QuidCo.Com

MY experience with Quidco for utility swaps over the past year (2010-11) has been disappointing because at the time of arranging transfers I was not aware of the cashback time limit of 45 days.

In April 2010 Plusnet advertised £50 to swap telephone/broadband but dragged their heels and finally achieved a connection in July (i.e., 3 months, 6 weeks out of Quidco validity time). Really slow!!

In Dec 2010 I changed gas and electricity suppliers, from British Gas to edfenergy, using Quidco (offer £80 cashback). Transfer was pretty staightforward and completed in Feb 2011 - transfer completed in 8 weeks, approx. 1 week over validity time.

I only found out about the 45 day limit when I checked in May 2011 to see why cashback had not been credited to my Quidco account. I found that they were both out of time.

On contacting the companies involved in the cashback scheme, I found that the offer is an incentive offered by Quidco and that if the transfer takes longer than 45 days it is invalid under Quidco's terms, (see" help" menu for small print) .

In summary:
* it's worth trying a utilities transfer through Quidco, but don't expect cashback if it takes longer than 45 days to carry out transction.

** don't transfer just because there is an offer as most utilities state that transfer can take up to 8 weeks to complete.

***read the small print (I didn't!).