Claims performance as at 1 Dec 2011

[tashi500]

As usual, we give members a monthly update on how well we're dealing with your claims for missing/incorrect transactions....

As you'll see from the chart below, we only have 1 claim outstanding (out of those submitted up to 30 September). You'll notice a new column - "Overdue" - and that this shows zero for every month. The reason that the one outstanding claim for September is not shown as overdue is as follows:

Historically, we've set ourselves a target to resolve claims within 8 weeks (56 days). This allows time for us to check and forward your claim to the network, who then pass it to the merchant (sometimes via a marketing agency), who then (hopefully) investigates it promptly and responds to the network which in turn comes back to us and then we update your claim - Phew!

Some networks are very good at dealing with claims promptly. They set a 'service level' period by which time the merchant must have either investigated the claim, otherwise it gets 'auto-approved'. However, the largest network (which accounts for over 1000 of the merchants we promote on imutual, including many of the best known retailers) only agrees to offer a 75 day turnaround on claims. In other words, if 75 days elapse since we have sent your claim to them and the merchant has not dealt with it, it gets auto-approved. In practice, a lot of claims for this network go right up to this 75 day threshold, making it impossible for us to keep to our 8 week target. Note that this 75 day delay applies to all cashback sites, including the very biggest, so it's not just imutual that suffers.

It seems silly for us to set a target that we know we can't keep so, as of a few months back, we started quoting 'custom' target resolution dates whenever you submit a claim, depending on which network is involved. Either 56 days or 80 days. The claim in question was submitted on 29 September and hence its target resolution date is 18 December; therefore it is not yet overdue. Hope this makes sense

Overall, I'm delighted that we've continued to keep right on top of our members' claims and have none overdue. Long may it continue!

[cccashbacklover]

2012 -

[cccashbacklover]

Oops, title corrected