Drop Spending App – Is It a Scam?
In my opinion, it is time to Drop the new Drop spending app. Why? Because they are taking your data and making money, but are refusing to pay customers for that data. Or at least they are refusing to pay me and some others. Is it a scam? I wouldn’t say that, but I’ll let you decide based on my experience.
In case you are just joining us:
- Drop launched with generous cashback offers for stores like Amazon and Walmart.
- To get this cashback you link your credit card accounts to their service. They get to mine your transaction data which is how they make money.
- Quickly after launch Drop began locking some member accounts citing “manufactured spending”.
- They quietly changed their terms after the fact to exclude business purchases and manufactured spending.
- Drop used these new terms to deny people their money.
And that is what happened to me. A few weeks ago Drop reached out to me to clarify their position on manufactured spending when I asked why my account was locked. Since I had done a grand total of $0 of manufactured spending, I requested for my account to be unlocked and was told by Drop that my account had been unflagged.
I’d like to apologize for this inconvenience. We’ve un-flagged your account and I’ve let our support team know to send you your Best Buy gift cards ASAP. Since it’s a manual process, this may take a few days. Again, I’m so sorry for this situation and are working hard to ensure all valid users receive their points and rewards by the end of the month.
Unfortunately those gift cards never came and I noticed my account stopped earning any points. They kept mining my data and had told me I was going to receive my points but that simply never happened. Eventually I followed up with Drop’s representative and was told:
Last week I unflagged you, but our system automatically re-flags users who are suspected to be engaging in manufactured spending or have a corporate card connected for business spending purposes. We’re unfortunately unable to award points and allow redemptions on these purchases as Drop aims to reward the every day spending of our users.
As you can see, they are hiding behind their new terms which were not in effect when I earned those points. While I didn’t manufacture spend, I did have business cards (not corporate) linked to the account. There is no way to separate out business accounts from personal accounts in their system and they acknowledge this. Additionally a few of the points were earned from referrals. They are not paying out on any of it despite the fact that all points were earned before they mysteriously changed their terms in the middle of the night.
Drop’s rep did say how I could fix my account going forward.
At the moment, there’s nothing I can do to prevent our system from flagging you again each time I unflag you. The only fix is to unlink any corporate and manufactured spending cards from your Drop account. Our system will recognize that you are engaging in every day spending and allow you to earn points on those transactions. You’ll also be able to redeem rewards.
Taking this advice, I decided to unlink all of my accounts from Drop and then request that my account be unflagged so I could redeem the points I had accumulated. With no new transactions there was no way for my account to get flagged again.
After de-linking my accounts I emailed this rep back several times to unflag and ask that I be allowed to redeem my points and this is what I received.
Our offers are subject to the terms of partnerships we’ve agreed to with brands and retailers and as a result, certain manufactured spending including, but not limited to, repeat purchases, high-value purchases, purchases of gift cards, and purchases made for business or corporate purposes, may not, at our sole discretion, be considered eligible for Drop points. Our ToS has always reflected that users may redeem points in accordance with conditions that we may determine at any time and our ToS now specifically address some of the manufactured spending we’ve seen in the last few weeks.As you’re aware, Drop is designed to reward everyday consumers for spending with brands and retailers they know and love and we’ll continue to ensure our users are rewarded as long as they’re not jeopardizing our relationships with our partners. Manufactured spending, like the purchase of multiple high value gift cards, only ruins the opportunity for the everyday consumer to be rewarded for spending their hard earned money.
As you can see from the language above, this company thinks they can do whatever they want whenever they feel like it. In other words, if you earn too many points they can just not pay out on them. Is this legal? I don’t know because I am not a lawyer.
What I do know is that they took my data and money and ran with it. Is Drop App a scam? Once again, I wouldn’t say that but they certainly didn’t deliver on any level for me. I’ll let their own words stand for what kind of company they are.
Conclusion
I sincerely hope the banks stop working with this company which at best (in my opinion) is dishonest given their sudden changing of the terms, their interpretation of those terms and their misleading exchanges with me. At this point I am out a couple of hundred dollars and they have my data. A lesson learned I suppose and a mistake I hope others don’t make.
Based on my personal experience I would say it’s time to DROP DROP.
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Never had an issue with drop, I’ve redeemed over $400 in Amazon gift cards over the last couple years.
Told the same story on DoC, of my bad experience with Drop.
For me, the app worked great for quite a while, but at the end of 2018, purchases stopped tracking automatically. Reaching out about the issue in January, the response was quick and the missing points credited. Now having to contact Drop again in February about more missing transactions, I am first told that my account is being reviewed, and then informed that my purchases have “violated their terms of service.” After inquiring what specifically was supposedly done which violated the rules, there was total radio silence. I can honestly state that all my purchases were legitimate, no MS, period. Obviously, the period of activity was around the holidays, so there was xmas shopping, and also large some large purchases in connection with home improvements we were carrying out, as well as making purchases for an upcoming wedding; bottom line, we’re spending a ton of money at the moment. (As a side note, I was a Beta user so my Drop account is grandfathered from 10x at walmart & 20x at amazon.) Since Drop has been unwilling to actually explain themselves, even in the interest of good customer relations, I have to believe that some part of the issue is the unwillingness to pay out those higher rates. In the end, it was only ever $5 here, $10 there, I certainly was *not* getting rich from Drop rewards. It’s just pretty slimy to penalize some one for no real reason.
Giving out your credit card info? No thanks.
Amazing app. Have made $50 so far. Use code nkygm
Stay away from this app at all costs.
YUP! I had a very bad experience using this app. I was charged $15 for a $3 coffee. The receipt says the correct amount however my bank shows the overcharge. Use Caution!
Drop is most definitely a scam. Stay away.
I’m sorry you had such issues.
I have redeemed 2 AMC giftcards so far and have 83,639 points
I love it
Hi! I just want to share my experience with drop. Last July 2017, I took advantage off the Capital one aspire travel promotion that they have and applied for it. I’ve been using the credit card for more than a month now but I haven’t receive the 80,000 points until now. I contacted their support team several times but all they can say is to wait. Also, in my husband’s case he was able to receive his 80,000 drop points but when he tried to redeemed it for a sportchek giftcard, he didnt receive any. they told him that it was sent already but it wasn’t. I am very disappointed!!!
[…] previous posts I have shared my frustrating experiences with the Drop spending app. After debuting with what seemed like an amazing deal for customers, […]
Seems like I’m the only one who’s had a good experience.
Since I signed up 5 weeks ago, I’ve earned 80K Drop points (enough for $80 in Amazon gift certificates) which were awarded to me within a few hours of redeeming.
The first $10 GC was earned through organic purchases. The 70K points ($70 in Amazon GC) were earned by taking advantage of a Drop promotion – sign up for a Wealth Simple account, fund it (I deposited $5), get 70K Drop points.
you’re obviously a bot/ paid good reviewer they’re using since you’ve made the same post multiple times. even copied and pasted. nothing you say has any bearing. you didn;t even bother to change the content of your post and the first name’s the same. don’t assume everyone’s stupid enough to take your “wonderful” account of your “wonderful service” seriously. Drop’s a scam, and you’re just PART of their scam.
screenshot to include the botting on your part in case you decide to delete the fake comments: http://i.cubeupload.com/m8OyxG.png
yeah, we’re on to you drop, you lie filled cheat business. Next time you try to argue a well made point exposing your corrupt business ethics, don’t half ass it with a bullshit fake customer.
1. Not a bot (otherwise you failed my Turing test), not a paid good reviewer, just a person that signed up early and took advantage of their overly and customer-friendly point/redemption policies before they plugged those holes in their T&C.
2. I mistakenly posted my review twice, I’d delete *one* of them if I could. (you’ve got one thing right though – posting the exact same content under the exact same name is the best way to fool someone…)
3. My experiences early on were great – 80K drop points (and redeemed) in 5 weeks – http://cubeupload.com/im/24cjnQ.png. But, since then, I’ve only earned 20K points in 5 months.
4. So, while Drop is pretty much a dead earning opportunity for me compared to when it started, I didn’t have a bad experience. I understand, respect and believe others when they say they were scammed, but I didn’t. Datapoints are datapoints, not all align.
Similar experience here…its a scam.
Got one bonus of $280 and a second of 1$40 and my third of 500 some was blocked and then got the same email you did.
They should have put a limit on
total switch and bait….never received $100 in points to redeem…beware!!!
Seems like I’m the only one who’s had a good experience.
Since I signed up 5 weeks ago, I’ve earned 80K Drop points (enough for $80 in Amazon gift certificates) which were awarded to me within a few hours of redeeming.
The first $10 GC was earned through organic purchases. The 70K points ($70 in Amazon GC) were earned by taking advantage of a Drop promotion – sign up for a Wealth Simple account, fund it (I deposited $5), get 70K Drop points.
Shawn.
Thank you for sharing this. I am a long time reader of this blog. I was going to sign up for drop but after reading what you just said, no way.
Keep up the fantastic work.
Regards.
Take ’em to court! That’s the only language these bastards understand.
[…] like many are still having issues with Drop. For the record, my blog never promoted this site. Something about it just did not pass the smell […]
I don’t see where/how to unlink cards. Help?
I unlinked after only two weeks of using the app. Didn’t credit and when they finally credits couldn’t redeem.
Finally, a blogger who tells what Drop is doing. A Scam! No reason to continue the relationship. Drop locked my account even when I didn’t ms, made very few purchases but some of them were large because of electronics I bought, didn’t respond back to any messages. I have a feeling they only respond to people who have a large following because my attempts to get in touch with them through twitter, emails have failed.
damn bro. sorry to hear that man. i smelled some nasty crap when it first started, but people still piled in. others also got “Drop Kicked” by Drop. just sounds like another circa Discover Apple Pay or USB AR or even Uber Local Offers $20 max no GC. shopkick too. List goes on. Or how about regions bank. all terrible. seeing a trend here…
Yeah they gave me the same bullshit. I emailed them back and said I was done with them.
I don’t think the banks have anything to do with Drop. They’re just using an aggregator type service (i.e. Yodlee/Envestnet, Mint/Intuit) to get the transaction data. So for those of us with “mixed” Chase profiles that have one Ink card, it sounds like we’ll potentially be flagged as a business user? I get they have to control those who spend $25K at Staples.
Thank you for reporting back on this. My gut was telling me from the gitgo that this opportunity sounded like it could turn into just a big fat time-suck. Nothing I hate more than dealing with moron CSR people who are only tasked with making denials. Thank you for saving us that time!