What is Cash Back?

For those who have little knowledge of these schemes, they basically make phone contracts appear much cheaper than they are by offering large sums of money (cash back) in return for signing up to 12 or 18 month deals. To claim the cash back, the consumer has to send in monthly bills within certain times frames throughout the contract duration. People are tempted by what appear to be very low monthly rates (i.e. 12 months FREE) and often sign up to expensive price plans they would ordinarily be unable to afford. The problems arise because the cash back deals often prove hard to claim as the terms and conditions can be difficult to understand, and due to very strict stipulations, can be even harder to meet, meaning thousands of people fail to claim.

To make matters worse, in many cases retailers have gone bust before consumers have received their expected cash back.

Now we're in no way suggesting that all cash back offers are dubious, indeed we're sure they work well for some consumers, but we just can't escape from the bad press they've attracted of late.

Owing to the number of complaints from consumers, Ofcom (the telecoms regulator) has brokered a voluntary code of practice setting out minimum standards for the marketing and administration of cash back deals. Ofcom supported this industry code on the basis that it would lead to a 'significant' reduction in the volume of cash back complaints. Unfortunately this reduction hasn't happened. The consumer organisation Which? actually wants cash back schemes banned altogether.

We hope this goes some way to offering an explanation as to why we do not feel comfortable including cash back offers with our deals. Besides, they're brilliant as they are!