The company was founded with the primary goal of saving households throughout the UK, 100's of pounds a year on everything from utility bills to taking out credit cards, as well as assisting retailers in a new form of marketing and promotion. The site itself is a haven of discounts, special offers and limited period incentives, as well as being a well-paying cash back site. Membership of Top Cash Back is open to all households throughout the U.K, and is not, (as in the case of many) limited to just one member per household. With this in mind, the kids can earn their own cash back, using retailers from iTunes to Ebay, without having to use your account.
As an avid member of several cash back websites, including good old Mutual Points, I have yet to find one that maintains such high percentages in terms of cash back offers. True, competitors do occasionally outdo them, but thats the nature of the industry, and unlike Top Cash Back, many of the competitors do not maintain these consistently high rates for a long period of time (i.e more than a month). Top Cash Back are one of the few who reward their customers 100% cash back.
Don't misconstrue this to meaning you get the full amount of your online shop back, as it is not the intention. 100% cash back means that whatever revenue is earned from your purchase from a retailer, is then rewarded to you without Top Cash Back taking their own percentage. The simple reason for this is that Top Cash Back earn their revenue from advertising, affiliate relationships and sponsorship-style deals with featured retailers, who pay them to appear on the site. Navigating the site, you will soon see why. Competition within online retail is fiercer than it has ever been, and many retailers, as well as energy and finance companies, have become reliant on this form of incentive marketing to generate new custom, as well as poaching customers from competitors.
Having been a member for just over six months, I have amassed what I consider to be a relatively high amount in cash back, £547 to be precise, through a combination of switching my dual fuel energy provider (awesome £120 limited period cash back), upgrading my mobile phone contract, daily clicks, and retail shopping with the likes of catalogue and clothing stores online.
Signing up was a doddle and took all of two minutes. The very basic form required an email address, full name, user-names and memorable password, as well as home address. Other details such as telephone numbers and bank information are not conditional, and therefore do not have to be entered in order to open an account. These can be added later if you so wish, and ideal if you would like fast payments via BACS (2-3 working days and straight into your bank account), however they do offer other payment methods such as cheque and Paypal if you prefer not giving out financial information. Payment can be requested whenever you so wish and unlike most sites, can be done at 7 day intervals, via any of the methods available. It hits your bank or Paypal account within 2-3 working days in most instances too. Signing up initiates an automatic £2.50 welcome amount which instantly tracks on your earnings page and is quickly available for withdrawal, unlike many other sites who retain the welcome bonus until you reach a specified payout minimum of anything from £10-£25. In terms of security, the website is both McAfee and Veri-Sign secure, meaning that the site uses a form of encryption when users submit and alter information, as well as being subject to a daily security scan for the prevention of outside access to personal information and possible links to websites which may pose a threat to your computer.
Starting out, as well as navigation, is assisted by step-by-step instructions, rather like a mini-tutorial, which you can choose to use or ignore at your leisure, and coupled with a comprehensive help section covering everything from how to get started, to understanding the tracking system. On the overview page when logged in, there is an option in the sub-menu (tab) to test tracking, This is a small and non-invasive tool that does not pose a risk to your computer, rather tests your browser to check whether you have "cookies" enabled. Small chunks of encrypted information are stored by your browser and sent to a retailer on completion of a transaction, therefore "tracking" your purchase and confirming it with Top Cash Back. This is a non-invasive process and does not access anything on your actual computer. It is also entirely optional, however recommendable to ensure your purchases do track and that you subsequently get cash back. Searching for retailers is extremely easy, and is either done via the search bar at the top of the page, or via the brown browse button, which loads a slide down list of categories. You can choose to go to a category (anything from Electrical's to Health and Beauty) or visit the Merchant A-Z, which provides a complete list of all participating retailers on the site.
There are several other options featuring on the drop-down list, many of which I have taken advantage of (under the Useful Links heading). These are Recurring Earners (or Daily Clicks as some may know them as) and are very small amounts paid to users who search via several engine providers. These pay from 1-5p per search and are a good way of building up small amounts if done on a regular basis. It can be tedious but soon adds up as I have found out.
The Useful Links tab also features sub-headings such as Non-Purchase Offers. This category lists a number of cash back paying opportunities that range from competition entry to partaking in free, no obligation trials (from the likes of Love Film and Tesco DVD Rental). Paying out around £15 for a 30 day trial (cancelable at any time) these are additionally another great way of earning cash back for doing very little, or free money as it might be known.
Useful Links also allows you to view the Highest Paying Retailers, Favorite Retailers (which you can add to when on the retailer page), Recently Added and Recently Updated offers. Nice little touches for those may be a bit more serious about utilizing the site to it's full money-making potential.
Navigation isn't a nightmare thanks to the Getting Started information tool, as well as the relatively simple and uncluttered design of the website. Although the orange background is quite bold, it doesn't detract from the ease of getting around. The top tab menu links you to My Account, Help, Blogs, Charities and Home Page, and the aforementioned side menu gives you instant access to an A-Z of retailer categories, as well as retailers.
The My Account page is without some of the hurdles I have encountered on other sites, such as too many sub menus. The concise layout gives one-click access to account Earnings, Settings (account info, email preferences etc.), Payments and Enquiries.
The Earnings table is clearly laid out, everything tracked and logged by date, retailer name and so-forth, as well as including a page-break, sectioning off purchases which you have since had pay-outs for. Other cash back sites do not separate this information and it can get a bit confusing scrolling through months worth of transactions to check what has become payable. I think it also worthy to mention that the Account Overview Page has a white box on the right hand side which states how much in cash back you have outstanding (pending), as well as how much you have been paid out. This is totalled together so you can get idea of your full earning amount since joining Top Cash Back too which gives you a warm fuzzy feeling after you've been there a while. Additional ways to earn cash include the referral system which works like most others. You refer people you know in return for cash, and in this case £1.50 per friend or family member that signs up. You can do this in a variety of ways from sending a message from the site (and entering the email addresses of people you know), to the generation of a code that allows you to integrate a banner on your own homepage, social page or website. In the case of business customers there is also an affiliate program in place. The referral bonus works on the basis that once your friend has joined the site, and amassed a minimum of £15.00 in cash back, the £1.50 then gets added to your earnings. If you have earned over £150 on the site since you joined, the referral bonus goes up to £2.50 per referral (working on the same basis of them accruing a minimum of £15.00) and is well worth taking advantage of to boost your earnings even more.
While Top Cash Back is obviously out to make money as a company, they are not doing so at the expense of users. As previously mentioned, they do not take a percentage of cash back earned by users, and in this respect are able to offer higher amounts as a result. Additionally, there is a definitive and growing community spirit on the site, evident with the inclusion of the short review system, allowing users to post their experiences of payments and tracking on the feature pages of all retailers. Quite helpful in deciding whether to take advantage of a particular retailers cash back or not. If they have a poor tracking history then it is more than worth your while trying a different one.
Something I have found particularly individual in terms of earning cash back on this site, is the Top-Ups advantage system. Basically, it is an additional reward scheme for regular users of the site which boosts cash back to up to 110%. Top Cash Back basically pay you up to 10% more on top of the usual amount you earn with retailers and it all adds up. Maintaining this level of return is, as mentioned, dependent on the regularity of your use of the site. TopCashBack are intent on generating and maintaining their massive user-base, and as such have several things they stringently adhere to. The fair-use policy on the about us page demonstrates their commitment to providing the best possible service and support to users, as well as detailing the methods they go to to solve problems (which includes chasing retailers if cash back is ever missing or disputed). The mission statement also gives the company reputability, outlining their commitment to honesty and reliability, as well as trying (and mostly succeeding) in providing the most generous reward offers available. They claim to be the "U.K's most generous cash back site" and following experience over several years of other high profile sites, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
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