The ECS FAQS Thread #1, Post All Info Here:
11-26-00, 01:35 PM
#1
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I am putting all of jonathan e.'s good work in a separate thread to make things simpler on the bargain forum thread:
Important - With the recent software upgrade instigated by BFL it is highly advisable that you link to individual sites direct from BFL’s homepage so there is no doubt that you have used all the correct links. Links in the post below are working and valid but again I’d advise you to visit their site and link from there.
PLEASE CHECK THE INFO IN THE MAIN POST BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION AS MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THE ANSWERS ARE ALREADY HERE
PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN SUBMITTING REPLIES TO THIS AND ANY THREAD AS THE UBB SOFTWARE HAS SHOWN THAT IT IS VULNERABLE TO ERROR IF THE CORRECT POSTING PROCEDURE IS NOT FOLLOWED
If you need to check out any of the replies on the previous thread (17) go here
NOTE: Any questions, comments or just your BFL experiences, this is the place to post them, but if you have a change, omission, addition, complaint, or any suggestion about this main message, please e-mail me. If a new rebate is issued or one expires, and this hasn’t been reflected in the main message, e-mail me and I’ll amend it. Thanks.
jonathan.e
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MODERATORS ADDENDUM
Technically, Brands For Less is the same as an affiliate link, where they get a % off every sale which they make through their links. Our policy is to prohibit any affiliate links.
We've brought this issue up in the past and know how many of you feel about it. So, rather than keeping BFL info off the forum we're going to create one official thread for you to exchange BFL deals.
We see this as a compromise between having BFL stuff inundate our forum and not having any BFL info at all.
We encourage you to support DVD Talk when you can by making purchases through our affiliate links at the top of the forum and by supporting our sponsors, THANKS GK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: Please keep ALL discussions on this topic in this thread. Geoffhas been very understanding in letting us maintain a thread for this discussion; please respect that and treat it as such.
Please do not start any new BFL threads
INTRODUCTION
One of the main reasons Brands For Less is so useful is that they offer a number of rebates on goods purchased at a various on-line stores and also will rebate your shipping costs for both International and domestic orders. Use their affiliate links (you must use their links) to place orders and they'll send you a check for your rebate (based on the specific promotion you use). BFL have recently tightened up the rules and regs on their rebate forms and are now issuing e-mail confirmations when you fill in their forms. They will respond to e-mails at [email protected] so if you have any specific queries that I cannot help you with or that require information directly from them get in touch via e-mail, this is much more reliable than their on-line help who basically cannot keep track of all the promotions that they might be running at one time. Some people have reported that they have received letters from BFL denying them a rebate and saying the request was submitted incorrectly. This is why it is vital if you have any doubt as to whether you placed your order correctly, you contact them and they will go into their database and investigate any error.
When there are promotions such as $25 and $30 off $50 and $29 off $79 this is one of the best deals on the net (barring $0.02 missprices!) as you can use these deals in conjunction with coupons and BFL’s own free shipping offer. Properly applied you can get your per disc cost down to $7 or even lower!!
jonathan.e
INFORMATION
How Do I Get My Rebate?
Most people have received their rebates via mail about 4 to 8 weeks after placing the order. These checks are not processed until all items have shipped and your Credit Card has been charged, so pre-orders and back-orders (beware CDNow and for this) will cause longer delays. I have found that even though I was told the rebates would be issued seperately, in fact what seems to happen is payments are sent several at a time on one check.
Cancellations of part of your order
If this happens, the word from BFL is that unfortunately you will not get the rebate be it a $25 or just a shipping rebate. So be very careful when placing the order and maintain a close check on if a portion of your order is cancelled outside of your control as this will mean NO REBATE
******** and BFL
Many, many posts on these threads ask about using both these “referral” offers at once and getting double rebates. Can you guess what I’m going to say? Even though some people have had this prove succesful, others have not and in the end if BFL don’t get their referral credit from your purchase because it went to ******** instead they may very well not give you your rebate. You have to decide which one you would rather have, and use only one is my advice.
Placing your order
Here are some steps to make sure your order is placed correctly:
Use their links, use their links, use their links! They must get the referral money if you ever hope to see a rebate.
In most cases, gift certificates count as coupons and not cash. If someone "bought" you a gift certificate, you can apply it to your order as "cash" (we think).
To use other coupons with this promotion, you need to make sure BFL gets referral credit. For CDNow use the following method:
NB - IMPORTANT: In order for this to work (according to BFL) you need to ensure that you have NOT visited CDNow in the previous two hours (as they have a time-sensitive cookie), and then when you do, you need to make sure your FIRST visit to CDNow is through a BFL link. If you have visited CDNow in the previous two hours, then BFL will not get referral credit and you will not get your rebate.
[list]
Go to BFL, follow BFL links to CDNow
Open new browser
Enter CDNow(later, never) coupon URL
Use already open BFL/CDNow window to make your purchases
Add items to your cart, and watch as the coupon appears in the checkout area once you have reached the minimum required amount
Finalize your order in this first browser, and referral credit will go to BFL
Site security
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by cyclin:
All of the ECS merchants are secure, but here's the reason your browser doesn't show the lock: the merchants are shown within the ECS frameset, which itself is insecure. The window that you are ordering and sending information is secure, but the window with the frameset is not, but you're not sending information through that, so it doesn't matter. You can test/check the security by right-clicking on the merchant window and selecting properties in Internet Explorer. The properties window will provide the certificate and other security information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order Confirmation
It varies. Sometime you may get an e-mail, other times you won’t. As long as your order went through successfully and you got the "acceptance" screen when you submitted your rebate you should be OK. Any doubt e-mail their customer service dept for confirmation.
International Information
BFL is that rare beast in online companies, someone who actually deals internationally. It is very frustrating to see some of the deals in the Bargains Forum only to check out the site and realise you‘re not eligible because you live outside the US. This is why for non-US citizens, when the BFL deals are in operation they are among the best on the net and being as the one thing that can make great deals not so great for international customers is prohibitive shipping charges, BFL’s “Free Shipping always” allows you to effectively ignore any shipping cost as long as you meet the required minimum amount ($25). Also in the UK if you have an account with Barclays or you open one with them they will let you deposit your BFL rebate checks (or any US currency checks) free of charge up to £50 in value, over that there is a £4-9 charge. Be aware though, this is what Barclays term a “Discretionary” service, eg it is NOT policy but they will do it at the discretion of each individual branch - My advice is to ask first at the foreign exchange counter maybe at the same time you’re doing some other business there and I guess it also wouldn’t hurt to stress that these are not business cheques but personal. This is also good news if you sell on ebay as you can accept personal US currency checks from your winning bidders and it won’t cost you a penny in bank charges.
CURRENT PROMOTIONS
Free Shipping at Brands For Less on Orders Over $75
Get reimbursed for shipping on orders greater than $75.
From time to time BFL will change their shipping page to reflect a specific promotion. These are essentially no different to their regular Free Shipping offer but are really there to re-promote the offer. These will have a “Limited Time” disclaimer on the page, for instance, the Valentine one was valid until Feb 14, but this does NOT mean that there is no free shipping after these time limited promotions, BFL merely re-instate their regular page in it’s place:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BFL Customer Service:
Free Shipping will be a continuing program for the forseeable future, but to say that it
will ALWAYS be there is wrong - it could come down at any time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fine Print:
BrandsForLess.com reserves the right to reject any incomplete or inaccurate request including cancelled orders and returns. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for receipt of rebate. All rebates will be made in US dollars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER E-COMMERCE SITE OFFERS
Free Shipping for orders of $75 and over at Cybershop
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We'll reimburse your shipping costs for every purchase of $75 or more at Cybershop.
Maximum rebate $20.
1. Make a minimum merchandise purchase of $75.00 at CyberShop. Minimum merchandise purchase must total $75.00 U.S. after coupons or other promotional discounts (except mail-in manufacturer rebates) and before sales tax.
2. After you have made your purchase, complete the form below and submit. Please note shipping charges will appear on your checkout page. These charges will be reimbursed upon submission of this form. Do not include sales tax or shipping costs in the 'order amount' field when completing the form. Please indicate all shipping costs in the 'shipping amount' field.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NB IMPORTANT: MINIMUM PURCHASE REQUIREMENT IS NOW $75
Also:
Due to the cookie timer issue with cdnow, please make sure and go into the specified ecs site before acquiring a coupon. This is very important. Read above. Thanks again.
Important - With the recent software upgrade instigated by BFL it is highly advisable that you link to individual sites direct from BFL’s homepage so there is no doubt that you have used all the correct links. Links in the post below are working and valid but again I’d advise you to visit their site and link from there.
PLEASE CHECK THE INFO IN THE MAIN POST BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION AS MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THE ANSWERS ARE ALREADY HERE
PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN SUBMITTING REPLIES TO THIS AND ANY THREAD AS THE UBB SOFTWARE HAS SHOWN THAT IT IS VULNERABLE TO ERROR IF THE CORRECT POSTING PROCEDURE IS NOT FOLLOWED
If you need to check out any of the replies on the previous thread (17) go here
NOTE: Any questions, comments or just your BFL experiences, this is the place to post them, but if you have a change, omission, addition, complaint, or any suggestion about this main message, please e-mail me. If a new rebate is issued or one expires, and this hasn’t been reflected in the main message, e-mail me and I’ll amend it. Thanks.
jonathan.e
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MODERATORS ADDENDUM
Technically, Brands For Less is the same as an affiliate link, where they get a % off every sale which they make through their links. Our policy is to prohibit any affiliate links.
We've brought this issue up in the past and know how many of you feel about it. So, rather than keeping BFL info off the forum we're going to create one official thread for you to exchange BFL deals.
We see this as a compromise between having BFL stuff inundate our forum and not having any BFL info at all.
We encourage you to support DVD Talk when you can by making purchases through our affiliate links at the top of the forum and by supporting our sponsors, THANKS GK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: Please keep ALL discussions on this topic in this thread. Geoffhas been very understanding in letting us maintain a thread for this discussion; please respect that and treat it as such.
Please do not start any new BFL threads
INTRODUCTION
One of the main reasons Brands For Less is so useful is that they offer a number of rebates on goods purchased at a various on-line stores and also will rebate your shipping costs for both International and domestic orders. Use their affiliate links (you must use their links) to place orders and they'll send you a check for your rebate (based on the specific promotion you use). BFL have recently tightened up the rules and regs on their rebate forms and are now issuing e-mail confirmations when you fill in their forms. They will respond to e-mails at [email protected] so if you have any specific queries that I cannot help you with or that require information directly from them get in touch via e-mail, this is much more reliable than their on-line help who basically cannot keep track of all the promotions that they might be running at one time. Some people have reported that they have received letters from BFL denying them a rebate and saying the request was submitted incorrectly. This is why it is vital if you have any doubt as to whether you placed your order correctly, you contact them and they will go into their database and investigate any error.
When there are promotions such as $25 and $30 off $50 and $29 off $79 this is one of the best deals on the net (barring $0.02 missprices!) as you can use these deals in conjunction with coupons and BFL’s own free shipping offer. Properly applied you can get your per disc cost down to $7 or even lower!!
jonathan.e
INFORMATION
How Do I Get My Rebate?
Most people have received their rebates via mail about 4 to 8 weeks after placing the order. These checks are not processed until all items have shipped and your Credit Card has been charged, so pre-orders and back-orders (beware CDNow and for this) will cause longer delays. I have found that even though I was told the rebates would be issued seperately, in fact what seems to happen is payments are sent several at a time on one check.
Cancellations of part of your order
If this happens, the word from BFL is that unfortunately you will not get the rebate be it a $25 or just a shipping rebate. So be very careful when placing the order and maintain a close check on if a portion of your order is cancelled outside of your control as this will mean NO REBATE
******** and BFL
Many, many posts on these threads ask about using both these “referral” offers at once and getting double rebates. Can you guess what I’m going to say? Even though some people have had this prove succesful, others have not and in the end if BFL don’t get their referral credit from your purchase because it went to ******** instead they may very well not give you your rebate. You have to decide which one you would rather have, and use only one is my advice.
Placing your order
Here are some steps to make sure your order is placed correctly:
Use their links, use their links, use their links! They must get the referral money if you ever hope to see a rebate.
In most cases, gift certificates count as coupons and not cash. If someone "bought" you a gift certificate, you can apply it to your order as "cash" (we think).
To use other coupons with this promotion, you need to make sure BFL gets referral credit. For CDNow use the following method:
NB - IMPORTANT: In order for this to work (according to BFL) you need to ensure that you have NOT visited CDNow in the previous two hours (as they have a time-sensitive cookie), and then when you do, you need to make sure your FIRST visit to CDNow is through a BFL link. If you have visited CDNow in the previous two hours, then BFL will not get referral credit and you will not get your rebate.
[list]
Go to BFL, follow BFL links to CDNow
Open new browser
Enter CDNow(later, never) coupon URL
Use already open BFL/CDNow window to make your purchases
Add items to your cart, and watch as the coupon appears in the checkout area once you have reached the minimum required amount
Finalize your order in this first browser, and referral credit will go to BFL
Site security
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by cyclin:
All of the ECS merchants are secure, but here's the reason your browser doesn't show the lock: the merchants are shown within the ECS frameset, which itself is insecure. The window that you are ordering and sending information is secure, but the window with the frameset is not, but you're not sending information through that, so it doesn't matter. You can test/check the security by right-clicking on the merchant window and selecting properties in Internet Explorer. The properties window will provide the certificate and other security information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order Confirmation
It varies. Sometime you may get an e-mail, other times you won’t. As long as your order went through successfully and you got the "acceptance" screen when you submitted your rebate you should be OK. Any doubt e-mail their customer service dept for confirmation.
International Information
BFL is that rare beast in online companies, someone who actually deals internationally. It is very frustrating to see some of the deals in the Bargains Forum only to check out the site and realise you‘re not eligible because you live outside the US. This is why for non-US citizens, when the BFL deals are in operation they are among the best on the net and being as the one thing that can make great deals not so great for international customers is prohibitive shipping charges, BFL’s “Free Shipping always” allows you to effectively ignore any shipping cost as long as you meet the required minimum amount ($25). Also in the UK if you have an account with Barclays or you open one with them they will let you deposit your BFL rebate checks (or any US currency checks) free of charge up to £50 in value, over that there is a £4-9 charge. Be aware though, this is what Barclays term a “Discretionary” service, eg it is NOT policy but they will do it at the discretion of each individual branch - My advice is to ask first at the foreign exchange counter maybe at the same time you’re doing some other business there and I guess it also wouldn’t hurt to stress that these are not business cheques but personal. This is also good news if you sell on ebay as you can accept personal US currency checks from your winning bidders and it won’t cost you a penny in bank charges.
CURRENT PROMOTIONS
Free Shipping at Brands For Less on Orders Over $75
Get reimbursed for shipping on orders greater than $75.
From time to time BFL will change their shipping page to reflect a specific promotion. These are essentially no different to their regular Free Shipping offer but are really there to re-promote the offer. These will have a “Limited Time” disclaimer on the page, for instance, the Valentine one was valid until Feb 14, but this does NOT mean that there is no free shipping after these time limited promotions, BFL merely re-instate their regular page in it’s place:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BFL Customer Service:
Free Shipping will be a continuing program for the forseeable future, but to say that it
will ALWAYS be there is wrong - it could come down at any time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fine Print:
BrandsForLess.com reserves the right to reject any incomplete or inaccurate request including cancelled orders and returns. Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for receipt of rebate. All rebates will be made in US dollars.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OTHER E-COMMERCE SITE OFFERS
Free Shipping for orders of $75 and over at Cybershop
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We'll reimburse your shipping costs for every purchase of $75 or more at Cybershop.
Maximum rebate $20.
1. Make a minimum merchandise purchase of $75.00 at CyberShop. Minimum merchandise purchase must total $75.00 U.S. after coupons or other promotional discounts (except mail-in manufacturer rebates) and before sales tax.
2. After you have made your purchase, complete the form below and submit. Please note shipping charges will appear on your checkout page. These charges will be reimbursed upon submission of this form. Do not include sales tax or shipping costs in the 'order amount' field when completing the form. Please indicate all shipping costs in the 'shipping amount' field.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NB IMPORTANT: MINIMUM PURCHASE REQUIREMENT IS NOW $75
Also:
Due to the cookie timer issue with cdnow, please make sure and go into the specified ecs site before acquiring a coupon. This is very important. Read above. Thanks again.
11-28-00, 06:21 PM
#2
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felcher: Does this mean ECS is now accepting preorders again? I noticed this restriction has been changed from "preorders will disqualify a rebate application" to "preorders may delay the shipment of rebates."
Of course, I've been lobbying for this change for months... I used BFL/ECS's services about 40-50 times before the instituted this restriction, and I received every rebate due to me. I'd be happy to resume my affiliation with them.
- David Stein
------------------
There is No Cabal
Of course, I've been lobbying for this change for months... I used BFL/ECS's services about 40-50 times before the instituted this restriction, and I received every rebate due to me. I'd be happy to resume my affiliation with them.
- David Stein
------------------
There is No Cabal
11-29-00, 01:21 AM
#4
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quote:<HR>Originally posted by felcher:
good point. i will email ecs about this and other topics. why do these dorfs make it so hard for us......<HR>
No clue. I was their best customer until they instituted this foolish ban.
- David Stein
------------------
There is No Cabal
11-30-00, 11:53 AM
#5
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ok, you can't preorder with the 10.00 of 50.00. you will get your rebate even if you are not a first time customer. that header about first purchase looks like its only on the bfl deal.
06-07-01, 05:23 PM
#6
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BFL still working...
Is BrandsforLess (BFL) still in business? I applied for a shipping refund and got a cryptic message in return, when I asked about the status of it:
"We have been dealing with some technical issues that have delayed us from sending out rebate and/or shipping refunds. We have every intension of sending them, and will do so as soon as possible. Our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this delay has caused you." - sounds like financial problems to me...
Should I cancel my outstanding orders and make them through another portal?
"We have been dealing with some technical issues that have delayed us from sending out rebate and/or shipping refunds. We have every intension of sending them, and will do so as soon as possible. Our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this delay has caused you." - sounds like financial problems to me...
Should I cancel my outstanding orders and make them through another portal?
