Missing Transactions and Earnings Enquiries

How long do earnings take to show in my account?

The time it takes for transactions to track into your account varies between merchants. Usually it will take at least a few hours for the earnings from a transaction to be reflected in your iGain "My Account" earnings page. You can normally see the average Tracking Speed for a merchant in the statistics section on a merchant's page. These statistics are based on live tracking times. You will need to be logged in to view these.

Incorrect value in the Amount column (Transactions Tab)

Some merchants will enter a placeholder amount (£0.00, £1.00 etc.) in the Amount column of your Transactions tab. This should not be a problem - the value in Earnings tab is the important one.

Incorrect Earnings Amounts (Earnings Tab)

There are several reasons you may have a seemingly incorrect amount reported in your earnings. The most common reason is that some merchants will only pay commission on transaction amounts excluding VAT. Other merchants do not include shipping costs in their calculations; this delivery cost may be hidden in the cost even if it is labelled "free delivery". Unfortunately this is not information they provide to us. Also, earnings can fluctuate with some merchants as they calculate returned products or other events. Some merchants will mark a "lead" with a nominal amount such as £1 and when the application is deemed genuine it will change to the full amount.

Lastly, merchants do change their rates over time, so if you are comparing the rate you received in the past with the current rate on iGain it may not be relevant to your transaction. We do our best to keep on top of rate changes, but we cannot promise that the information displayed on iGain will be accurate at the time of your transaction. We are unable to compensate for the discrepancy on these occasions.

Should I worry if my transaction tracks, but doesn't validate?

The status in the earnings report is an indicator of where your transaction is. Please note that not all transactions go through the "validated" phase.

• Pending: Earnings are pending as a result of an earnings enquiry that you have submitted.
• Tracked: The merchant has tracked your transaction but not yet validated it.
• Tracked*: Same as above, except this merchant will not explicitly validate your transaction. Unless it is denied, this transaction will next change to "Received" when payment is received from the merchant.
• Added: This is roughly the equivalent of the "Validated" status, but applies when an amount has been manually added to your earnings, usually after a successful (pre June 2nd, 2008) enquiry .
• Validated: The merchant has confirmed they will pay on your transaction.
• Declined: The merchant will not pay on your transaction.
• Received: We have received payment from the merchant for your transaction.
• Paid: Your BACS or PayPal account has been credited.
• Declined Transactions: Declined transactions are very difficult to pin down. There are many reasons a merchant may deny a transaction. A general rule of thumb is to ask if the initial transaction has been changed in any way, or if any of the details submitted with your sale could not be verified (address, phone, payment etc). This may include adding items to the sale at checkout if you have used a reserve and collect option with the merchant, or using a discount card, code, or voucher. For more information read about the technical factors that can affect tracking.

The following types of reasons can be given for denied transactions:

The transaction

• (1) had returned products;
• (2) failed a credit check;
• (3) failed payment;
• (4) was cancelled by the merchant;
• (5) failed to pass the merchant's fraud check;
• (6) was not a genuine transaction;
• (7) was awarded to a competing cookie from another website or a different marketing channel.
• (8) is the most common reason. The merchant must consider the referral to come from iGain.co.uk. Competing cookies, use of special links, voucher codes, and refer-a-friend programmes can all result in the referral being attributed to another merchant. Finally, if you are enquiring about gaming transactions please understand that these experience high rates of declined transactions. If you are a member of "sister" site, if you fail to play through your deposit, if you fail to deposit enough money, you may have your transaction declined. Each merchant has special terms that they evaluate your account with and most of these terms are not made known to us.

Missing Transactions

We accept enquiries regarding transactions made in the last 45 days on most merchants. Some have shorter time spans (if this is the case it will be noted on the merchant page).

First off, please understand that we cannot pay out on transactions that were not completed wholly online. If any part of your transaction was completed over the telephone or through any other medium, we will not receive commission for this and we therefore cannot pass the earnings on to you.

Second, if you use other means of getting rewards or cashback, please check if the transaction was tracked with them. Merchants will only pay out once, and if the transaction has been attributed to another site or organisation, we will not receive commission for this transaction.

Third, please double-check to make sure the transaction has not been reported in your earnings. Sometimes amounts can be slightly different or the date off slightly.

I've read the above and still need to submit an enquiry

If you're sure your enquiry doesn't fall under any of the situations discussed previously, please continue to the section on Earnings Enquiry Submissions.