Claim appeal #68664: please vote

[richard@imutual]

One of our members has had a claim rejected and has opted to appeal against our decision, as they are entitled to under our Appeals process. You are invited to read the details of the claim, the merchant's reasons for rejection and any subsequent responses to this topic and then, within 7 days, vote as to whether you think we should award the claim. Summary details of the claim history are as follows:

The member visited ebuyer.com on 13 Dec 2011 using the correct imutual link and the details of the transaction were:

Type: PCs, laptops, phones, tablets, printers
Order value: £452.64
Cashback: £9.05
Shares: 45

The transaction was untracked and a claim was submitted on 30 Dec 2011, with an order number provided.

The merchant rejected the transaction on 30 Dec 2011, meaning that imutual will not receive any commission for this transaction. Based on information provided by the merchant, we responded to the member as follows:

** 30 Dec **
The merchant has rejected your enquiry, due to the sale being attributed to another website or marketing channel. For further explanation, please see http://www.imutual.co.uk/help/14/1086/

Unfortunately we have not received commission for this transaction and will therefore be unable to award cashback on this occasion.

We cannot pursue this claim any further with the merchant, but we do monitor the performance of our merchants in responding to claims and, where appropriate, we will remove them from our site

The member concerned may choose to respond to this thread to provide information in support of their claim. Equally, we respect their right to anonymity and they may choose either not to respond or they can ask a staff member to post their response anonymously on their behalf.

Please discuss the merits of this claim and then cast your vote using the poll options provided

[HeadHunter]

Well, funnily enough, this is exactly my situation as regards Household Insurance from AXA.

I opted (thus far!) not to appeal, but obviously take an interest in the result of this.

I took the view that as the site wasn't paid neither would I be, though from my point of view I did everything required of me to fulfil my end of the deal. If I had a price comparison cookie on my computer it likely came from my use of the imutual link "Compare Home Insurance: 20p cashback + 3 shares" https://quote.comparethemarket.com/Hous ... &vck9=true which of course I am regularly urged to visit.

It seems a bit of a minefield to me, and I have no wish to muddy the waters. I accepted the imutual decision. But if this person is paid (and good luck to him, it's a big purchase) then I would expect to be also.

[Mel]

Is this the only transaction that e-buyer have refused, or tried to refuse? Or do they have a dodgy track record?

[Mel]

Good question Out of 44 transactions to date, only 2 have required claims and the other claim was verified

[kevinchess1]

Info may come out in this thread which might make posters change their minds.
Is it possible to change your vote?

[Squire]

Yes, you can change your vote at any time within the 7 day period

[moi]

In the Imutual messages you had with the claimant that led to the rejection, was s/he asked if they ensured they cleared their cookies/cache/history etc before making the purchase?

The "sale being attributed to another website or marketing channel" is a very vague, general get-out for networks & I think it's utterly ridiculous that they refuse to give any clue as to what the other website was: Google ad/another cb site/price comparison site... (I say that because other cashback sites have said they get told no more than that phrase, I'm assuming iMutual is no different)
That said, members using cashback sites also need to be educated about cookies/cache etc., & told that it's necessarily simple to get the cashback due.

[mike]

This is an excellent demonstration of mutuality. Guidance is genuinely being sought from the members/co-owners on pivotal decisions instead of by a faceless person behind an admin email address.

Building societies take note.

[mark_r_abcd]

This is an open and shut case for me - the member made a genuine transaction, but someone else got the cashback. It is pretty certain that there was a cookie left from a price comparison site, daily click, or similar. iMutual simply needs to have a policy for these cases: either it pays them (in which case it pays them *all*), or it doesn't pay them (in which case it pays *none* of them). Document the policy in the help section and apply it consistently. We don't need to do this every time.

[richard@imutual]

I can see problems with both of those approaches.

If we have a stated policy of approving all such claims, we leave ourselves wide open to abuse. An individual could start a process of clicking on our link (for a given cashback offer), immediately using another cashback site to do the actual transaction and then putting in a claim to imutual. Sadly, my experience tells me that there are such people out there and it would only take a small number of them to cause significant (possibly fatal) losses for imutual. Eventually, we'd be forced to abandon the policy

But we also have an ambition to establish a trustworthy reputation, including honouring genuine cashback claims. Tracking is not infallible and I suspect that some claims are unfairly rejected by merchants in this manner. The problem is, we'll never know which ones. And while seasoned cashbackers might be tolerant of excuses such as "you didn't clear you're cookies", there are many other current and prospective members who probably don't even understand what a cookie is, never mind how to clear one. All they know is that they were promised some cashback, they did everything they thought they were supposed to and they will expect imutual to threat them fairly. Again, it would only take a small number of individuals with rejected claims to make their complaints public across other forums to have a significant impact on imutual's reputation.

That's why I feel the "appeals" process is a suitable, if imperfect, half-way house, because at least it places the onus on the claimant to restate their case and be judged by their peers. Members can request whatever supporting information they think is appropriate, and form a judgement based on the claimant's response. I think this is likely to filter out most dishonest claims, and therefore members can take an approach of "Award an appeal, unless there is evidence to the contrary".

In this case, the claimant is a long-term member of the site with an excellent record of contributions