticket 2months ago. I phoned Natwest and the said they've had a spate of these calls today and it's to do with a company called GlobalCollect.com, however the number I was given by natwest didn't work and the website doesnt allow you to contact them. I also couldnt get in contact with EasyJet very easily, so after googling again I found a site called shoppers dicount I phoned the following number 08082341539 (drop the 0 if using a mob) and you get through to an automated system. It asks for credit card details (which I was NOT giving!) But then it asked for a membership number which would be in an email, I looked in my spam email and found a membership number! I keyed this in and processed with cancelling my membership, BUT DON'T HANG UP, after 2 times of listening to all my details being cancelled and not being charged again, there was a prompt to refunding my initial membership - Horrahhh! i did this and now have 2 emails telling me my membership is cancelled and my refund will be processed in the next 3 -5 days. Fingers crossed but this looks like the best solution for me.[/QUOTE]

58kram

Just found this charge on my barclays account, called barclays and asked for money back, they've cancelled my card, refunded the £40 since june and are sending a new card out with fraud forms.

Searching through my e-mails I found from march....(so why did the payments not start until june?) I have discovered that it was pizza hut who signed me up to it

How about a list of websites doing this?

pizzahut.co.uk

marleyboy

58kram wrote: »

How about a list of websites doing this?

pizzahut.co.uk

-800-flowers.com, 123inkjets.com, A & E videos, A1Books sellers, AccStation.com, AirportParkingReservations.com, AllPosters.com, Amazon.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Americart, AmericaWest, BARNES AND NOBLE, BHphoto.com, BIDZ.com, bigceramicstore.com, Bizrate.com, Broderbund, BrylaneHome.com, Buy.com, campusfood.com, Carol Wright Gifts Cataloge, CasualLivingUSA.com, Chadwick’s, CheapTickets.com, ChoiceHotels.com, Classmates.com, COLLECTIONSETC.COM, ColoradoGiftBaskets.com, columbiahouse.com, ComputerGeeks.com, CoolSavings.com, DeepDiscountDVD.com, DELTA.COM, DrLeonards.com, Drugstore.com, dvdmarketplace.com, EBGames.com, eCost.com, eGreetings.com, etix online, Expedia.com, Fandango.com, Freecovers.net, FTD.com, gamefly.com, Geeks.com, Gevalia, Haband Online, Half.com, Hotels.com, invitationsbydawn.com, JC Whitney, JGHOOK, Joann.com, Juno, kingsizedirect.com, Lane Bryant, lernercatalog.com, Lillian Vernon, MapBlast, Marketworks.com, Movies.com, MovieTickets.com, MUSICSPACE.COM, MyFamily.com, MyLotto, Mypoints.com, MyRatePlan.com, Netzero, One Spirit, OneTravel.com, Orbitz.com, PersonalCreations.com, Petco.com, PetMeds.com, Pizzahut.com, Priceline.com, Redcats USA, Ritzcamera online, Riverdeep.com, Romans.com, SandBox, skinstore.com, SmartBargains.com, sportsnmore.com, STAPLES, Strawberry.com, The Learning Company, theshoeplanet.com, TigerDirect.com, TimeLife.com, Travelocity.com, uBid.com, United Online, videomoviehouse.com, VistaPrint.com, vitacost.com, Walter Drake, Webstakes.com, WeLoveMacs.com, WirelessEmporium.com, Yahooshopping.com, ZDnet.

Just for starters