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norm2002
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Location: Panama City
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 Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:56 am Post subject: TomTom Cashback promotion - wrong amount received! |
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I bought my 940 in July and applied for the cashback in August. Should be £20. Just seen only £10 has been paid into my bank by Mando Marketing. Sending an email to the contact on the promotion offer but has anyone else had the same problem? A search hasn't found any.
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Capvermell
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Joined: Jun 13, 2009
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:56 am Post subject: |
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I would assume the vast majority of customers of the Go x40 series never got the cashback due to all the numerous ludicrous conditions to ensure that most customers would just give up dreamed up for TomTom UK by Mr Nick Deyong and his colleagues at www.ndlgroup.com Obviously the only reasons the absurd conditions with having to chop off part of your product box lid and only send in the claim form between month 1 and 2 is to try to ensure that most customers will fail or think it is simply not worth the bother.
Then those that do things correctly will not even associate the money credited from Mando with TomTom as there is no warning in the online claim form to say the money will be coming from Mando and nor do Mando send you an email to tell you this is the case. The only way I linked Mando and TomTom was by looking up who the postcode for TomTom Promotions was actually registered to at www.royalmail.com After that I was able to get a phone number from www.192.com that I have listed against TomTom Promotions at www.saynoto0870.com
I got the £20 in full but only because I called Mando before sending in my claim form and to ask them which barcode they wanted as the TomTom 940 box had one printed on the box and one on a sticky label attached to it. The guy I spoke to quickly got the impression I regarded all these promotions as a scam and was keen to expose them so he soon asked that I FAO my claim envelope personally to him. If you Google for Mando and cashback you will find posts in quite a few other forums from customers unhappy about their fulfilment of cashback promotions for other companies in other offers.
And no you are not alone because I totally despise these cashback promotions that distort customer's perception of the price when they buy only for the vast majority of customers with busy lives never to get the cashback.
Here is an email or two I sent TomTom on the subject.
Oh and whilst Mr Nick Deyong admittedly called me from his holiday in Turkey in August and told me he thought he would send me the 1.22GBP Signed For postage cost of sending in my claim form to TomTom Second Class predictably I never got the money. From the low prices I see being offered on the new TomTom 950 series models I think TomTom have finally got the message that customers do not like being screwed around with cashback promotions and just want to pay a fair price for the units.
| Quote: |
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dishonest and Devious TomTom 940 20GBP Cashback Deal with 1.22GBP Redemption Cost
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:39:28 +0100
To: harold.goddijn@tomtom.com
CC: alain.detaeye@tomtom.com, marina.wyatt@tomtom.com, alain.de.taeye@tomtom.com, Karel.Vuursteen@tomtom.com, doug.dunn@tomtom.com, joe.francica@directionsmag.com, adena.schutzberg@directionsmag.com, Nora.Parker@directionsmag.com, info@whichsatnav.co.uk, john.fingleton@oft.gov.uk, vivienne.dews@oft.gov.uk
Dear Mr Goddijn,
Dishonest and Devious TomTom 940 20GBP Cashback Deal with 1.22GBP Redemption Cost
On 4th June 2009 I bought a TomTom 940 Go Live unit from the www.dixons.co.uk website as at that time they were offering the best price on the product allowing for their own online discount code promotion and the further £20 Cashback promotion I was promised by TomTom that Dixons and other retailers selling the product were advertising as available on purchases of the unit at that time.
I am now writing to complain about what I see as being the seedy, sleazy and fundamentally dishonest nature of that promotion by TomTom that reflects some of the very worst aspects of so called Cashback promotions where the company offering the promotion knows and expects full well that the majority of customers will fail to obtain the advertised Cashback due to the unreasonable and arduous nature of the conditions imposed to get the Cashback money. In my case I feel that my own labour in meeting the conditions of the offer undoubtedly exceeds the 18.78GBP offer of the Cashback after allowing for the 1.22GBP Signed For Second Class postage that I was forced to use to send back the redemption form and the barcode and product description section from my TomTom 940 product box today. I had to use Signed For delivery rather than just Second Class because of the deplorable record widely documented on the web of your redemption partners based at Aylesbury postcode HP19 8RR of using almost every trick in the book to claim that customers have not met the promotion's terms and conditions. The poor record of your redemption company in trying to fail to honour promised Cashback was first noted in various web discussion forums during your Petrol card £50 cashback promotion on the 940 Live unit at the end of 2008.
Among the many unreasonable conditions imposed to try and deprive customers of the heavily advertised Cashback are the following:-
1. The completed cashback form and receipt and part of the product box will only be accepted between 30 and 60 days of purchase. I see no need for this requirement when you also require your customers to vandalise their product box packaging in a way that ensures no retailer would take it back for a full refund at the original price. The upper time limit is particularly deplorable as it ensures only those customers who carefully diarise the need to send in the form will get the cashback.
2. Having to destroy the product box by cutting the barcode and accompanying product description off the bottom of it as if the customer ever wishes to resell the unit secondhand on Ebay or elsewhere having an imperfect product box is likely to devalue the unit compared to resellers who can resell units with complete product packaging. So this again undermines the attraction of applying for the cashback for many customers.
3. A copy of "the original purchase receipt" is required to also be sent in.. Now I assume this means that only a copy is required and not the original receipt but if so then why use the word "original" in the requirement if you only need a copy. The wording is seemingly deliberately highly ambiguous and no customer would be prepared to send in the original receipt as if they lose it they have then lost their only customer guarantee on the product.
4. Your partners say at http://tomtompromotions.co.uk/cashback/UK_cashback.pdf that they need "part of the product box containing the barcode" but in practice there are two barcodes on the box. One of these is printed directly on to the box and is the Point of Sale barcode that identifies the item type so the retailer's system can price it and will be the same on all TomTom 940 product boxes while the other barcode is a sticker on a white panel and is I assume the serial number of the actual unit. I was unclear which of these to send in and only because your redemption partner also uses the same postcode for a tractor firm promotion was I able to locate a phone number for the company in Aylesbury that I could phone them on to clarify the matter. Whilst the gentleman I spoke to was helpful and courteous he specifically suggested I mailed my cashback request in to him personally as having no doubt assessed that I was an intelligent customer aware of my rights he no doubt thought the company could not get away with its apparently usual practice of ignoring completed redemption forms unless customers chase them up and no doubt probably also denying they have ever arrived unless a customer uses Signed For delivery Second Class at 1.22GBP as I have been forced to do to ensure I at least get a net cashback of 18.78GBP.
5. You only pay the cashback by BACS to a UK bank account. This is totally unfair to anyone from elsewhere in the EU or USA living in the UK for a few months and using their cards from their home country to make purchases and get cash while they live here (without opening a UK bank account) who will not be able to qualify for the cashback due to its payment by this mechanism.
In my view your choice of this redemption method for the promotion gives the impression that TomTom is a sleazy and dishonest commercial operator and only uses the Cashback inducement to make customers feel the cost of a unit will be a little lower than the advertised price while most customers never receive the Cashback due to unreasonably onerous Cashback terms and conditions (including hidden redemption costs in terms of postage) imposed by TomTom.
Along with other aspects of deficiencies in the features of this supposedly top end TomTom unit such as no measurement of average speed or journey length on the unit (a feature Garmin has had on nearly all their units for several years), totally inadequately sized camera warning symbols on the unit compared to market leaders like RoadAngel and an inadequate GPS aerial in the unit that means it loses mobile connection when my mobile phone has not lost its connection, all of these things convey the impression that TomTom is a company led mainly by marketing hype and sales push rather than by excellent customer service and excellent product quality. Other signs of your apparently shabby approach include closing your UK support lines during two days of a Dutch public holiday after which the support lines were then so overloaded that UK and other EU customers could not get through for days and days afterwards. That is before we even start on matters such as Teleatlas apparently never bothering to research or implement most map corrections they receive from customers unless there are perhaps hundreds of complaints about the same location.
I look forward to your comments in particular on the shabby nature of your current cashback promotion on your Go Live units and also your past fuelcard promotion on the same units with your marketing partners at postcode HP19 8RR and also in relation to the other matters I have mentioned with inadequacies in basic product design and customer support on your top end products.
Regards, |
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Capvermell
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Joined: Jun 13, 2009
Posts: 34
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:00 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Is Mando the company behind the tomtompromotions.co.uk Cashback Offers?
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:02:11 +0100
To: becky.munday@mando.co.uk
CC: chris.baldwin@mando.co.uk, trevor.jones@mando.co.uk, alain.detaeye@tomtom.com, marina.wyatt@tomtom.com, alain.de.taeye@tomtom.com, Karel.Vuursteen@tomtom.com, doug.dunn@tomtom.com, joe.francica@directionsmag.com, adena.schutzberg@directionsmag.com, Nora.Parker@directionsmag.com, info@whichsatnav.co.uk
Dear Ms Munday,
As the postcode HP19 8RR used by tomtompromotions.co.uk for redemptions on their Cashback promotions is shown by the Royal Mail's postcode lookup website as belonging to your company can I presume that you are the people running these cashback promotions on behalf of TomTom and numerous other companies?
If so perhaps you may care to comment on my below email to TomTom expressing my dissatisfaction about what appear to be the highly misleading nature of the cashback promotions that you seem to encourage various large and respected brand names to enter in to using your company.
Regards, |
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Darren
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Location: Hampshire, UK
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:27 am Post subject: |
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Why did it cost you £1.22 or whatever to send the code back? Signed for is a free service isn't it?
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mike_d
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Capvermell
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| Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| Darren wrote: | | Why did it cost you £1.22 or whatever to send the code back? Signed for is a free service isn't it? |
You clearly don't sever use Signed For then.
The old Royal Mail Recorded Delivery used to cost about 30p on top of the postage (TomTom/Mando/NDLGroup does not offer to cover the postage and does not provide an online claim process where the post can be avoided) before it was abolished and replaced by the higher tech barcoded Signed For system and the charge was made nearly 90p on top of the postage at that point.
Proof of posting is the only service that is actually free apart from the postage and that will be no good when Mando turns round (as they have regularly done on other cashback promotions with lots of claimants) and claims not to have received your claim form when you realise months later they have not paid you the money owed.
At that point you will be out of time to claim (window is only one to two months) and will also not have the piece of TomTom product box with a barcode that you need to claim.
Why should I have to spend £1.22 to ensure I get the £20 cashback promised by TomTom? |
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Capvermell
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | -------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Is Mando the company behind the tomtompromotions.co.uk Cashback Offers?
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:01:08 +0100
From: Becky Munday becky.munday@mando.co.uk
Dear _________
Thank you for your email, I will discuss this with TomTom and get back to you shortly.
Regards
Becky |
This was the email I received from Becky Munday at Mando after which Mr Nick Deyong from www.ndlgroup.com then telephoned me (early in August) from his holiday in Turkey to explain that it was his company that dreamed up these cashback promotions for TomTom and that Mando's role was confined to fulfilling them (although it still seems to me that by applying the fulfillment rules excessively zealously that Mando can keep NDL Group's and/or TomTom's costs in fulfilling the promotion down).
Mr Deyong offered me all sorts of creative marketing man type justifications for why using the lure of hard to fulfill cashbacks was ethical such as that only those who bothered to apply for the cashback in the time allowed must really have needed to get the money off the quoted price etc but the bottom line is that basically cashback actually causes all customers buying a product to think the product is £30 or £50 or whatever cheaper when they buy it but only some of them who are administratively diligent actually get the £30 or £50 due to the hurdles presented to get the cashback. It is only done because TomTom and their agents do not have to offer anything like the advertised £20 or £50 cashback to each customer in terms of what is actually fulfilled divided by the number of customers who bought TomTom units in the promotion period. In my book all these Cashback offers are a con and should be made illegal but unfortunately under the current law they are still permitted.  |
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MrT
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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I had no problems getting the £50 from TomTom. I remember at the time TomTom said the one month delay before applying was in case people wanted to return the unit. It's not exactly a difficult task posting off an application. I wish I had time to worry about the cost of posting one letter.
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JockTamsonsBairn
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| MrT wrote: | | I had no problems getting the £50 from TomTom. I remember at the time TomTom said the one month delay before applying was in case people wanted to return the unit. It's not exactly a difficult task posting off an application. I wish I had time to worry about the cost of posting one letter. |
MrT, I take it you are talking about the £50 fuel voucher, rather than the £20 cashback being discussed here?
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Jock
TomTom Go 940 LIVE (9.510, Europe v915.5074 on SD & 8.371, WCE v875.3613 on board) |
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Capvermell
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Joined: Jun 13, 2009
Posts: 34
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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| MrT wrote: | | I wish I had time to worry about the cost of posting one letter. |
Surely its a point of principle. £20 cashback was promised so more than 5% should not have been lost in administrative costs to claim it. It was not stated there would be an administrative cost to get the money in any of the promotional displays or online adverts for the cashback.
Of course I suppose you can say I could have risked standard class post for just under 30p but when they required part of the the original box that could not be replaced and there was a limited time window of 1 to 2 months to claim the money it was not worth taking the risk of them turning round and saying it was not received. Also given the dubious ethics of cashback I am fully prepared to believe they do not actually pay out to anyone who does not use Signed For or Special Delivery and who then also forgets to chase them up over their not paying out in a reasonable period of time.
All they then need to do is turn round and say "oh well you didn't use recorded delivery so you have no way to prove you actually sent it to us and anyhow you are now past the latest deadline for claiming"...............
As to needing the one month delay to stop anyone returning the unit the fact is that the cashback claim form could be filled out and handed in at the point of sale and paid automatically to everyone who bought one as long as the retailer did not receive a return within x days.
The real reason for the restrictive redemption rules is clearly because large numbers of customers (at least 50% in my view and quite probably more) fall down in complying with them. |
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Seamaster
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Joined: Jun 05, 2006
Posts: 331
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| I got the fuel card that was on offer with my 740 without any hassle whatsoever. This is all much ado about nothing, IMO. |
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SpikeyMikey
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Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Posts: 852
Location: Hertfordshire. Forever blowing bubbles
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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I bought a 940 today with the fuel offer still displayed only to find applications had to be received by the end of May.
As it was end of line so to speak I managed to negotiate a discount.
It seems to be working and updating fine, do i need an activation code as there wasn't one supplied.
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Mike
TT GO6000 (Europe); iPhone and iPad Pro with iOS TT GO & MyDrive + CamerAlert |
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Capvermell
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Posts: 34
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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| SpikeyMikey wrote: | | It seems to be working and updating fine, do i need an activation code as there wasn't one supplied. |
No it just gets three months of Live Traffic services from the first time it starts connecting to the TomTom servers via GPRS. However if it was a shop demo unit you might find there is an issue and the three months have already been used up. If so complain to TomTom and try to get another free 3 months offered to you. |
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SpikeyMikey
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Location: Hertfordshire. Forever blowing bubbles
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| Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks.
I'm in the process of doing the free map update which is taking ages understandably, I'll check LIVE services status once complete.
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Mike
TT GO6000 (Europe); iPhone and iPad Pro with iOS TT GO & MyDrive + CamerAlert |
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Capvermell
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| Posted: Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Seamaster wrote: | | I got the fuel card that was on offer with my 740 without any hassle whatsoever. This is all much ado about nothing, IMO. |
Don't you think it would have been easier if the units had just cost £40 less to purchase then? Also did it not concern you that some of the other buyers of the TomTom could easily have overlooked claiming the fuel card in time. |
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