MyPoints just sent out an email advertising its “Holiday Points Extravaganza!”… You have GOT to be kidding me!
They want you to shop through their Points-Per-Dollar Merchants through December 31, and if you do, they’ll give you an additional bonus in FEBRUARY. The bonus structure is as follows:
Spend $100 – $499 and get 150 bonus points
Spend $500 – $999 and get 350 bonus points
Spend $1000+ and get 750 bonus points
Okay, this is wrong on so many levels. Where to begin?
First off, MyPoints’ points-per-dollar offers are generally very low rebates to begin with — 2 points per dollar = a 1.82% rebate. 3 points per dollar = 2.73%. 4 points per dollar = 3.64%.
Not only are they low percentage rebates, they are low compared to what other rewards programs pay for the same merchants! Before you shop, go to http://www.sdrawer.com/shopbysitename.htm and find the merchant you want to shop with in their alphabetical list to see what other programs are paying. You’ll see that once you convert those points per dollar offers to %, it’s easier to compare… and MyPoints usually just plain SUCKS!
Now to further insult you, MyPoints is offering these bonuses based on your total purchases through Dec. 31. Let’s convert those, too. 150 points is worth about $1.37. That’s the bonus they’re going to give you for spending almost $500 of your money through them! Spend between $500 and $999 and they’ll give you a whopping $3.19 bonus (350 points). Whoa, hold me back! But if you’re a really big spender and you spend over $1,000…you get a $6.83 bonus!
How the heck is that an “Extravaganza”?
Lemme give it to you straight, folks. MyPoints is a great program for those big flat-rate point offers. I LOVE the “500 MyPoints Daily for Any Overstock Purchase” offer. It credits overnight. It works on a purchase of a single media item. You can MAKE money with that deal. But the points-per-dollar offers at MyPoints are pretty sad, percentage-wise. They just don’t think you’re going to do the math and compare them to other programs and find this out.
You’re going to do much better doing your holiday shopping through QuickRewards.net. They have a much higher rebate percentage and they tell you what you earn STRAIGHT UP in percentages, rather than trying to hide it with paying in points. You can cash out to Paypal with no minimum cashout requirement and get paid THE SAME DAY, or you can save up for GCs like Amazon and Disney Dollars. Not only will you earn more for your purchases, but frequent shoppers get bonuses on top of THAT! So, skip the points-per-dollar “Extravaganza” at MyPoints (what a load of crap) and earn more with EVERY purchase at QuickRewards.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been a MyPoints customer for a year and a half, have earned more than 33,000 points, and until recently enjoyed my membership very much. Something has happened to MyPoints in October. Everything has changed. Hardly anything is credited to our accounts, customer e-mails are for the most part unanswered (which is not surprising since the sequential tracking numbers indicate that they are receiving thousands of complaints) and several of the links don’t work. For instance, the Office Depot site works perfectly if you access it directly, but not if you go in through the MyPoints link. In other words, MyPoints promises you 5,000 points for an Office Depot purchase, but you have to access O.D. through the M.P. link and then the site’s check-out function doesn’t work. Either MyPoints employees are overwhelmed or they just don’t care anymore. And if they don’t care, it’s hard for them to expect us to.
I agree with the first poster. I have made several purchases through MP from October to now. I had waited at least 30 days and never got my points. What I had to do was send MP an email that had a copy of my confirmation/receipt, then I got my points. So in other words, do not delete you confirmations or receipts until after you receive your points because you may need them as proof in order to collect your points. It seems MP has become a “if they don’t ask then we don’t give” type of company when it comes to giving out the points earned for actual purchases. On another note, I haven’t seen Max for the extra points all this week…and I have checked each day. I wonder if MP isn’t going to be consistant with that either. I have been a MP member for less than a year and generally speaking I do like the company but they do have some issues….
I can tell you that I am more than just a little upset with MyPoints. I have been having an on going problem with them no crediting me with points with I shop using their link with Office Depot. I have been a member for well over a year now and I have all ways had the same problem. I email them and get the run around asking me to wait 30 days to see if the points get credited to my account, which they never do. I have lost thousands of points and I told them about this over and over and all I get the same old emails back. Finally for the last couple of months we have been going round with them about issue again. I cut and pasted one order I had placed on 8/2/2004 and told them that if and when they got this corrected and that received the points for that order I would send in more of the order I didn’t get credit for.
Mypoints repsponed by finally giving me credit for the order a cut and pasted on the email I sent, so I thought it was safe to send more emails and the response I got back was that they
had looked into the orders and “verified” that the order were not placed online through and/or that I did not use their link. I emailed them back and asked them how they verified their information as I can prove otherwise. I even pasted the “MyPoints link” I use to place the orders and that felt I was being ripped off.
Well today they emailed me back and all they stated was that they had given me 2000 points for Office Depot. I started to email them back to say that those points were just for one order back in August that I didn’t receive point for not for the other orders just from 5/04-11/15/04 totaling $8722.91 that I had received points for or orders prior to 5/04. I also decided to visit the to go to the website and checkout my account, when I went to logon it said either my user name or password was wrong, but I know I had the login information correct. Then my account became disabled and when I tried to put in my email address it said it didn’t exist. I really do not know what to make of the whole thing but it really look something is rather fishy.
One last point about MyPoints. Here’s a warning to other frustrated members — forget about trying to get the points you deserve because the bottom line here is that they are now sending out “reward” cards that are worthless. Try as I might, I could not use my Linens N Things gift card I had received from MyPoints on the LNT website, although I had used LNT cards in this way before. After much frustration, I finally phoned LNT and they checked the card number, said the card was worthless with no value. Said this card had been “master-valued” on July 2, 2004, and “de-valued” on July 7, 2004. No one had used it to shop, they had just removed the money value from the card and sent it out to me, their dumb trusting MyPoints customer, three months later. Who knows how many other MyPoints customers are eagerly planning to use reward cards that will be turned away at the cashier? MyPoints hasn’t paid attention to three or four e-mails, a letter along with a package of documentation supporting transactions, and they also ignored my phone call on Friday, November 25th, about the bogus card. That’s okay, maybe it won’t be so easy for them to ignore the Better Business Bureau San Francisco branch. I have found that the BBB there has received 91 complaints about them — only a few of which have been resolved — and that MyPoints has a “low rating”. As of last Friday, I became Complaint No. 92.
I’ve had a hard time collecting my rewards. One card took 14 months to arrive, after many complaints to them. The next one took 8 months of complaints to receive. The last on came to me within 3 months and when I took it to Lowe’s to redeem, it only had 72 cents on it instead of $10. Something isn’t right there.
I had 62,000 points and more were on the way earned from MyPoints. One day, while logging into my account, it stated that my account was disabled. I sent an email to membercare@mypoints.com to ask the reason why my account was disabled. After 2 weeks, a reply stated that my account was used in fraudulent activities. I explained to them that only I have total access to my account and that I did not ever enter into fraudulent activities. I did not receive any response whatsoever. Thus, I filed a complaint with the BBB and they also received no response.
Fortunately (for me!) I have had NO bad experiences with Mypoints. I have used them now for over 6 years and have always cashed in my points and received my gift cards w/in a week or so and all were worth the appropriate dollar amount. I HAVE had other problems with other sites,so, I can certainly understand everyones frustrations. Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch!
I have been a member of MyPoints for several years. Only until about sometime last year, did I not have any complaints. It seems to take FOREVER to receive your points from certain buys and definitely FOREVER to receive your rewards.
For the FIRST time, today I received a $25.00 gift card with a 16 digit number to Overstock.com. I’ve been battling other, unrelated issues with Overstock’s Auctions for the past 5 or so weeks. Now, to top it off, I go to make a purchase with my gift card for my Overstock.com purchases and get an ERROR message that the card number is I-N-V-A-L-I-D. Does that mean, perhaps that someone already USED the card when it was sent out to me??
NOT too cool. So, I decided to chat with Overstock’s customer service. Chatted briefly with a Robbie C. who asked that I hold while they check their sources. Well, guess what?? Overstock couldn’t help me … I’m back to square one with MyPoints. And, it took over a month to get this card.
I got back a autoreply from MyPoints. Let’s see how long it takes for another gift card that works!!
I strongly agree with the comments about MyPoints’ lack of reponse to complaints. I have beeen trying to resolve an issue with them concerning points for 4 mths. now. It is very frustrating when you get a response saying the issue will be resolved in 5 days, but after the initial inquiry, you get nothing. I would not recomend them to anyone!
I’ve been a member of mypoints for years. I looked up this page through a search engine to see if other people were having problems getting points. I have emailed mypoints for 3 months, called them long distance and still don’t have points. I’m really unhappy about it because I’ve spent over a year spending money, joining clubs etc. and spending a lot of time to do this. I was saving up all year to buy my son a present he needs for his health. Now that I can’t get my points, looks like I won’t be able to get it for Christmas like I planned. I’ve written them another email telling them I may be forced to file a report with the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Groups in their state.
I’ve been a member for years with mypoints. In the last year, they have not given me the points I’ve earned. Anyone who belongs to mypoints knows the work, money, time, membership involvement etc. to earn these hard earned points. I’ve saved up a long time and now mypoints is hiding from customers. They are keeping hundreds of thousands of advertising money telling all these companies that we spend money from their advertising and getting points. The only people getting money and benefits are the owners of mypoints. Many members, including my family members have contacted them with letters, calls, and messages for months and months. They don’t respond. There is POWER in NUMBERS. Everytime you get a mypoint email to earn points and you click on it, they get paid. We are working for their money. This is fraud. We have begun notifying every advertiser they send to us with a contact and email. They also have companies on their site that need to be contacted. One or a few people can’t do this alone. We have a right to get paid the points they earned. Everyone who hasn’t gotten their benefits needs to start contacting the companies who pay mypoints for advertising because they are being duped also. The more who do this, the quicker we will protect new prospective customers from being lied to and earning my points money, as well as they will be forced to pay their debts by the way of points to all of us who have earned them. They are certainly enjoying spending the money we have made for them and they are so busy doing it, they are ignoring the member accounts and not spending the money and business we have given and earned them by buying our points and giving them to us to get our gifts, products, etc. B.Smith
Can not even get through on there web page.
I have only been a member for a short time and I am getting the run around on points I should have received for a Netflix purchase. I have considered joining Netflix for awhile, but have always talked myself out of it. My brother told me about Mypoints and how it worked or is supposed to work. I decided to give it a try. I noticed Netflix is on the Mypoints site. I looked at the offer of 1000 points if you sign up for the dvd service and decided to go ahead and order Netflix since I have thought about it before and the promise of 1000 points sounded like a good deal.
I went through the mypoints netflix link and signed up. The next day I checked to see if my points were listed or pending. There was no record of the purchase. I contacted mypoints and received a response in about twelve hours. I thought it was a good turn around time, but it was not the response I was looking for. I was told that if I had followed their link, there would be a clickthru on my account. They suggested that I must have gone through the Netflix website and ordered and that is why I did not receive any points. The problem with that is the fact that I did go through the mypoints website. I emailed them a second time and they asked for a confirmation email which I sent. I received another email stating there should be a clickthru. I replied again that was the reason I was contacting them. I agreed there should be a clickthru but there was not. I asked them to check with their tech center and try to figure out the problem because, as I assured them, the problem was on their end, not mine. I have yet to hear from them, but I suspect they will still try to get out of honoring their offer.
They should really get there links taken care of so they work properly otherwise I feel
I will have no chose but to report their fraudulant actions to the BBB. Like they care. I will also warn everyone I know about their deceptive ways.
This was supposed to be something fun and cool, but the people in charge of mypoints appear to suck. It kind of sounds stupid to bitch about a free service, but it is the priciple of it that gets frustrating. I find it suspicious that they have no problem awarding the 5 points at a time for little advertisements they send you, but it seems you do something to earn major points and all of the sudden it’s points? we have no record that you should receive points. How convenient.
Contact government fraud agency https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=