A heads-up for the flexicon players: they've just loaded up a ton of new-ish puzzles and we're back to earning again after previously cleaning out flexicon, matt lauer and the new game (forget the name).
I think that the MSN search staff maybe rotating around, loading new puzzles for different games when they get to it, as previously there was only one or two new flexicons in total for the past couple of weeks.
Before going for a big prize I would recommend to anyone to redeem a lower cost prize to see if your account is flaged. If you receive your prize you will then have an argument if they deny the bigger prize as you have been playing the same way all along, not cheating, using bots, etc. That being said, they will probably try to deny X number of redemptions just to see who fights it and who screams the loudest. All the same I wish him the best on his class action suit, but my guess is if he's got a case, MSN will send him 2 camcorders post-haste.
funny how it seems their approach is to assume ppl cheated until proven otherwise and not the opposite... to accuse u of anything, they must have PROOF. I wish they would stop thinking everybody making a lot of tickets is cheating (yes, ppl CAN be good at games) and start shipping the prizes they promised (a registration in a website was posted 2 days later on my AA account.. not WEEKS later. c'mon, it can't be that hard).
the number of dissatisfied consumers increases with the number of ppl flagged as "cheaters", and their reputation decreases proportionally. just as a note. I thought their aim was to make ppl switch to live search? not an easy task to accomplish and calling them cheaters won't help it a bit..
funny how it seems their approach is to assume ppl cheated until proven otherwise and not the opposite... to accuse u of anything, they must have PROOF. I wish they would stop thinking everybody making a lot of tickets is cheating (yes, ppl CAN be good at games) and start shipping the prizes they promised (a registration in a website was posted 2 days later on my AA account.. not WEEKS later. c'mon, it can't be that hard).
the number of dissatisfied consumers increases with the number of ppl flagged as "cheaters", and their reputation decreases proportionally. just as a note. I thought their aim was to make ppl switch to live search? not an easy task to accomplish and calling them cheaters won't help it a bit..
I don't have any evidence that they assume all people are cheating, they simply review game play to see if someone could be using a bot, thereby assuming that some percentage of their public is cheating at any given time. That seems reasonable enough.
How many people here have had their accounts frozen?
Most of the complaints are about the slowness of the miles posting, (only a couple posts out of hundreds are about flaged accounts) a complaint I have about nearly every place I can earn mileage.
MSN may be slow, but we have never had to chase them for miles and we play FAST. OTOH, Thank-you network and Worldperks miles post at less than 50%, after 8-12 weeks, and we often have to send long and involved emails with screenshots, etc, for a couple of hundred miles at a time.
All of the mileage malls seem to assume that you are lying/didn't make the purchase/etc., the burden of proof is ALWAYS with you.
(Please search Marathon Man's posts regarding his Worldperks mall hijinx chasing down a few thousand miles and the amount of time, energy and money it took him to finally get some satisfaction to put this whole thing in a little perspective.)
FWIW I can do a flexicon in less than 90 seconds, average no more than 2:30 each (I am a crossword freak, so these are incredibly easy) and have never been called a cheater.
Something to remember is that you are also not the primary customer of Live Search, the advertisers are. You are a secondary customer. They are offering you and the time you spend as bait to the advertisers. They increase clicks, their numbers get better, they charge more to corporate America (corporate World!).
They probably feel that since you have nothing invested (you haven't given them any money for a product or service, you have no guaranteed outcome, i.e. you'll get $5 for a certain survey, etc., your results are based on game play...) with them and because they have been burned many times by internet savvy hackers, they probably feel that ticking off a few "real" live searchers is just the cost of doing business, when they need to stop the "scammers" who are using bots and fake accounts and loading up on zunes, camcorders and Vista software.
I'm not saying their business practices are correct, and I know that this can be frustrating, but do realize that a couple of things are going on here:
1) You play games, compile tickets, redeem for prizes.
2) MSN, after being screwed by hackers/savvy internet types tries to figure out who's gaming the system too much and screwing them, so they set up some sort of system to review gameplay and interpret results based on that data. My gut feeling is that their system is still probably pretty leaky and a lot of scammers are still getting through...
3) You seem like a regular person, so they forward/clear your prize redemption which is sitting at Airincentives.com, a division of points.com.
Now, this alone should give you pause. Are these long delays just a function of MSN, or is it also points.com? From our redemption history, it seems to be an airincentives.com/points.com issue much more than MSN.
As noted in our previous posts we have had miles post in anywhere from a couple of days to well over a month. And they always seem to post concurrently with other FTers and the dates they redeemed, meaning all of these prize redemptions are simply queued up at airincentives.com and they get posted when this 3rd party business decides to post them.
This could be internal reasons, or maybe Microsoft's checks only come on the 15th of the month, who knows?
but, eventually:
4) the miles for almost all FTers post eventually, and often at a much faster pace and ACCURACY than many mileage malls.
not gonna happen. the deal didn't go through. it's over. glad I dont have Yahoo shares atm. Source
CNBC noted on Friday that Microsoft isn't going anywhere and that Balmer still wants Yahoo. Yahoo has until sometime in July to have their annual meeting, where it is likely that Microsoft might try to install a different, more amenable board slate.
It ain't over 'til it's over, just keep earning and burning, who knows how long this is gonna last!
when did u redeem them? and which ones showed up already? I v redeemed 04/13, 16 and 18 and none of them have been posted already, I'm starting getting anxious... I wonder if I played and am still playing for nothing...
The ones redeemed on 4/10 and 4/12 both posted to AA on 4/29 (although they're listed as different dates, 4/25 and 4/27). I'm still waiting for miles redeemed on 4/29 and 5/1.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lmagnott
The ones redeemed on 4/10 and 4/12 both posted to AA on 4/29 (although they're listed as different dates, 4/25 and 4/27). I'm still waiting for miles redeemed on 4/29 and 5/1.
You're the first person to confirm more the one posting on 4/29. It appeared, up to this point, that everyone received only one posting each, on 4/29.
Steve B.
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MSN may be slow, but we have never had to chase them for miles and we play FAST. OTOH, Thank-you network and Worldperks miles post at less than 50%, after 8-12 weeks, and we often have to send long and involved emails with screenshots, etc, for a couple of hundred miles at a time.
(Please search Marathon Man's posts regarding his Worldperks mall hijinx chasing down a few thousand miles and the amounta of time, energy and money it took him to finally get some satisfaction to put this whole thing in a little perspective.)
Cheapskate, I get ur point and I thank u for the hint about Worldperk, but I see it this way: other places being worse does not make bad good... I understand previous bad experiences might influence our quality standards somehow, but this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheapskate Travels
All of the mileage malls seem to assume that you are lying/didn't make the purchase/etc., the burden of proof is ALWAYS with you.
is just WRONG! sorry. where did innocent before proven otherwise go???
I did expect this to happen tho (unfortunatelly...) and I'm glad I made screenshots of all my orders, since their redemption history doesnt seem to always work ... I just hope I dont have to use them.
they ALL should post miles we EARNED based on their offer. doesn't matter if by buying sth, playing games or whatever.
it's not cos we r playing games they r not profiting from us, we all know for each search WE make in their games they earn money AND also increase their market share. it is their strategy to try to come close to google. so, although we are not BUYING anything, we are for sure giving them profits! it's a business like any other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheapskate Travels
2) MSN, after being screwed by hackers/savvy internet types tries to figure out who's gaming the system too much and screwing them, so they set up some sort of system to review gameplay and interpret results based on that data. My gut feeling is that their system is still probably pretty leaky and a lot of scammers are still getting through...
after all the limitations they added to the games (captchas, daily limits, one piece of HW/SW per household..), I think even cheaters are having to work hard for prizes (lets see, they would need 30 days of cheating and entering captchas, etc etc to get one and only one camcorder). I'm pretty sure a lot of them gave up after they added those limits.
I hope they have a good system for detecting cheaters and NOT punishing good/fast players. from what u said (you being a fast player), they apparently do . I say this cos like for example the Matt Lauer game, I flew through it, solving all the 4 questions in a few seconds, and I didn't use any kind of "cheat" or whatever. except their search engine a couple of times. also the letters game (the chicken one), we sometimes get together to play it and can finish it pretty fast too. and we have been doing this everyday lately (meaning we make 1000 points a day). should we be punished?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AirMilage
My AA BONUS Miles From Points.com Posted 2 Days After I Opened An Account With Them
mine too....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheapskate Travels
Now, this alone should give you pause. Are these long delays just a function of MSN, or is it also points.com? From our redemption history, it seems to be an airincentives.com/points.com issue much more than MSN.
well, if it is a points.com issue, they for sure seem to work faster when u register with them... to me, it seems MSN's "review gameplay" system does make things (a lot) slower.
I really do hope I can eat my words and get all the miles we earned soon. I'm sorry, but atm I am disappointed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Firefoxy
well, if it is a points.com issue, they for sure seem to work faster when u register with them... to me, it seems MSN's "review gameplay" system does make things (a lot) slower.
I really do hope I can eat my words and get all the miles we earned soon. I'm sorry, but atm I am disappointed.
I agree, I don't think it's a points.com issue, except probably for the day or two difference in posting times between dl/aa/etc. I think MSN routinely checks redemptions (within 19 days as they say), then sends them to be fulfilled. If there is an intermediate party involved (airincentives) they may receive them spread out, but only process them once every week or two weeks. Or MSN might only send them every few weeks and then there is a delay at the next processing point.
In any event, the hardware I ordered months ago is still not here, so it could be worse. The miles are much faster than any hardware.
is just WRONG! sorry. where did innocent before proven otherwise go???
I did expect this to happen tho (unfortunatelly...) and I'm glad I made screenshots of all my orders, since their redemption history doesnt seem to always work ... I just hope I dont have to use them.
I am definitely not a corporate apologist and I don't disagree with you at all about most of what you say, they should definitely do things faster, be more transparent regarding rules and posting times, etc., but I don't think you've got the "innocent until proven guilty" part right.
This is a concept from criminal law and I don't think it applies here. A couple of thoughts:
1) Let's say you enter a sporting event. Your ticket is scanned, you've memorized your row & seat number, and start to walk towards your seat. Do you throw your ticket stub on the floor and continue on to your seating area? No, you keep your stub, at least through the duration of your stay at the venue to prove to any & all that that is your seat. If you lose your stub you may lose your seat (many places won't let you get anywhere near any premium sections without your ticket). The burden of proof is on you and stays with you for the duration of the event. An usher can come to your seat at any time and ask to see your ticket.
2) Would you expect retail stores to accept returns without receipts? Your receipt is your connection to the product purchased and the store it was purchased from.
If you were running a retail/mileage mall, would you give miles to everyone that sent you an email saying they purchased an item through your link? Wouldn't you want them to give you some kind of proof that they actually did place the purchase through your mall (so that you actually got paid as well) and didn't make the purchase through ebates or fatwallet and is now just complaining in an attempt to gain some extra miles?
What if someone bought something through the delta mall, forgot that it was the united mall, forgot to take a screen shot, and then 8 weeks letter sent a nasty email to delta mall asking where their miles were? If you were the delta mall csa wouldn't you want the customer to give you a screenshot, or a tracking number or something?
I wish this would all be easier and cleaner, but unfortunately it isn't, and like everything else in the mileage world you just have to keep records, records and more records!
And, despite all of this I still think Live Search posts miles relatively fast and accurate compared to many mileage malls or other special offers. Three weeks (our average) is much better than the 8-12 weeks of so many other offers.
Just think, some day soon we'll all look back fondly and remember the good ole' days when we could get miles simply for doing crossword puzzles and finding Matt Lauer.
This isn't like Pudding Guy or M&M tea guy, but it ain't a bad deal...
These presumably represent redemptions I made on April 15th and April 18th. For me, at least, it seems that these are posting pretty close to the indicated schedule.
. I say this cos like for example the Matt Lauer game, I flew through it, solving all the 4 questions in a few seconds, and I didn't use any kind of "cheat" or whatever. except their search engine a couple of times. also the letters game (the chicken one), we sometimes get together to play it and can finish it pretty fast too. and we have been doing this everyday lately (meaning we make 1000 points a day). should we be punished?
