When you lead an insanely busy life, which we do, you can be guilty of not taking the time to find out more about some of the things that people tell you about; I’ve seen people refer to Top CashBack an awful lot over the years but somehow I’ve never quite found the time to investigate. I suppose my gut feeling was ‘lots of effort and probably not much reward’ and so I never took the time to look and find out. Considering 90% of the shopping I do is done online, this was something of an error of judgement 🙄
Still, there is nothing quite like a review opportunity to get you looking at something properly, so when Top CashBack invited me to try doing my Christmas shopping via their site, it would have been silly to say no 😉 So take a look I did. I’d not looked at it, or anything similar before so I didn’t really know what to expect but I was immediately struck by how easy it was to make a start. I get incredibly frustrated by unintuitive websites; I want my searches to work well, I want easy navigation and I want to know help is at hand when I make a start if I can’t get to what I want.
Getting started on shopping was easy; I quickly found all my favourites were registered with them – Lego, Amazon, Carphone Warehouse, Play, Dance Direct, Game and more. There is no ambiguity; when you click through to a site it opens in a new window, leaving the Top CashBack one open with a pop up letting you know your click through has been recorded. The clicks are also logged in a panel in your account and if you purchase from them, your pending cashback appears pretty quickly too. Mine appeared in anything from 20 minutes to about 2 days; I was just beginning to wonder about the longer timed one when it appeared and had gone to see what I would do if the click hadn’t been acknowledged. The help pages seem very confidence inspiring. Knowing the click is logged gave me confidence and the help suggests any discrepancy will be looked at efficiently and with a view to getting your money. I didn’t need to do any of that though as my amount appeared quite soon after.
Actually, right behind the opportunities to earn money back, my favourite thing about the site was the transparency, ease of use and ability to find exactly the information you need really quickly. As websites go, it’s one of the best designed I’ve ever seen. I get so sick of big websites that seem to deliberately hide help and support in places you won’t find it – TCB is definitely different.
The offers vary; I got caught out with one of them before I totally understood what I was doing and thought I would get cashback from a purchase when in fact I needed to choose a specific offer to qualify (but it would have helped if I had read what was written in front of me!) Hunting around for a few different registered shops for your item might yield different amounts of cashback too, so it is worth shopping when you have time to do that. I was surprised to find Amazon there but their cashbacks are limited to very specific categories – something TCB point out clearly on the pop up as you click through. I REALLY liked that there are a good number of smaller independent traders on there too, making it even easier for people to support small business; I’m thinking I will look at registering with them for our own business next year.
As well as shopping for actual ‘stuff’ I’ve now had time to look at what else is available. There are offers and cashbacks on things it would never have occurred to me to look for; experience days, contracts for TV channel provision, insurance, utilities and travel opportunities. There are also options to earn cashback for free things such as checking credit ratings, competitions, surveys and the like. If I’m honest, I do lack the time for that, but it will be ideal for people who want to do them. Then there is a toolbar for all major browsers which you can install to keep track of your earnings and alert you when you have cashback opportunities on a site.
You could even earn me some cashback by signing up from this banner, if you haven’t already.
So, two weeks on and I’ve earned nearly £20 for doing nothing more than clicking to buy things I’d have bought anyway. My conclusion? I’m a blooming idiot for not doing this sooner!
Disclosure: Top CashBack have paid us for this review; all opinions are our own.
I always buy my car and home insurance through TCB, although I tend to forget to use it for ordinary shopping. Might download that toolbar now you’ve mentioned it!