£75 Quidco cashback declined

[#1]

Hi,

I'm a relatively new Plusnet customer having joined on the 18th April, I choose plusnet because of its good monthly cost and because there was a £75 Quidco cashback offer for the package I was buying at the time.

It took a couple of days for the offer to track on Quidco and I gave them all my relevant plusnet acc details (username, acc no, join date etc) and it was sat on awaiting response from retailer for a good 6 weeks or so, then today I got a long email from Quidco saying that Plusnet have declined the cashback, the email starts as follows:

"

Hi, We are writing to you about your cashback claim, as we have now had a response from the retailer. Unfortunately, on this occasion your claim has been declined because the cashback from your sale will not be paid to us by the retailer. In order to pay us, they have to recognise us as having been the party who referred the sale to them, and in this case they do not. To explain, cashback is actually a referral commission that we receive from the retailer, for referring you to them and making a purchase. Instead of keeping it we pass it on to you, however we do have to receive it from the retailer in order to pass this on.

".

Could plusnet support please look into this and process the cashback as I 100% did use quidco to sign up, and I didn't receive any other deals or offers and am not a member of any other cashback sites. If you are unable to process the cashback then a credit of £75 to my plusnet account will suffice.

Thanks for any help or advice.

[#2]

Hi Havoplus,

Having checked your account and sign up date & code it doesn't match up to any cash backs we would have had on during that period but furthermore the only Quidco cash back I can see in April was one for £50 cash back between 5/4/17 to 25/4/17 however was only for ADSL sign ups.

Although that's the only cash back information I can find this side if your adamant you signed up with them having a £75 cash back offer for fibre at the time the only thing I can suggest is to chase this up further with them as it's not something we can honour our side. 

Kind regards,

Ben

[#3]

Hi Ben,

I dont see how that is possible seeing there was a big "In partnership with Quidco" logo at the top of your site after the click-through from Quidco. How could the cashback offer be fully visible on both the Quidco website AND acknowledged on Plusnet's website after the click through yet you say its non-existent?

The specific deal was £75 for new customers who signed up to phone+unlimited fibre broadband (top package), which I have.

The deal was active on signup, at least on Quidco's end, I'm certain of this, unless you are suggesting that websites you partner with are actively scamming your customers out of money?

Im not sure why you think its acceptable to send your customers to chase an issue that is clearly a communication error between plusnet and quidco, who again your own website states is in a partnership with you?

Regards,

[#4]

When a shop charges you more than the marked price for something, they are acting unlawfully.  They do not have to sell you the item at the marked, i.e. lower, price, but they may not charge you a higher price.  On-line purchases were not covered by this until a few years ago (after quite a few lucky people got some very cheap (Sony, I think) cameras that had the wrong price displayed).

Perhaps this applies in this case?  I know there are contributors here who can quote the applicable legislation.

[#5]

That may be the case, however before throwing out swaths of law literature and causing a stink I'd rather a back and forth to come to an amicable solution, its less of a headache for all involved, Plusnet could easily liaise with Quidco to find out who was at fault for a) the offer being mistakenly offered b) how to come to a satisfactory conclusion in compensating customers for what theyve signed up to.

Worst case scenario no help is provided and I break the contract with legislation regarding mis-sold products and services and find another provider.

That being said I'm happy with the service, I just hate being messed about by companies and their partners, and wether its £5 or £500, ill chase it until I get what I signed up for.

[#6]

I've escalated this matter with our affiliate marketing team. I'll let you know once I've had a response.

Thanks for your patience.

[#7]

I've had a response from our affiliate marketing team with the following:

This particular account I cannot track its not within the management system. This would indicate that they did not sign up through an affiliate or at least the last touch of the journey was not an affiliate touch.

While I appreciate this is not the response you're hoping for, they have confirmed the Quidco cashback has been rejected due to the account not being signed up through an affiliate site/link.

[#8]

With these "cash-back" sites you need to clear your "cookies, browser cache, etc." after each visit.

[#9]

Hi HarryB,

Thanks for the quick response, maybe it didnt track through correctly on Plusnets end, but it did correctly on Quidco's end.

I am stumped as to how this is not a simple case of "Ok the customer is clearly saying that he signed up via a cashback offer, something has went wrong with the affiliate tracking between quidco and ourselves, we should take his details and process it as a show of good faith". If a customer came to me and said "hi I bought X and at that time the promo said i'd get Y free as an incentive but I still haven't received it", I'd simply ask for proof of purchase and purchase date, check that it matches the promo and then add 1+1 and see that they were entitled to the offered promo and process it.

This could be easily resolved but it seems Plusnet are digging their heels in over an issue with affiliate tracking and screwing a new customer out of money, instead of recognising the issues that come about with cookie tracking and honouring the offer anyway.

The offer existed at the time of signup
I signed up via the affiliate link
Something clearly didn't track correctly
Quidco cant do anything as the decision to release cashback money lays with Plusnet
Im telling Plusnet I definitely signed up via the link and because of the deal
Plusnet says it doesn't show on their end
Plusnet not willing to accept a customers word that they clicked a link while signing up for a deal available at the time
The SAME quidco deal is available now with £95 cashback, previously 85, 80 and 75, how can Plusnet not think its reasonable that I clicked the £75 deal a couple months ago when I signed up when the same offers being ongoing in different forms for MONTHS

Its getting a bit ridiculous frankly, basically you're saying i'm not entitled to a deal that's been ongoing because a cookie tracker messed up somewhere, regardless of the fact an offer was ongoing at the time of signup and i'm telling you irrevocably that I signed up for the deal and because of the deal.

[#10]

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@havoplus wrote:

I am stumped as to how this is not a simple case of "Ok the customer is clearly saying that he signed up via a cashback offer, something has went wrong with the affiliate tracking between quidco and ourselves, we should take his details and process it as a show of good faith".

I'm afraid the decision on authorising or rejecting quidco cashback offers is out of my control and at this time I have done all I can to escalate this for further investigation to try and get you the offer you've advised you signed up for.

This is what prompted my previous response.

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@havoplus wrote:
If a customer came to me and said "hi I bought X and at that time the promo said i'd get Y free as an incentive but I still haven't received it", I'd simply ask for proof of purchase and purchase date, check that it matches the promo and then add 1+1 and see that they were entitled to the offered promo and process it.

By all means, feel free to provide supporting evidence that your account was in fact signed up through the quidco signup link and I'll happily forward this on to the back end team that I've escalated this matter with that previously responded advising the account was not signed up through quidco.

[#11]

Hi HarryB,

Thanks again for the prompt reply, I understand you are first line support and these decisions are usually not laid at your feet, my frustration is at the company not you as an individual so I apologise if I came across differently.

I can include some screenshots from quidco's claims and overview pages.

Screenshot 1 shows the claim I opened with Quidco on May 11th to chase them on why I hadn't had any status update regarding the cashback as it had been about 3 weeks at that point, they asked for additional details (plusnet acc number and username and full name) and sent them to the retailer (yourselves). Also visible is the claims reference number.

Screenshot 2 is of the overview page showing that my purchase on the 18th of April (the exact day I signed up to Plusnet via quidco) has been declined 2 days ago (19th June).

If you require anything more specific than this please let me know and if I have it available ill provide it.

Thanks.

[#12]

Thanks for the screenshots, I've passed these on to Marketing.

We'll get back to you once they reply.

[#13 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your patience, appreciated.

Whilst there's no doubt that you signed up through Quidco, it looks like the cashback didn't track likely because of a cookie suppression issue which can happen for a number of reasons. As such, Marketing have declined the cashback.

I've discussed this further with my manager and we've decided to honour the cashback in the form of a refund. You should receive the £75 in your bank or building society linked to your direct debit, within the next 10 working days.

Anoush.

[#14]

Does the above statement imply that if a user operates with cookies turned off (or browsing in a private window) the cookes essential for cash back tracking through third parties might be lost, with the consequence of no approved cash back?

If the answer to the above is "Yes" may be the right solution is to stop offering cash backs and instead just offer honest competitive prices without the costly gimmicks.

[#15]

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Townman wrote:
Does the above statement imply that if a user operates with cookies turned off (or browsing in a private window) the cookes essential for cash back tracking through third parties might be lost, with the consequence of no approved cash back?

Correct , taken from Quidco (Important Information) :https://www.quidco.com/help/all/

Tips for making cashback work for you
Do make sure your cookies are enabled and pop-up blockers/ad-blockers are disabled.

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