Can be slow to get credits, may influence your spending habits !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
********* INTRO *********
Themutual.net is essentially an advertising site. The difference is that once you register with them, instead of the profits going to the sites' owners, the they get shared with the users! Its a win win situation for the consumer.
************************ GETTING STARTED *************************
Registration is simple. Simply go to the homepage, provide your email address and address. There is an optional part for extra lifestyle details. I am not sure why this is here, and guess its for direct markting purposes. I have opted not to fill it in, and do not think it has held back my earnings. Once registered, you are free to earn points. You can earn bonus points by referring someone else to sign up, so long as they go on to make a purchase.
*********** SHOPS ***********
The site has links to lots and lots of online shops. They are listed by category (eg travel shops / online department stores / banks etc...) There are hundreds of advertisers, including many big national retailers or famous webshops (eg Johnlewis.com / Currys / M&S / Amazon / Tesco/Expedia/Lastminute/Amazon to name a few). Its likely that many would be shops that you would be considering buying from anyway.
******************************** SPEND AND SAVE (A BIT!) ********************************
In order to earn points, you HAVE to link to the site from themutual.net. When you link, a little box will comes up to say how many points you get for using that retailer.
You can choose for these points to go towards 'cashback' or 'shares'This is selected when you initially register, although you can change your mind at a later date (however, points already earned will not be converted).
CASHBACK If you choose the cashback option you will be told that e.g. shopping at M&S you will get 1% cashback. Once you accumulate over £25 worth, you can choose to redeem the money. This can be done at the end of the month. After requesting the money, it takes about a week to arrive through the post.
SHARES You can opt to put your points towards shares in themutual.net. The value of the shares you would receive is the same as the cashback you would have earnt. Obviously the shares could make you more money in the long run if themutual.net share price goes up. Of course, the opposite could happen, and you could lose it all. (I feel like one of those financial adverts!) Like the cashback option, once you have reached £25 worth, you can opt to transfer your points to shares allocated (although this is also only done approx 3x a year).
The share price has been up and down, and at present (May 2006) there is no dividend but the price is UP (a lot!) People who reecived shares last year, have seen their value triple! Last year I had about £70 worth built up, and now they are worth about £210! Really impressive. Gonna hold onto them a bit longer...
Shares can be sold through capita (an online sharedealing service which holds the shares for you) You can link to this from the mutual website. In addition you can transfer your shares out from Capita so that you can use your own stockbroker which may be a tad cheaper.
A BIT OF BOTH Each time you reach the 15,000 unit threshold (£25 worth) you can choose if you want shares or cash. So you can alternate which you receive.
*************************************** OTHER WAYS TO EARN POINTS ***************************************
Some points can be obtained simply by registering with sites (eg ciao!). Also visiting some sites, opting to receive emails (adverts), or registering your details with a particular company can also earn you points.
As well as shops you can also earn by searching the site for a particular product (1 unit per search up to a max of 5 per day) or linking to and then using sites suck as Kelkoo.
******************* IN SUMMARY... *******************
Themutual.net is not a way to make huge savings, but if you buy lots online anyway, it makes sense to use themutual.net and earn some of the profits made by the advertising industry for yourself. That said, it could encourage you to spend more, or shop with a company which you wouldnt use otherwise. But anyway, doesnt regular advertising encourage you to do that anyway? The only problem is that very occasionally I have not been credited with points after using a particular retailer, which is a bit frustrating. You can contact themutual.net customer services and they do usually get your points for you.
Thanks for reading and sign up.. the more that use it, the more profitable it will be for all!
***************************** LATEST INFO (UPDATE) *****************************
The company has merged with another media company and is a much larger entity. The other company is a market research specialist, and (like ciao) conducts paid online surveys. It also manages a huge database of email addresses for maketing companies. Their profits are due to be much higher this year which bodes well for shareholders! Their next porfits will be released at the ned of June 2006. A good time to get involved! The company is now lister on the London Stock Exchange as TNM (previosuly themual.net).
*************** CONTACTS ***************
WEB ADDRESS www.themutual.net
EMAIL CONTACT customer support - support@themutual.net (very slow to reply!)
POSTAL (SLOWMAIL) ADDRESS (Coporate office) TMN plc 3rd Floor 69-73 Theobald's Road London WC1X 8TA
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