Cartera has hired an in-house general counsel:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/eth...sel-2011-10-25

Dear General Counsel,

Congratulations on your new appointment. May it bring you and Cartera good opportunities to strengthen a growing business with several areas for improvement. Welcome sincerely. You are now working for the sloppiest, most incompetent, most resented, most disorganized company in the field. Countless customers distrust Cartera with the same animosity shown us by your company, which routinely violates consumer law and is itself responsible for the online movement to boycott Cartera. Welcome aboard.

The real comedy here is the people that ordered an $8 cable that they otherwise didn't want, didn't need, and couldn't use, expecting to get $1500+ worth of AA miles because of what an obvious typo said, and now feel that they are the victims.

Here we go again. :D Time to close another thread that has nothing to do with earning miles!

Did you even read my post? My claim has nothing to do with the AA offer. At all. Cartera owes me a product refund and has for months, and agreed to it but hasn't coughed up, breaking promise after promise, agreement after agreement. Read before you write dismissively.

Posting about deceptive miles-offering services has a lot to do with protecting each other from bait-and-switch miles offers.

Steve—If your post was directed toward me, I didn’t even take part of that Verizon error.

My purchase was a bonafide purchase of $4,000 in home furnishings.

+1

Sorry, I thought I was on FT not a site run by Ralph Nader. :rolleyes:

Knowing legitimate offers from illegitimate ones is a value of FT. Don't you benefit from FT? That's all we're saying. No one wishes to lose money/miles where preventable. PS: Who's Ralph? Is he that classmate of Bart on "The Simpsons"? :)

I agree with everything you said but this seems like it has turned into a one person’s crusade against a certain company. His crusade would carry more weight if he didn’t have this problem with every company he deals with.

Right, but it's not one person's crusade — it's hundreds of FTers — and it's not every company, but one company.

No, he trolls FT. Every post is either a "I know stuff but won't tell anyone" or "Cartera is a great company and anyone who doesn't love them is immoral and makes baby Jeebus cry."

Cartera is a poorly-run company with no customer focus. Their software is user-unfriendly and full of the kinds of errors you see in this thread and others. With the AA MM race nearly at a close, and certainly no hope of getting any earned points out of these clowns in the next two weeks, there is really no reason to ever use any of their shopping portals. There are plenty of places to get miles and plenty of shopping portals that provide reliable value. Why waste the time and effort on Cartera?

Care to back up your claims or you going to just keep flapping your gums? :rolleyes:

Hmmm, now let's break this down, shall we:

ordered an $8 cable that they otherwise didn't want
Ok, well, if doing so brought your mileage account to some award level or it enabled you to make a spend requirement and get something out of it, then why is that wrong? If anything it should be GREAT for the stores, right?

didn't need, and couldn't use
As above, they may not even care. They just got it to get the miles. Again, why is THAT wrong? And btw how do YOU know they did not need it or could not use it? But even if they could not use it, why is it wrong to JUST do something for the miles?

Let's take this off, but FT name-related example, shall we? I once ran a 8 mile road race. I had NO plans on testing out my time, as in how fast I was running a mile, etc, and no plans to win or even place. I did it for enjoyment, but I also joked that I did for the free beer and ice cream they give at the end of such road races in the summer. I had entered, got a runner's bib and started the job just like everyone else. I got to the end, met friends, stretched and did drink a beer and have free ice cream. Now, because my intent was to NOT 'race' against anyone, am I somehow disqualified? And who knew this other than me and now you? I did, after all, complete the run, did I not? I suppose had they actually run out of the eats by the time I finished I would not get anything, but these small road races are a lot different than company promotions that promise monetary or mile-valued offerings for purchasing goods online. My entering and running the race and then completing it is in fact just like completing online sale and paying with a CC for ANY personal reason, right? Right.

expecting to get $1500+ worth of AA miles because of what an obvious typo said

Yup! It said buy this get that, we read the T&Cs and we did everything they asked. now they change it and fail to both deliver or answer with any clarity anything about the issue. We are supposed to what, just take it?

How about this: I shall go to one of the finest colleges in the land, study hard and ace all things related to both the English language and web design. Then I shall complete grad school and even later obtain my PhD. I will then be hired by one of the country's top paying most respected law firms and when I see this 'typo' you speak of on the Cartera website, I shall craft a letter to the CEO before any other customer happens to buy from the ad with the typo in it, and using my vast cache of knowledge and known expertise, I shall point out that they may wish to change that. They will thank me--all before any other customer sees it and buys from the ad, and I shall send them a bill for my services... how about $20,000?

Or, they could have just paid the web dude a couple bucks more an hour to like, check that sh*t before FTPing the XML code. And his manager could have proofread it first too, eh? Probably could have saved a few bucks had they done that. Or they could field hundreds of calls from frustrated customers about the issue and hired a legal team to cushion the blow (their top guy now works at Cartera as we read above, and I already knew that too) and pay them even more money!

And in your example, the $8 cable yielding 1,500 miles is NOT outlandish or obvious at all! not only have there been many high-yield mileage offerings per $1 spent, but also, there is no real way to properly gauge for every single person and every mind set what is 'obvious' or 'normal' now is there? Who are you or anyone to say there is?

We can go on about this but the fact remains that in the opinions of many it all comes down to the company needing to do a much better job at designing and vetting their own offers. Then they need to double check what they put out into the public domain and at the very least, they need to be extra willing to field all calls and concerns about errors or issues that may result from their own website ads. If they are not, I feel they are screwing people and so yes, to answer the final one:

and now feel that they are the victims.
Absolutely. You should too. If you do not, you are being foolish and letting them get away with a lot and that will one day affect you too. I hope it does not.

Look mang, Cartera effed up. You know it as well as the rest of us. It's a freakin' joke. All they are doing now is spinning the wheels and delaying things even more because--get this--so many of us have filed complaints against their OBVIOUS blunders that WE are what is slowing them down from posting the freakin' miles we originally complained about! Point is, you should be with us, trying to stop this mess. Don't fight it. Help fix it. Don't fight us. And just don't 'go there' with me.

Originally Posted by QL_714 View Post
I agree with everything you said but this seems like it has turned into a one person’s crusade against a certain company. His crusade would carry more weight if he didn’t have this problem with every company he deals with.
Right, but it's not one person's crusade — it's hundreds of FTers — and it's not every company, but one company.

Thanks N-A...
And to the rest of FT, I am sorry if I appear to be trying to take over anything. I am not against every company. Cartera, however, has hog tied every airline mall, and so pretty much every missing mile I have to chase is because of them, one company.

All I am is one guy who happens to have both the time and passion to tackle this without ending til I see both my miles and everyone else's miles post!

Why?
Not to ruin a company, but to get them to stop doing this and start making it right. See, if it's right for you, then it will also work for me. And if it works for me, I can also get miles in the future... hopefully with airlines that work with companies that do not screw up so much.

So yah QL... I am on a crusade to get stuff done. Wanna bust on me or do you wanna help me?
It's your loss one way and all our gain the other. Your call.

:)MM

As far as help was their ever a time I did not answer any question you asked me? What happened to the MM that believed you should use discretion when posting info? What happened to the MM that believed by posting too much info (funding FI’s, BC/Amex/Mint, CO/WM just to name a few) certain members were ruining it for everyone else? Do you really think posting your SQ history will help someone? It will only give SQ more ammo on what to look for.

As far as my loss I am not sure what I have to lose. Care to explain?

first of all, I have had you on my ignore list. I only posted above because someone quoted you and so when that happens, I can see what you had said.

I just took you off to see what you said.

I have no intention of ruining any deals or offerings, but I will tell you that I think most of the ones you mention are or were on their way out for many of us anyway. My info posted in these threads is there to hopefully help others out of jams I got into. For example, I know one bloke that had Suare cancel on him for far lesser activity than I had who has $5k tied up in Square! Had he felt the need to get out or curb some activity, he would have his money instead of them.

Next is the fact that things about coins and Square and AMEX GCs do not even apply to THIS thread. This is about Cartera and its silly ways, and how we should all find ways to solve things or fight them. It is about the comedy act (sarcastic) that they put forth and how we react to it.


The MM who tries to help others, to post with discretion and to not even post about many things still very much exists. And the MM who lets people treat him like crap or not even directly answer anything with helpful information is not going to tolerate such things. You had begun to exhibit the latter in my eyes. I hope I am wrong about that so I have taken you off my ignore list for now. But this is not supposed to be just about me. I mean, it's supposed to be about dealing with Cartera, not MM.

How can you help me--and anyone here who has any ideas on how to combat Cartera?

Maybe try to come up with stuff, list stuff, suggest things and debate things that are real and get names and numbers, write letters, post ideas, say why existing ideas might be improved, etc. Don't just do what some do, which is to become one of those posters who tell us we are fools for believing we would get miles for buying glitter gate things or something.

How can it hurt you to not do this? How can it hurt you or create a loss for you if you choose to just sit there and tell MMs off?

Well, for one, if we need everybody's input to get something done, the lacking of your positive input will hurt us all. Second, if we need to work hard together to get something done, we need help on every level. Someone who has nothing to offer except criticism of other members is not productive. And third, if by some strange chance some exec at Cartera were to magically contact me and say, Ok sorry, here are 1 million miles, Please split them up amongst all your FT posters. I would do that and give everyone an equal share... except those on my ignore list, that is.

Now, I am BY NO MEANS the best or the only person to come up with any strategies for trying to deal with these idiots. But I would really like to hear other ideas posted right here on this board or else I have no choice but to believe what I am babbling about must be 100% correct. I don't think it is, but that's what this forum is for: To post and hear ideas and hopefully in the end, people either gain miles or stop losing them. In this case--in the case of all things Cartera, I am trying to stop losing them. We need your help to do this.

Will you help us or not?

I have, for example, heard NO feedback--positive or negative, edits or otherwise, on my letter I intend to spend my own time on sending to every single Cartera partner retailer HQ. I would like help getting all the names and addys of those I need to send this to. I need to know if the letter needs work. Otherwise it's going out from me--and hopefully from others--as is and promptly. Why? To get THEM to wake up too and try and make a change at Cartera. maybe this strategy is good. Maybe not.

I ask again:
Will you help us or not?
:)MM

Actually met the dude 34 years ago. The Ralph dude, not the Bart dude.:p He was at a rally protesting against my later employer. I was covering the rally as a reporter.

Didn't Ralph write that famous book "Unsafe at Any Spend?"

I have said this many times already but here it is for the last time. They have a flawed system and we all know this. If you want to get back at them use this to your advantage. Look at post #4 in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ping-mall.html. Was this just a fluke or can it be duplicated over and over? Use the same technique that was used against Costco and Sams. They have hundreds of retailers that I am sure you can find some that it will work against.

I'm buying stock in Cartera. A company this criminal has a real future!

*counts projected profits*

One person? Have you been paying attention at all?

Say, are you short or long Cartera?

More than you (or DH) will ever know! ;)

yes I saw that too. Surely if anyone did it they would claim you are gaming the system and that could disqualify your case against them. You could then argue, as I am already prepared to do with several similar incidents I have also already found: This company effectively dupes less savvy people by posting such erroneous things that have no intent to post miles or points for the chosen activity. Why is it on the site if it's a mistake? That is, unless they just dont care about nor check the work on their own site design?

And what is a mistake? If I take these jokers to small claims court and drop one of my files when standing at a podium arguing my side, and I swear out loud, was that a MISTAKE? Will the judge yell at me for using profanity or let me out of it this one time? What if I swear again just cuz that's how I talk everywhere else? Was that another mistake? Can I get out of that one too because it wasnt my intent?

We will need more stuff. Thanks for that one. Please help us with even more! You are obviously good at helping us with such things.

:D:Ddont you all see my real plan here? I am going to try and sink this company and then buy their stock:D:D

Note: I have no skin in the game, either way. I didn't take advantage of the 83,000 mile offer.

As it pertains to MM and this offer, it seems to me that he actually took the time to contact the company and work things out, which is more than anyone else did (as far as I know, of course). My feeling is that we need more MMs, not fewer. I'm not sure how I feel about the Verizon error involved in this thread, but one thing is certain: companies make too many of them. An airline that misprices something is quick to cancel your ticket when they discover it two days later, but good luck getting the same courtesy if you make the same error.

I have no problem with holding their feet to the fire.

Mike

The company is such a joke. I used the Priority Club Shopping program this past summer when they offered bonus points for various levels of spending (1000 bonus points for over $50 and 2,000 bonus points for $100 and over).

Of the 6 items I purchased only 4 have ever shown up. The points were supposed to post by the end of August. I finally received the "bonus" points for 2 of the items 2 weeks ago.

I am now on email 16 (as of this morning) and 3 phone calls. The email from them this morning asks me what other purchases I made - info that they have been given 6 different times before and info I know is in their system because it was read back to me on the phone months ago. I was asked to wait until the end of October - nothing. The email last week said please wait 4-6 more weeks.

It's amazing how bad they are. On my second phone call the person said I had been through enough for a measly 8,000 points and that she was going to just credit my account right then. Of course that never happened and since then no one has the authority to just "fix" it.

I had stepped out of the previous debate on Verizon-gate but am now sadly experiencing the same issues with more simple genuine issues of posting miles.

In my cases I took "advantage" of the Sears 10x miles per dollar offered in September. I ordered $3k in gift cards - the language clearly did not exclude gift cards. So that should have been 30k there. Then I used the gift cards to buy a high end Nikon camera for $2850, so another 28.5k there. Neither have posted on my AA shopping account at all.

In contrast on the same day I ordered a ton of stuff from Nordstrom at 10x points. Nordies have a great return policy so I ordered a load of clothes knowing what I did not like I could just return. In Nordies case the original miles have posted to AA shopping, then confirmed to AAdvantage account, and the returns I made have posted as negatives and they too have cleared my AA account. So it does tell me that the merchant is at the very least a clear differentiator here and it looks like Sears is a bad guy and Nordies is a good guy

With that in mind, I am going to dispute the charge for $3k for the gift cards with Sears next week if I have had no resolution. It is clear they are no innocent third party here. I ordered $3k in gift cards and 30k in miles. They only delivered the $3k gift cards and have a responsibility to deliver notification of the purchase to Cartera so I can get the 30k miles. 30k miles would cost me $825 to acquire directly from AA (via the Buy Airline Miles link). I seriously believe a small claims court would be sympathetic to that

I have managed to open up a dialog at least with Cartera and I will reserve judgement on them until the process is complete and I have the miles.

One thing is clear though is there are good merchants and bad ones and a lot of this noise would dissipate if the bad ones can be called out and challenged. At the very least good for us to maintain a list of known problem makers. I will kick off with Sears and Boden. I plan to be aggressive in pursuing these guys and disputing credit card charges but much as I am against this kind of thing, I do truly believe a class action law suit is called for here. Forming a class would be possible I think in finding lots of people lured in by offers of miles by Cartera and Sears and failed to get them. I am not interested in doing this to give anyone a black-eye or because I am seething with anger. It is because between these two companies there is a clear and on-going abuse of offering, and here in the USA where this stuff is unregulated, class action suits are the best means a consumer has of rectifying the situation and permanently fixing it. History shows that when corporations lose these kind of suits they are far more careful in the future

Thanks Mike.

And I guess my issue is: I am going to try and get resolution and get my miles that are due to me. The more Cartera resists, the further I must push and work at it. I find this is some game and I am going to win it. Again, I want to get my miles.

Why should I refrain from trying? Why should I refrain from posting my findings especially if they (A) help others and (B) give me information from others' experiences that may in turn help me?

All this makes me is someone who talks a lot about the subject on these threads.

And QL, this UA thread is NOT about the AA Verizon thing. Same Cartera, different gig. In my opinion though, now that you brought them together, the same marketers from Cartera work on both things. Inept personnel is why we have the messes in both things. Yes, to be honest, I am fighting against those types of people even having jobs!

Good luck, and I hope the persons you are speaking with at Cartera (probably the same ones I have spoken with) dont end their latest conversation about whether certain GC miles should post with, "I don't Know."

then you have a problem: If they don't know, who does?

This is why my next move is to take this company to small claims court or file with the AGs office. It will be about everything I am missing in all cartera mall-isms

I understand your rationale, and will likely have to play around the same path, but I do believe a class action suit in this case is more appropriate. It is the best way to get a permament fix

It would need to form a class so would need to find a specific set of circumstances... as I suggest possibly picking on one or two merchants.

I got a flyer today about a suit against Netflix and Wal-mart over DVD sales. I am pretty sure the same law firm would be happy to take on such a case for a piece of the settlement. Most importantly it will force them to change their ways

Email from Delta SkyMiles Shopping -

Title: SkyMiles Shopping: Jump Start the Holidays with Up to QUADRUPLE Miles from Macys.com, Overstock.com and Walmart.com

Text: Macy's 2 Miles 4 Miles per $1 (Note: Double miles)
Overstock 1 Miles 3 Miles per $1 (Note: Triple miles)
Walmart 1 Mile per $1 (Note: Normal)

So, by QUADRUPLE Miles they mean, what exactly?

I agree with you here. And while you have seen that certain retailers do the postings and returns while others do not, I still believe the whole thing basically falls apart not nec with the retailer but with Cartera.

Cartera and its agregates/afilliates have these widely varied ever changing and all too loosely held relationships with these many retailers. From what I have come to learn, if you buy X at store Y and it fails to post, you can eventually give someone at the airline mileage team your information and it makes its way to Cartera (Now many of us just go directly to Cartera since we know now) and then if you provide your order info, date, Cc used and order number for each and every number, OR if you provide consent to let Cartera research on your behalf with the retailer on all your shopping there, they will take this info to a middleman (the agregate/afilliate person) and that person will deal with the retailer.

Then the retailer takes its sweet time (in the case of some it is longer and in the case of others it is shorter, so yeah, there's one place where the retailers can be good or bad to us) and this information will make its way back to the middleman, back to Cartera and then back to you.

See, there are MANY places for holes here, or statements like, "just wait 90 more days" with no other information. Or, "We think you didn't even go through the right clicks to shop at that store so see ya later" or, we dropped that retailer or they dropped us (but we wont tell it that way) so even though the relationship used to exist it no longer does and so we don't even have a way of helping you now anyway even though by all rights we should, and even though we should be able to just give you these miles say within a week up front and then go do the work to get them from our partners on our time not yours because that's what you get by using our service, we instead make you go crazy and have to chase this stuff, and once you begin this process there is no way out except to crawl through 500 yards of sh*t smelling foulness and come out clean on the other side. (that last bit is in part a quote from a great film I love)

For me? I'm going to make this work for me in the end... and try to nab them on every minute and great detail to confuse THEM into eventually posting every lost mile for me and everyone else I can think of. I can do small claims since they are located in MA and so am I. heck I bet the court that would be chosen is the one close to my mom's house. I'll go visit her later and bill Cartera for the gas in my car to get there!

For me... I like to think that the last thing that went through the Warden’s mind…other than the bullet…was to wonder how in the h3ll he had been tricked by Andy Dufrain (This is from the same movie)


It means: Screen shot it, send me a copy and let's do that class action to cite these jokers on this and many many instances!

I plan to consider SC court, AGs office and class action. why not?

The end result of requiring that math teachers take sensitivity training?? :confused:

FWIW, many of us, MANY of us have fallen into the bottomless well that is Cartera Customer Service. Most of us simply haven't taken the time to document our experience online. Yet.

YMMV applies here. My experience with Nordstrom's has been a complete, utter nightmare (which I have partially documented in this forum) and as a result I have resolved never to shop there again, online or off. BTW, merchants and Cartera have shown no interest whatever in my screen shots, which I have been careful to save each step along the way.

The constant thread running through many (if not most) reports is that the promised miles fail to credit, Cartera says to wait a few more weeks/months, miles still fail to credit, then Cartera says to contact the merchant. Then (typically) the merchant will claim that it's Cartera at fault, or will claim that the proper procedures weren't followed (because we are idiots), etc etc.

The Nordstrom phone rep claimed that she didn't have email and deliberately garbled both her phone number and her extension (I say deliberately since she did this every time). It was quite a task getting back to her voicemail. I ended up using their Live Chat feature online--the LC rep promised to email my order records to the phone rep who 'didn't have email'. And so on and so on. No problem really, my time is free, right?

Rather than attacking MM, we should be glad someone is willing to take the time to pursue these matters and document them more thoroughly than most of us are able to.

thanks.

and what I hope people can see is that I do this for many reasons that are by no means selfish. Yeah i want my miles, and yes to be honest, at this point I would kinda like some of these Carterians to burn in h3ll too but my real goal is plain and simple:

1) get the miles we set out to get--and do so NOW, not later anymore!
2) stop them from duping others into false shopping deals as stated in so many posts in here and in other threads
3) that we all educate others new and old on how to NOT get stuck - ie, just don't use Cartera malls. Period.

I would have liked to fix it for them. I could have. I would like to help everyone here get their miles. If I get mine, I can help get yours. And if I get yours, that will help me get mine.

My time is valuable. I have a family and I am part stay at home dad with some consulting work I do mostly from home. This means I may not be in some restrictive office all day and so I CAN and DO post in here a lot and try to work on this stuff as much as possible, but still, my time, like all of yours, is very valuable. I expect Cartera to compensate us all for this time wasted.

I am by no means perfect and so sometimes I am going to say things that may not necessarily fly in the business world. Who cares though. What these guys have shown is NOT any normal way of doing business! It's just one that they can currently scam people with. They will be stopped though. Mark my words.

We all need to post and save everything and help each other get these idiots to either get it or get lost! It's leaning toward the latter and guess whose fault that is?

Ike - they said up to Quadruple and 4 miles per dollar is quadruple. I'd give 'em this one on a legal technicality.

Are we starting to use common sense? ;)

Compare what happened with the two posters. I would say that one of them got really lucky and had the bonus post for the 400 transactions he made. Given the amount of time and effort required to get a single bonus from Cartera, would you really do so many transactions with them unless you were willing to go to small claims court and fight it out?

Its been 6 months and Cartera still hasn't given a measly 500 AA miles for signing up emails. There is not even a third party here to mess things up. It shows that they are either incompetent or intentionally scamming people. Its best for all of us that they go out of business.

No, that would be up to FOUR miles per dollar. Quadruple indicates multiplication of a similar object. Quadruple $1 is $4. Quadruple $1 is not 4 miles. Quadruple 1 mile per $1 is 4 miles per $1.

I do not doubt that if cornered they would rely upon your argument or that the T&C clearly note that they are not responsible for their failure to understand the English language or use it to accurately describe their products or services. :eek:

BTW, I did have one merchant (Overstock.com) credit miles accurately and promptly. Does this imply anything about Cartera (their appalling customer service standards aside)? It would seem to support their regular contention that merchants are the issue.

Separately, I have no expectation whatever that any of us will be compensated for the time we spend trying to get Cartera or various merchants to fulfill their promises to us.

Anyone else find it amusing that someone from Cartera continues to check the forum (at least 2x today) but never has the nerve to comment on their continued failings?

I can only imagine what they'd say
 

"Thank you for your continued interest in Cartera. Cartera Commerce is the leading provider of card-linked marketing solutions that increase revenue and customer loyalty for merchants, banks, issuers and loyalty programs. Thanks to loyal customers like you, Cartera remains at the forefront of extracting value from loyal customers like you. And always remember, Customer Service is our #1 Priority! No really!"