The Cartera Comedy Club
 

Seen the Dividend Miles Storefront from Cartera?

I was about to suggest buying pizza for miles on Now for Something Completely Different, but then I looked closely at the offer with 700% taxes and a 1500% tip. Cartera has one big sense of humor!:p

https://www.dividendmilesstorefront.com

Store Details for Dominos Pizza
Domino's delivers fresh, quality pizzas every time.In-Store Offer Details
Earn up to 144 miles
How to Earn
Earn even more award miles automatically when you shop at participating retail locations using your registered credit or debit card. Earning has never been easier!
Additional Information
144 Miles with a minimum purchase of $50.
Store Website
Terms and Conditions: Offer can be used an unlimited number of times.* 144 Miles if purchased on or after 6/25/2011 and a minimum purchase of $50 has been made.* Offer includes a tax rate of 700%.* Offer includes a tip rate of 1500%. Disclaimer: Through your access to and use of this content, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions. We have made every effort to provide quality products and services. The products listed here have been made available by the provider listed. As such, we have no control over the quality of the products or services rendered. We shall not be liable for injury, damage, loss, delay or any other claim which may arise from the actions or omissions of any business, the employees of said business, or other individuals providing products or other related services referenced herein. We do not warrant the products provided or the services performed. There are no warranties made by us, express or implied, including, but not limited to, any warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. To the extent that the offer described here differs from the offer authorized by the provider, we reserve the right to correct the offer. You agree to use only the corrected offer.Our distribution channels and the products listed thereon are subject to change without notice. Merchants welcome your patronage subject to the terms indicated above.

With any other company I would say it was a misplaced decimal point. With Cartera, I suspect it is the actual offer.

Oh Cartera, what will you think of next? :D

I'm sure the local, state, and federal governments will appreciate the bailout.

"It's Domino's Fault" :D

:D

I think I just figured out their strategy:

Anyone who ate $50 worth of Domino's pizza wouldn't live to complain about the miles not posting/posting incorrectly, so they can make any offer they like!

That's it.

I am starting a company that competes with Cartera,

Now hiring consultants, developers, and marketing reps.

What do u you figure the 144 miles are worth in pizza equity? I'm thinking one-quarter of a pepperocini. :)

.... Speechless.

This makes me just roll my eyes, toss my hands up and sigh. Cartera grabbed up all the airlines and what's really strange is that the other day when I got the email stating they now have the Div Miles one, I was like huh?

So I went ON the US Air and the mall shown there was still the version that FreeCause managed!! BOTH malls existed for at least a day there!!

Not that FC are any saints, but at least for piddly mall transactions between 1 and 1,500 miles per purchase, they post your mileage with relative ease and timing, AND they did well during the entire GS promo.

Now Cartera comes in, grabs this and you just KNOW that anyone who bought anything from the mall for GS promo at the last minute will be screwed for a hit. It just somehow wont work out, I know it!

As well, next year's GS will be a freakin' mess! Mark my words on that one, mates! They'll revamp the mall site like mid-GS promo or something.

These people are jokers. They say they are overwhelmed and yet they get more and more malls from all the airlines. It IS a virtual monopoly! Both in terms of 'almost having everyone' and in terms of being only reachable online and not live!

I am so going to the AGs office with everything I have already in terms of missing and messed up mileage across the board. Now that it IS all in one company, my case will be more clear. I will try to cite these fools for taking over the gamut and not even being able to handle it. And they have no intent on paying out. They can just act too busy to help!

In the mean time I think I need to buy a boat load of pizza JUST to see if they pay out the mileage! haha

:)MM

Based on the tax rate, I should be able to write off the whole purchase, right?

Somebody with a lot of time on their hands and lots of disposable income please do something to put these jokers out of business.

I am in part able to fit that description. I also live near their MA offices

Cartera is everything one shouldn't do to be a trustworthy business. The amount of "errors" they make is amazing. I think they play some sort of a sick and twisted lunatic "insert random #'s here" game with random offers and get amusement out of the chaos it generates.

Cartera never seizes to amaze me. If you look at their executive team you have the impression that they are a capable, educated company.

Then you see the reality of how they operate and you wonder why any VC angel every gave them a penny.

Many we should contact the VCs and tell them about all this. I can promise you Cartera is doing everything they can to hide the truth from the investors...

Words escape me regarding Catera...

However I did get heartburn from just thinking about eating Dominos....

My impression of these people, having seen their offices, met some in person, spoken to several over the phone... is that they are a sales and marketing top-heavy entity, bent of producing numbers over anything else.

They have not, for example, decided to spend a whole lot of time or resources on QC and IT. Although it's strange to me since the Lexington, MA facility is located smack dab in the center of all things tech in the North East! An IT guy can be had here with relative ease. They just don't want to spend the money to get good ones I guess.

Some there may have good intentions (I think the head CS dude does, even though he told me my shopping patterns are not normal lol) but even he is caught up in the game they have going, and everyone needs to impress the next person or be careful what is said or something. As well, in this part of the country--primarily, in this part of New England, it's all about what you do for work, ie, whether you do X or Y tells people what kind of money you make (another example of this is how a friend of mine from Cali once described how the first thing a single girl will ask a single guy in a bar is what kind of car does he drive. Well in MA, the first thing asked is usually what do you do for work or where do you work? If it is a known or high-end scene, you have a date!)

Anyway, I find that two things may be going on and I have said them all along...

1) they are in fact totally inept and the right hand has no freaking idea what the left hand is doing. Sales is pushing new gigs and new promos and signing on new airline malls and all that crap, and CS is fielding gazillions of calls from upset customers--some of whom they have successfully convinced the problems are their own, not Cartera's.

2) the company has seized on a new conundrum in the age of confusion and uncertainty... People want to shop, want to buy and want to score big, but because of such understood issues with security and the down economy, companies can literally make up excuses to botch things up and then hide behind them. So if you make an order and don't get your miles, you call in to find out more and security reasons is what stops you from getting the chance to chew out the CSR, while economic reasons is what makes it possible for the company to actually tell you it's ok that they do not have enough resources to help you faster. ie, my email from Petra where she actually tells me she/her staff is overwhelmed from all the issues with AA/Verizon, PC, DL and the UA MoM promo. (see the email below)

So I'm sitting here like... ok you are admitting you cannot handle it? Why then is your own company feeding you so many new deals to work on and push? Oh wait! that's cuz that's the whole idea! You are just trying to make money and we are supposed to sit back and wait. And if we get pissed off you can use security as a reason to no longer have to hear us complain.

Genius. The new freakin' game!

This company makes bank. I have stood in the parking lot. I have seen the vehicles people who work there drive. I saw what a marketing gal I met in the lobby was wearing and no she didn't shop at Target. They have signed every major airline and done two of them in the last couple weeks (as far as we customers see. They did it much earlier than that behind the scenes for sure)

Case in point: They just do not want to pay out and because they are a monopoly and backed by all the major airlines who are blinded by this stuff, they feel they don't have to. It is thus up to us to take 'em out!

(I will tell you that there is a Raytheon facility a few miles away from this location. Maybe we can LITERALLY take em out if anyone here knows an insider lol kidding)

******************************************

From: Customer Care <[email protected]>
To: <MM>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: AA/Verizon - for wife & self - Wells Fargo Case 000XXXXXXX]

Hello MM,

I just looked into your wife's account, and you are correct, for some reason she did not get processed for the first 2500 bonus miles. I have just sent her account to be credited, so she should see those miles within the week.

The second set of bonus miles do take some time to be credited, which is why we asked in our initial email to allow 45 days from the date the merchant confirmed the purchase with us. We appreciate your patience.

As for your Delta and Priority Club orders, could you please send in an email request with all of the information regarding those orders so they will create a case in our Customer Support case management tool? As soon as I receive that I will be sure to get you credited the bonus miles for those as well.

We sincerely apologize for these delays; as you can imagine, these issues have created quite a high volume of inquiries and overwhelmed our staff. We apologize for the inconvenience that any of this has caused, and we are taking steps to rectify the situation on a daily basis by adding resources and improving processes. We hope these measures will improve the quality of customer service that we bring to our members going forward.

Thanks for your patience.

Petra
Customer Care Representative

I think we should vote with our wallet and stick to shopping malls run by amex membership rewards/chase ultimate rewards or those which actually give you cash.

agreed 100%

• We need to spread this info
• show people how to do it
• promote this concept and the other ways
• keep doing that
• reach out to newbies and briefly tell them why

that way it will continue

This site has problems and everyone knows that. Your time is better spent to try and figure out how to exploit this rather than keep crying over the 83k+ miles you feel was yours. Use some creative thinking and try different things.

Actually MM's time is very much appreciated addressing Cartera's Glitter-gate snafu, as those of us that are due to be the recipient's of their inevitable forthcoming settlement will attest. :)

Chase Ultimate Rewards mall is run by Cartera.

I wish you all luck but that still does not stop you or anyone else from looking for ways to exploit their flawed system. ;)

Such as Incentive Networks, which operates the BA, BD and VS shopping portals. I primarily use the VS shopping site and every inquiry has been resolved promptly and very professionally.

Ahem - we do not exploit. We is capitalists and we is entitled to make a profit. Do what you do with the indulgence given you by Bank of America.:p

Just keep it legal.

You mean to say Luke's father is actually Darth Vader?

The problem is that they don't honor legitimate offers at all. Say for example 500 miles for signing up/downloading the toolbar/spending a certain amount. I have had to fight with them for every single promo and it takes months to see the miles.

thanks

and yes, some of us are among the many who have pushed further with the Carterians. We shall see if that helps us. My real goal is to change them or have some people fired for stupidity. It's a war of attrition and guess what: I know I can outlast 'em!

legal or legit? lol:D and by whose standards?

agreed. I am STILL waiting on a mere 140 miles from some best buy sale that was for software I bought there for my mother about 12 weeks ago now. 140 miles and they cant even get THAT right?

This is why, even if it may not earn me 'extra' miles, I may elect to shop at NO affiliate mall. Just go direct to the store and forgo any mileage earnings and the accompanying headaches. That may seem counter productive but in the end, it merely shows that these systems do not work.

After exhausting all communication efforts with Cartera's customer relations, I'm looking into small-claims court for actual and statutory damages -- not for the erroneous AA/Delta offer, but for a refund that Cartera agreed to send for a returned product and shipping costs. I haven't received the refund. I've followed up clearly, giving Cartera many chances (and reminders). Cartera is delinquent by months and shows no sign of following through, despite agreements and demands. I can't just reverse charges by credit card, because Cartera owes additionally for return-shipping of the product.

Since "actual" damages are smaller than court filing fees, it's only worth my time and expense to travel to Massachusetts (from hundreds of miles) if I'll recover statutory damages, which are justified. How do I calculate statutory damages? Any guidelines?

Also, anyone know of consumer-protection laws I can draw on? Other tips for recovering refund? All Cartera's promises have been broken.

I plan on sending a final demand letter to the Cartera point person I'm dealing with, and Cartera's CEO, and then serve the former. Other steps to call attention for a resolution?

All I really want is the refund, with delivery tracking.

EDIT: Well, well! After posting this, Cartera called to say they're now overnighting the refund. I'll leave this post up, unedited, until it reaches me. Cartera's credibility doesn't exist, so my court intentions remain unless I see the check tomorrow. Remember, it's been months of back-and-forth. Maybe it helped that I left voice messages this afternoon for the executives supervising the guy running "customer service."

EDIT #2: Check received!

I live 25 miles from their offices.
I will gladly help you in any way I can. I can go there, bring something to their front office, notate who took it from me, or even consider the thought of keying someone's car lol

As well, should you visit, we can meet up for beers and at least make your stay in my home state all the better.

One other idea that actually might have value is that we have another BOS DO, but this time we actually have it based on the concept of visiting these folk all together.

So you are aware, the Lexington, MA Aloft hotel is less than .5 mile from Cartera and both locations are on a highway that is about 25 minutes from Logan Airport.

I will gladly meet people.

MM

Nice I'll have to shoot you a message next time I'm up your way MM...Not to far from you here in CT

Lets have no talk of car keying, even in jest. Give 'em the business nice and legal like.:p

Ha that's too funny! I was just at that hotel in August. Indeed I think I was there when the 83,000 miles AA thing broke and I bought some Verizon products while on Aloft's wifi. I had no idea Cartera is literally 1000 feet (0.2 miles) from the hotel.

How Cartera is still in business is a mystery.

After the 83K mile mistake, they are still doing it. Again, and again.


:)

My husband's AA accounts have still not received their 2500/2500 regarding Cartera's old blunder. Sent the email with proof twice now!:(

indeed you must! and hey if you are ANYWHERE near Vernon, CT, Pulease do stop by http://www.reinsdeli.com/ and grab me a bucket of those pickles they sell! OMG!

screw that. I'm going legal like but am certainly entitled to THINK about doing the rest hehehe. Plus, I happen to know guys named Vinny and Nunzio...

yup, the same! And I grew up not 5-6 miles from these same spots. I bet I know every restaurant these cats go out to eat at for lunch or business meetings. I should just go get a coffee nearby and listen into the chatter of those from local businesses. Maybe i'd pick up something like this: "Yeah, so we have this guy MM trying to get miles from us. Boy he has no idea how much we love to scam people! I had to take you out of the office, Bob, because I didnt want anyone to hear this..."

They are bigger scammers than they think we are! That's how.

And sadly, the airlines AND we were not watching when companies like this one started to grab up all the shopping entities.

I kinda think what we SHOULD do is appeal to each and every one of the retailers on all the mall sites.

Imagine the countless letters to all the businesses... You go through the list and just send the same letter to each one of them.

Yeah, as I type this, I think that's exactly what I shall do! To get them to see why they should pull out!

I will get going on this and post what I send.

Ok I grilled up some swordfish, ate me dinner, fed the kids, and jammed this one out... Please take a look and make suggestions. I think I will begin finding the HQs and key personnel to send it to for every single retailer on every Cartera mall starting now. If the letter needs editing, let us do that here. If you all agree it should go out with edits or as is, I think we should all print it out, sign it and fire it off to every effin one of em. Cant hurt, right?

May even make something change!

*****************

To STORE (ie, Staples...)
FROM YOU/ME
DATE
RE: A single customer concerned about your business relationship


To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you as one of many concerned consumers who shops online and has either bought from your company or considered doing so in order to earn frequent flier mile rewards through airline shopping portals.

As you are aware, many well-known retailers and brands are found on online airline website shopping portals and when customers plan to buy something at the stores they may already shop at, they can easily earn miles simply by clicking through these airline ‘mall’ portals to land at your store site. The plan, in theory, seems perfect.

However, in practice, many people, self included, have come to find it is often quite different.

Without boring you with too many gory and involved details at this time, let me begin by stating that there have been numerous occasions whereas my miles have failed to post for purchases I made through the portals in the proper and precise manner, and this has happened at least once with nearly every airline mall and with nearly every retailer I have purchased from.

I hardly fault you, the retailer. Instead, I have come to learn that the process is usually in the hands of a large, overwhelmed, out-of-control entity that runs most major airline malls called Cartera Commerce, Inc.

*** I am writing this letter to ask your company to cease doing business with them and to remove yourself as a retailer from their associated online malls. ***

I am also sending this letter around to every single retailer listed on every mall they service, and a copy of it has been given to three popular online travel boards with thousands of members on each where frustrated frequent flier customers are going to consider sending you this very same letter with their own signature on it.

But even if this is your only copy received thus far, I thought I would outline just a few infractions that you need to be concerned about as a business:

• Cartera has put forth web page offers into the public domain with non-proofread offers that they later call mistakes
• Cartera has hidden terms and conditions or even changed these in the middle of doing already existing business with companies and customers
• Cartera has put forth websites and toolbars for mile-earning use that are not yet out of Beta testing and often have non-functioning features.
• Cartera has changed promotions and blamed problems on hidden affiliates and even blamed you, the retailers for its own mistakes.
• Cartera has brought on so many airline malls, recently merging the Continental One Pass shopping mall into United MileagePlus, and acquiring the US Airways Mall from competitor, FreeCause, and yet it cannot even handle its own issues. They have become a virtual monopoly and there is often no recourse whenever there are customer complaints.
• Cartera’s customer service team has admitted to being overwhelmed with the many offers the company commits to in the name of sales, and they cannot properly fulfill many of their promises (many people have emails of these in writing)
• Cartera will often change or add a new rule about purchasing, and while this can be done, they will then retroactively apply this rule to negate any mileage offerings or earnings that people may have performed and thus hoped for.

There are many more infractions, and some are most likely highly illegal. But since I am no lawyer and just a customer who wants miles for things I buy when adhering to the terms stated on the web pages I buy from, I am hoping to approach this from all angles, this being a slightly more grass roots method. Perhaps appealing to you shall gain some results.

We all know the system goes as follows:

Customer clicks through to buy at your store. Purchase generates reward in the form of a commission. Part of this commission is given to the customer like a cash back reward or rebate, but in this case it's in the form of frequent flier miles for the airline through which the customer began online. Those miles are reflected on Cartera’s airline mall sites and so if the site says I get 2 miles per $1 spent to buy a $100 item (pre tax, shipping, etc) then I would expect to see 200 miles in my respective airline account. Within certain periods of time, the miles move from these sites to one's airline account.

The problem is that sometimes it takes a week to post and sometimes 8 weeks or 12 or 15... Many times, not at all. People like me have been known to chase these miles and do many follow up calls and emails to both the airline and the mall CSRs for weeks on end just to get these 200 miles. It’s hardly worth it, but of course there is the matter of principle at hand. I have found that if I get into much larger amounts, the fail rate seems to increase exponentially! It’s almost as if the more miles you expect to receive, the less likely you shall receive them. Sounds like a rebate scam to me, but how do I prove this and do I really want to?...

I can and will elaborate with copies of my own screenshots, printouts and notes on this mess and hopefully you can receive attachments so I can email it.

[In my case, I might say: I have this 5-inch-thick and growing packet of printed proof of all these instances from many airline malls if you wish, but I would have to either be given an account to bill the postage to, or provide you with PDFs and scans that can be sent to one person in an email that can handle sizable files, with a promise to read through everything I send.]

I have been informed that the way in which all this airline mall stuff works is such:

If a customer is missing miles and has in fact waited some 4-6-8-12 weeks as directed (whic, by the way, is so wrong to begin with!), he/she might write into the airline. The airline refers the customer to the mileage desk. The mileage desk may say they will look into it and will probably ask for date, purchase amount, card used to purchase and item/order number. Then, another email may come that tells me to wait 30-45-60-90 more days to get some answers.

Huh?

It goes further… If Cartera is learned about by said customer and is then somehow contacted and included in this email exchange, initial correspondences with them are often 1-3 lines of boilerplate text and the message is signed by a first-name only person with no email address, phone extension or other personalized contact information to give the customer a sense of ‘problem ownership’ and accountability. At this point, if not before, sadly, many give up. Many people believe this is Cartera’s ultimate plan anyway but even if it’s not, all of this HAS to be bad for PR. It also has to be bad for you, the retailers!

I have come to find that when I am asked to provide the order information on something after having waited so long already, it’s because Cartera cannot even see the item or the purchase in its systems, or so it claims. If this happens, they tell me some “aggregate” or “affiliate” is taking my information back to the retailer and if I give consent, they can then look into my account with that retailer or my history of purchases there and indeed find that I made the purchase. Now they can go back to the affiliate, tell them if I qualified or not (this, by the way, is where I have in fact wondered if the retailers are also trying to get away with non-payment of my side of the commission) and then once that information gets back to Cartera, they can post the miles or tell the airline to do so. If I am so lucky, this whole process can take weeks or months--well beyond what was initially expected.

In the meantime, if I was pushy and even more lucky, maybe the airline already gave me credit because I bugged them so much. Either way, there are too many unseen unknown parties involved. I can’t even talk to these people! The entire process of waiting so long for miles to post has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I find I never want to shop that way again.

I will tell you now that I am pretty much done shopping with online airline malls. I don’t even care to get the extra miles that may never post anymore. It’s just not worth it. I do want what's already out there for me, and I will fight tooth and nail to get them to post accordingly, but I am finished with the rebate scam thing. Maybe I’ll still buy at your stores but that incentive—your probable reason for even signing on to do this stuff with Cartera in the first place—is completely gone for me. Sorry, I guess you will have to find more ways to target me because I love the miles but I do not trust the way this all takes place.

Now on the positive front:

Recently I had outlined a suggestion to Cartera on how they might consider awarding miles. Simply put—and you can chat with their sales team and the CS director to hear more—they should always make available our miles from within say, one week of our purchase. They should do this for every retailer and in the same fashion each time. You work with Cartera like you'd work with a bank. The theory being that then, they go out and get the miles or commissions or whatever they call it from whatever sales process or affiliate process they may have in place, and they do the waiting game while we feel more confident in buying online for a reason and reward. All of the problems stay in the background and do not become part of our problem. We did our part by buying and we got the miles for doing so.

I suggested that this work a bit like how a bank makes your funds available after so many days based on your relationship with them, your value as a customer, and their willingness to take certain monetary risks without inconveniencing the customer, etc. I think there are even laws about that (which do not exist in mile-land). If funds fail to come through, a bank can deduct money from you and charge a fee or close an account. Cartera would be best to think hard about applying such methods to both retain customers and control their own service. Should a person make the purchase and follow through then there is no problem. Should the person return the item, miles would get deduced. Right now it’s an utter and complete mess and has no standardized methodology. I am out.

That’s why I urge you to show Cartera that they should:

(A) All retailers quit Cartera Commerce. Show them you care about us.

(B) Fire a bunch of people and revamp everything, because the ones who make all their mistakes and fail to deal with CS issues and IT issues need to go!
(C) Change their ways and consider my suggestion or something that we the customers can even provide input on without feeling duped into certain things.
(D) Go out of business and let someone else who can actually do this take over.


*******************

I am by no means the best person or only person in here for doing this stuff. But I have made it clear how passionate I am about getting this stuff dealt with and I am NOT going to ever give up.

thoughts welcome.

:)MM

Since it appears Cartera Commerce/Vesdia is reading FlyerTalk....

If you're reading this Cartera Commerce, I had sent you notice to both your Atlanta office and your Boston-area office regarding a formal small claims lawsuit if you didn't properly credit my AAdvantage account for a bonafide purchase which used a promo code which was posted on your website.

I have signature confirmation proving that you received my letters.

For my purchase that should have netted nearly 19,000 AAdvantage miles,
I never used a promo code that was not listed on your website, nor did I ever return the merchandise. In fact, I sent you pictures of the merchandise in my home, and a copy of the receipt from the merchant.

I told you the date to reinstate the miles was by November 1, 2011 as it was more than a month to do so, as I sent these 2 letters at the end of September 2011.

I have sent countless emails regarding this, along with the 2 postal letters.

I have not received any form of contact, regarding your decision--- not via postal mail, not via e-mail.

This is your official last chance to settle before I have a lawyer serve you papers. If you don't want to go to court, then I expect you to fulfill your obliagtion.

Please e-mail me or send me a PM with the expected date that the nearly 19,000 AAdvantage miles will post to my AAdvantage account.

As mentioned in both letters, and all emails, the nearly 19,000 AAdvantage miles were award by Cartera Commerce, and then taken back/away by Cartera Commerce. According to American Airlines, it is you, Cartera Commerce that is responsible for this mileage deduction/retraction, and not American Airlines/AAdvantage.

I will be sure to PM you to the location of this message on FlyerTalk.

One of my shopping purchase posted recently almost after 9 months -
I didn't even remember about it. Not sure if I am ever going to shop at a site powered by these guys.

Yup. That's why I suggest we all write to the retailers. One by one!
I will actually buy postage for all my letters if I must