What Is Cashback

What is Cash Back Deals?

A- Many online retailers offer cash back to their customers in order to entice you to purchase your new contract phone from them.

The network service providers of UK offer various incentives along with their tariff plans to attract the consumers. Cashback offer is one such type of incentives offered by the network providers. Some mobile phone retailers also provide the cashback offer with their cheap tariff plans. With the Cashback offer one will get back the money invested while acquiring the tariff plans. You can also get the cashback offer with the 12 months and 18 months contract deals. There are also some latest handsets such as Nokia N95, Nokia E61, Sony Ericsson 850i, LG Shine etc. which can fetch you the cashback offer.

 What is Automatic Cash Back or Instant Cash Back Deals?

 A- Mobile phone deals with Automatic or instant cash back or in some cases reductions in line rental that are taken directly from your monthly network bill. Automatic cash back is normally paid shortly after connection via cheque or bank transfer. No risk of decline cash back claims anyway. There are no need to make cash back claims and no vouchers to send back. Money paid directly in to your bank account or via Cheque. What you need to do, click on the network logos or cash back deal button to view all automatic cash back deals on that mobile phone offering by network or retailers.

Automatic cash back Deals are becoming more popular but don’t offer as big discounts as manual cash back. Some deals can also be part manual, part automatic cash back; if that’s the case only count on receiving the automatic amount.

 Q - How can retailers afford to offer such deals?



A - Retailers focus on customer retention and will hope to retain you as a customer when your new contract expires (in approx 12 months). So retailers actually make a loss to start with (by giving you cash back) but hope to recover this loss at a later date as it's much cheaper to retain a customer than find a new one.



However, it's totally up to you in a year’s time whether you buy another contract from the same or different retailer - so why not take advantage of these great deals now!

 Q - How does cash back work?



A- Lets say you get your new phone from the Carphone Warehouse. Every few months you will be required to send off a copy of your monthly bill. Once each bill is received by the Carphone Warehouse, they will send you a cheque in the post which you cash in as normal at your bank. The value of your cheque will be dependant on your entitlement set out in your contract - this could vary from £20 to £400.

 For example the contract might cost £40 per month for a minimum period of 12 months, this works out at £480 for the 1 year minimum period.

In the above example the retailer may advertise the contract as being £20 a month for 12 months. Usually, the customer will pay the £40 per month directly to the network and subsequently claim £240 in the form of cash back from the retailer, in one or more payments. This is aimed to make the deal seem cheaper for the customer to entice them to enter into the contract and for the network and retailer to gain an additional customer.

Some cashback deals are paid in one lump sum and some (the majority) are paid out in a set month during the contract term.

An example, £400 total for a 12 month contract with £300 cashback will be paid with £100 in month 4, £100 in month 7 and £100 in month 11. This pays the customer a total of the £300 cashback.

Q- What is aims of Cash Back Deals?

A- The way Cashback start is a network (Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin 3G) will say to a retailer like (Phones 4U, The Carphone Warehouse, e2save) "We will pay you £500 if you bring us a new customer". Once this offer has been made, the Retailer can then decide what they want to do to bring in that new customer. Many cash back offer's are based on a retailer meeting a target set by the network, which if they meet that target they will get a bonus payout from the network operator along with commission paid for every connection.

From the £500 they get for a new customer they might offer £300 cashback meaning they entice a new customer in with a £300 cashback offer, they get that new customer and they have £200 left for their profits (£500 minus £300).

Cash Back Deals good or bad?

A- Cashback deals do seem good and are a good way to have a contract Mobile Phone at a reduced rate and sometimes with cashback the year ends up being free.

Cashback deals can seem too good to be true, but where the Network makes their money is by asking the customer to send back their bill for a specific month to obtain their payment. Which is fair enough and does seem easy to do, but some companies give timescales of 7 days or 14 days which not everyone can keep on track of and end up forgetting, missing out on that months cashback and the company keeping that cashback.

As long as you stick to the Terms & Conditions laid out by the company then there should be no problems at all and you will receive your cashback in full.

Where to buy Cash back Deals?

A- It should also be noted that it is important to take out such a mobile phone cashback offer with a reputable retailers or shop. This is to ensure the retailer does not go out of business which will result in no come back claiming their cashback.

Well known companies offering the facility include Dial-a-Phone.co.uk, Phones4U.co.uk, TheLink.co.uk, Mobileshop.com, Mobiles.co.uk and The Carphone Warehouse owned websites e2save, ThePhoneSpot and OneStopPhoneShop.

Some Tips for Cash Back Claim!

What steps you should need to make you cash back claim successful:

1). Check the merchant’s or network terms and condition for claiming a cash back before placing order.

2). Try to Read some online discussion and reviews for network or merchants where you are interesting to buy a handset.

3). If you are feeling difficulty to understand their cash back procedure, ring them and speak to their advisor for advise.

4). As soon as you receive your new phone, make sure all relevant documents are in box. (Some retailer need cash back vouchers which they send you with your new phone. you must keep these entire voucher safe and send them at the time of make a claim with a relevant bill voucher)

5). If you are doubt which is the right month to claim cash back, speak to merchant cash back department or customer services department to make sure you are sending right month bill.

6). Some merchants required all previous bills at the time of claim. In this case you need to keep all original bills in a safe place and send them all at the time of claim. If you lost these original bills you may be loose your cash back claim. They might be not accepting duplicate or photo copy bill

7). A Cash back claim may be rejected if you upgrade contract or change deal before the time period set by the merchant.

8). Send your cash back claim via Recoded delivery (Royal mail). I will cost you just approx £1.50.

8). Make copy of all your documents which you are sending with claim. Merchant will not send you any document or bill back to you even your cash back is successful or not. Mostly they need first two pages of original bill. Your name and address must be printed on.

9). If you have some arrear on your bill at the time of claim, your claim might be rejected.

10). Keep your proof of delivery safe place. May be you will need it for future reference if you get any problem or mail lost

11). some merchants send you text or email for acknowledgement. Some of them don't tell you anything; you can track your delivery on royal mail website or ring them to know that claim has reached their office

12). Merchant will take 28 to 60 days to process it and if all the documents are according to their cash back guideline they will send you cheque or direct deposit in to your bank account listed with them.

Note: Before buying cash back deals first read retailer or network terms and condition for cash back claim.