FederalFlyer

Has anyone seen this:

https://www.cascadecard.com/default.aspx

Also a write up here:

http://www.travelingwellforless.com/...ou-should-not/

With a little coordination of referrals (that we could easily do through FT), this looks promising, even if you can't load by CC, and even with the $5 monthly service fee. With 3 referrals, each referring 3 additional persons, and $1500 spend per month per person (3 $500 GCs), this would provide a little more than 100% of that cashback (although you'll get a 1099).

The card is through Sunrise. I don't know what their tolerance of things is regarding shutdowns.

skitch23

This seems like way too much effort to get 3 referrals a month.... FT is big on conga lines, so you'd likely only be able to get one referral that way. Then you sign up your family members who aren't into MS, but then who do they sign up? I think this one will implode fairly quickly with 100% cashback.

FederalFlyer

My understanding was that you don't need any additional sign ups if you spend $1500 per month. But I agree 100% cashback seems unsustainable!

pwd847

$12,000 CB per month. HA!

Stoughton

It's called a pyramid scheme

dukerau

Per the terms, the cashback you earn is equal to:

min[.0009 * sum(cashback_crowd_spend), min(floor(your_monthly_spend/350),1)*350)]
where cashback_crowd_spend = sum of spend of your referrals up to 6 generations.

If you are diamond it's
.0009 * sum(spend of referrals up to 6th generation) * min(floor(your monthly spend/350),1)

So to earn 100% cashback on $350 spend, your "cashback crowd" would have to spend a total of $388,888.89. Good luck with that.

They're paying 0.09% cashback, subject to a spend requirement of $350 per month. Considering any single customer can only be in, at most, 5 other customers' "cashback crowd," they're paying, at most, 0.54cents in rewards (0.54%) per $1 spend on their cards, and only people who spend >= $350 even get their cashback. A great business model if it works, but I wouldn't count on that.

36902BRF

+1

andres17

Thanks for the complete explanation. This is sustainable for the business model, as they are making way more than $350 on that $390k spend. But to get to that 100% cashback rate, or even a measly 2% cashback, it will take a lot of spending by parties that you don't control. And there is a monthly fee to top it off! So, you will probably be on the red on most months, making this a losing proposition for most. As such, I doubt this product will take off.

andres17

It's worse than a pyramid scheme since you are taken out after the 6th level. So, those in those levels better make a lot of spending. This is a no go for us, but a great business model as most people are financially illiterate.

Mamibear

as with other MS methods, no one can be too sure about a product taking off or not because there were some routes that seemed TGTBT and yet, a couple of MSers were able to milk them. A lot of products have come out with T&C that were not enforced and this is what others take advantage of and make it profitable for them. We'll just have to wait and see how this product pans out.

the business model is that of a pyramid scam, that alone can either entice or turn off people from the start.

FederalFlyer

I misunderstood the cashback calculator on their site to indicate you only needed to go two referral levels deep (as opposed to six-deep) in order to maximize cashback. Still a pyramid scheme, but one I'm convinced we could have easily exploited through FT. But requiring six levels of referrals makes this undoable.

goldtouchstone

I got an account. I put some money in it, used it, about 500 dollars and the transaction went through after paypal and my chase bank verified it with small deposits.

Then I put more money in it, and made more deposits, tried to make another 500 dollar payment and was fraud blocked by the merchant. Then I got fraud blocked by dot5hosting for registering a 15 dollar domain. I used my old account and it was approved.

Then I didn't get credit for the non pin transactions. I complained. Oh yeah, I got an email welcoming someone else to my account! They actually put my account with another customer. I don't think he noticed it, and they changed it real quick appologizing, I almost quit but they talked me out of it.

This morning, Martin Luther King Jr. day, I find they violated my civil rights by suspending my account, blocking me out of access to my 1200 dollars I deposited. Now I am filling out complaint forms with FBI, FDIC, FTC, filled with stress, and really upset I ever heard of Sunrise Banks or CascadeCard

Yeah I heard of them, what about it?

Stoughton

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. You're the Rosa Parks of MS

compddd

haha

MaxVO

Agreed, and as such unrelated to Manufactured Spending. This thread is in a wrong section.