ShopSmarterReviews 331

I just received an email that there is a hold on my account. After a quick google search, I see that this is a common tactic used by their company. After being paid by the merchant, they refuse to payout and keep the money on the back end. All the reviewers here are correct in claiming they are a fraudulent company. Shame I didn't read this first.

Do not trust this business to act in good faith if you qualify for a large rebate.

First some backstory. I previously had an account with this company and my membership fees were paid using a card that had to be replaced. I forgot to update my payment method with the new card and eventually found I could not log into my account. No big deal. I just reopened my account with the same email address and new card.

I recently made a $6500ish purchase through the site from BuyDig and did not get a confirmation email stating that I earned cash back. I contacted customer service who confirmed that they saw the activity where I'd used the vendor link to make the purchase and I provided my receipt. They responded saying that I would have the credit added to my account within 2-8 weeks if BuyDig could not provide a reason to deny the claim. At nearly 8 weeks to the day I tried to use the site for another purchase only to find out I could not log in. I called customer service and after an escalation to the supervisor I would informed that my account was closed due to "unique circumstances". Further escalation revealed that after an investigation my account was closed because I had multiple accounts open.

They did not provide billing details for either account and could not explain how it would be possible to have multiple accounts using the same email address. The timing of this "investigation" leading to account closure and the end of the wait period for a large rebate claim is fishy and gives me the impression that they just found a convenient excuse to not pay up on a legitimate use of their services.

Save yourselves the trouble and avoid this company

Scam company run from it and don't even bother. If you make large purchases and make money back they close your account and claim that upper management closed it because you have multiple accounts. They made me loose on cash back where i could have used it with another better competitor like freeshipping.com or even used my skymiles to get.

Bad company bad service and bad supervisors zero common sense to help clients. Obviously they just want your money. I will make sure to write a review on any platform to expose them and their behavior

This company seemed okay at first. This was until I started generating large amounts of cash back while spending tens of thousands of dollars remodeling a new home.
Sometimes, Lowes.com will cancel orders due to inventory issues or delivery fulfillment requirements at no fault to the customer. A few of my orders were canceled by Lowes and ShopSmarter assumed I was the one canceling the orders (I was not) and canceled my account automatically. I asked if they ever reached out to Lowes to hear there side and to prove my explanation, which they never did. As a forensic accountant, I believe this company eliminates customers that do not generate a net profit from their system. Luckily, I have been using cash back retailers for over a decades, and will resort back to the free options that match rates. Some free alternatives a user should seek are: BeFrugal, Rakuten, Retailmenot, Giving Assistant, RebatesMe, iBotta. Cashbackholic.com is a search engine to determine which site provides the most cash back.

TLDR: BETTER, CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES EXIST - DO YOUR RESEARCH. DON'T MAKE EXPENSEIVE PURCHASES EXPECTING TO GET PAID FROM THIS CORPORATION. NO CUSTOMER SERVICE. CANNOT SPEAK TO A LIVE PERSON TO RESOLVE THEIR CLAIM OF 'FRAUD.' BeFrugal, Rakuten, Retailmenot, Giving Assistant, RebatesMe, iBotta ARE FREE ALTERNATIVES.

I went into my credit union account and saw a couple charges on my card. I don't know who they are and I don't want them. I'm contacting my credit union Monday. I didn't even buy anything with them. NO PURCHASE. How can I get out of this?

I would give 0 star if I can. This company has no business ethics at all. Simply shut down your account when you have hundreds of savings in your account. There are lots of free cash back websites out there with unlimited cash back. What shopsmarter does is charge your monthly subscription fee, get paid from the websites you make purchases and pay you nothing. A total of money and time waste. Stay away from them.

I have been using shopsmarter for months now and every time I have not had any issue with them. I have contacted the customer service and they are 100% transparent. They are not a scam get with them and earn real money back guys 10 percent everytime you buy at WalMart or whatever, begins to accumulate and by the time you get your check you see the actual savings and they are awesome. Yes you pay a monthly membership fee of 10$ or 9.95 or w/e but it's great to save money guys. This is NOT a scam.

Shop online and make money, sounds sweet, right? Be careful, when you sign up your membership with Shopsmarter thinking you'd be starting to earn cash back, think twice, it won't be as easy as you may think. They would lock your account and send you a nonsense email from nowhere starting to question your cashback eligibility when you make a large purchase or simply a few same items at one online store, because they would assume you are using their service for business purposes. Yes, that is what they do. Your account will be locked and no cashback will be issued until you can prove yourself not using it for business purposes, but how? How do you prove that you are buying a few identical $500 speakers only to create a surrounding stereo sound for yourself entertainment and not for resell? They do what they want to do to ban you forever from their service after you have made thousands of dollars purchases, now all of a sudden you are banned, and there is no argument with them. Want your membership money back? Be prepared for an argument. Stay away from them.

Poor company customer service. I purchased an Item that's $500 and they gave me a welcome bonus of $10 instead of the suppose to be %10 of the purchase... called them and they said they can't do anything. What is a bonus anyway? Suppose to be on top of the rebate.

Did not even receive my other cash back for other purchases yet. I was told by one person that it's 7-10 business days... the management tells me up to 8 weeks.

What a joke

Do not use... what a scam.

Why can't smart shopper be removed and brought up on charges of fraud? Hoping to get money back on my purchase I had to tell them where to mail it AND credit card information only to be informed that they are sorry they can't do it. AND charged my card for their services. Rating should be zero stars.

I never signed up for this service and they took $10 out of my account! I made a purchase at Buy Buy Baby, paid by credit card & on the order it showed I was entitled to a discount. I was asked to sign in with email to receive the discount, it linked to a separate page, still appearing that it was leading me to the discount, I was asked to create a password NOT ONCE did it ever ask for my credit card or state I was going to be billed, I would not have signed up for this service! I am angry as all hello that this scam of a company appeared to offer a discount on my purchase and took my credit card information from that purchase then charged me without my consent! Total Scam and Rip Off

Quite by accident, I signed up with that disgusting shopsmarter. I was thinking it is like Rakuten and I didn't see any prompt for monthly service fee. I didn't check my credit expenses until 4 month later. That's my experience with it. It is REALLY SMARTER.

I signed up and was charged the initial $1.97 7 day membership trial. I didn't find much use for ShopSmarter at the moment so I let my membership expire while I had a $10 promotion bonus awarded from a recent Best Buy Purchase. Less than a week after my free membership expired, my account was shut down without warning. I wanted to sign back in to see if my $10 promo was being processed still and was thinking about renewing my membership online. I only found this out because I was unable to sign in to the website and when I called customer support I was informed that unless you pay, you won't be able to sign in to your account. I highly discourage anybody from supporting this companies shady business tactics and for all businesses that advertise them to immediately stop as you are supporting a company that takes advantage of your customers.

Beware of recurring charges. We were not aware of this when we signed up. Beware of recurring charges. We were not aware of this when we signed up.

Thought I was signing up directly with Best Buy, the sign up came at the end of a TV purchase online I just made, had Best Buy logo on the form, gave them my credit card information. I'm usually pretty good recognizing this stuff but they were VERY slick. I feel a bit dumb but hope I can warn others. Fortunately my Bank picked it up as fraud before I called them.

Even called ShopSmarter on the phone and they tried to tell me they are an authorized partner with Best Buy! I hope not...

Another purchase "not directly connected to ShopSmarter" according to them. I spend more time tracking my purchases and getting bogus responses and weeks of emails then I save in costs. So many inquires I have had to make to get my $$$ back and yes I follow all the rules of starting in a new and only browser, then go to their web site and log in, then shop and purchase and close the browser when its done (showing both windows open). Many times when I make a purchase that's close to 2K I have to call it in later and chase the purchase down and this time I get a very generic response and wont get paid. I'm also well aware they are the same org as freeshipping.com This has been a decent experience "at times" and hated and not worth the time I have to commit to do their job on others. I just lost another $196 and their answer is "Order credited to other publisher or the connection was lost in the process of making your purchase and not directly connected to ShopSmarter" of which of course I have no clue what that means nor can I contest. I have seen complaints online but tried to say those were just people that didn't do it right but now I see that's not true.