Shopping online

[#1]

This is beyond frustrating. It's bad enough that I have to report nearly every purchase myself, even though I have the toolbar installed. But then I'm asked to paste my confirmation email into the box... which would be FINE, if I didn't have to do it 20 times because there's always mysterious "invalid characters" which are NEVER SPECIFIED. So I have to keep trying everything, removing every $ sign, @ sign, colon, dash... everything I can think of. It takes forever. And HELLO, confirmation emails HAVE DOLLAR SIGNS AND @ SIGNS.

Then I get an email asking me to send my receipt!!! This is ridiculous. It's so much work, when it's supposed to be automatic. You simply MUST FIX THIS. I have just spent 10 minutes trying to edit "invalid characters" out of a confirmation email to get it down to letters, numbers, periods and commas. And now I'll be asked for the receipt again, when I've already filled out a form with all the information AND pasted the confirmation into the box... MEANWHILE, it was all supposed to happen automatically. It's absurd.

[#2]

I don't have the toolbar, but I always go to upromise first, then on to the participating companies.  In 6 years of online shopping, I have only had two occasions I needed to contact upromise for a missing contribution.  Each time I only had to fill in the missing contribution form - I have never had to cut and paste a confirmation email or send in a receipt.  May because I always start with Upromise first, they have more information in their system somewhere and usually within a week I had a response that my missing contribution will be posted shortly.  And both times it was.

[#3]

Rosalyn, thanks for jumping in and describing your experience.  That's helpful to know.

Laurie, I'm sorry to hear how frustrating this has been for you.  I've spoken with our team here to discuss this and you'll be contacted shortly.

Thanks,

Jeff

[#4]

1) the whole idea of having the toolbar installed is so that you DON'T have to keep going to the Upromise site and then finding the retailer. So that's not really a solution to the problem of not having ALL purchases automatically tracked by the toolbar.

2) If you have only had a couple of missing contributions, that is why you don't have to submit anything besides the form. You're apparently allowed a couple of those "freebies" before you're asked to submit receipts for every missing contribution.

If the confirmation email--with retailer name, order number, date of purchase and amount--is requested along with THE SAME INFORMATION on the form, I don't see why it's all requested AGAIN by email. You have all the information, your "Research Team"  can verify it with the retailer. That's what they're there for. Yes, that's work (I've done enough work to report purchases that were not automatically tracked...) but isn't that an incentive to improve the toolbar? It's ridiculously inconsistent.

[#5]

Just got a call from a very nice (and very patient) young man from Upromise, who is looking into these problems.

[#6]

I have had the same problem with the online form where you are suppossed to paste your receipt.  It keeps telling me too that there are invalid characters... when I couldn't find any.  So, I ended up faxing mine to Upromise, but haven't heard anything back from them yet (and that's been a while ago now???)  I agree though, there should be something a bit easier, the online form doesn't work right, and I have missing contributions on a monthly basis from either ecoupons, grocery items, or online shopping... saving all of these receipts for 3-4 months get to be alot of work, and then emailing them, just to wait 7-10 for a reply that tells me to mail or fax the recipts to them, so I do, and then I wait 7-10 more days while they research it, and then I have to send an email to ask again about the missing contributions, and tell them that I've already faxed what they need, and wait another 7-10 for a reply, and then wait another 7-10 days for the funds to post... so, all-in-all, I have to keep all of these receipts for a good 6 months!

Last December, I had to fax almost 20 pages of receipts to Upromise ( I had to fax tham twice, mind you!) for missing contributions... it was hassle, but it all got cleared up!

[#7]

I'm having the same problems with "invalid characters".  I've tried in both Firefox and IE8, just in case it was a browser issue.  I've got 3 missing contributions I need Upromise to research, so I just submitted them without receipts explaining the error.  I requested that they email me so I can forward the receipts to them via email.  I really don't want to have to resort to faxing or mailing.  Fingers crossed that this will work!

Someone really needs to figure out what's wrong with that online form.  I copy/pasted my receipts into Word to remove all the formatting, so the only thing I pasted in was plain text, and I still got an error.  If you can't submit receipts with punctuation or basic symbols, that is a major flaw with the form.

[#8]

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had a problem with this Upromise.  I am new as of today and already purchased text books and an electronic and I still have not seen any savings?  I do use the tool box with Upromise and then it takes me to the website with the company I am going to buy from then I click to buy and the same website which I was on beforehand pops up. I'm thinking I'm doing it all correctly and I order yet I still don't see the savings changing?  Why is that and where do I go if I have to submit my receipts which I don't have but only confirmation numbers.  Do I wait tll my products come in and then send them on over to Upromise?  Anyhow, I'm sure we will get the hang of this. I'm just glad I will get cash from this month w/my own personal Credit Union at the end of the month for all purchases.  Every bit helps!!  JOY

[#9]

Simshah,

It takes up to 45 business days for purchases to show up as pending in your account.  Some companies may take even longer.  Check out the contibution timetable: https://lty.s.upromise.com/nspage?su=8201&cx=l3

I've yet to have anything show up the same day I purchase it, but occassionally I'll see them appear within a week or two.

If you wait 45 business days (or however long is necessary based on the contibution timetable) and you still don't see anything, then you report the contributions as missing.  Everyone else in this thread was having problems submitting the missing contribution forms after the appropriate time period had passed.

[#10]

Count me in as being beyond frustrated, too! I just had the same problem trying to submit a missing contribution inquiry, along with the endless error messages re: invalid characters. The funny thing is, after that ordeal was finished, I decided to voice my complaint about the process to customer service using a similar form and it went right through! Apparently, the customer service form is more accepting of so-called invalid characters. Huh, how about that? And what's up with requiring receipts now? This is an affiliate program, just like any other. All that should be required is the order number for follow up with the company. For pity sake, I've clicked through the Upromise site, so am I to now believe that Upromise doesn't have a record of the transaction? Am I to believe that Upromise hasn't received their affiliate fee? It's a bit of a stretch, don't you think, with the infinite technology that's documenting every minute detail of each transaction on the internet. I am thoroughly disgusted and will be using other affiliate programs through which to shop & save if this keeps up.