The non-biased and fair but DAMNING truth

This is the 100% truthful consumer review I wrote about the shockingly bad SweetCollect.co.uk which the consumer review site Ciao.co.uk censored and banned. Skip down to the last third of the review for the interesting reading.



I first heard of Sweetcollect.co.uk a couple of years ago when I spent a lot of time on freebie sites. What I heard in general wasn't very good. In fact it was rather shocking. They were notorious for not honouring their members. Notorious for not paying out. Notorious for being crap in general. Apart from the odd few lucky people most of the members never received the rewards from the site which they'd built up. For these reasons I never joined the site or even went to look at it. But a while back, probably around 6 months ago, I heard the site had been taken over and shaken up. I can't remember where I heard this and I have no idea as to whether what I heard was true but I decided to join up and see if it had turned a corner or if indeed it was still a seemingly scam internet site.

So what is Sweetcollect.co.uk? In short it's yet another internet reward site rather like iPoints and Mutalpoints. You receive rewards for such things as signing up to other internet sites, taking up offers and shopping. The only difference with Sweetcollect is you get rewarded with sweets rather than cold hard cash.


A bit about the basics
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Sign up is easy. Just follow the instructions, type a few details and away you go. One thing I must warn you about is the colour of the site. It's BRIGHT ILLUMINOUS PINK. It's not exactly easy on the eyes and I can't see it greatly appealing to the male of the species. Apart from that the site is very easy to navigate, the account information is very easy to understand and all the offers are on the whole very easy to complete.


So is it a good site then?
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Well some things are pretty good, like the daily click section. You can earn a sweet for doing something so simple as clicking onto a website. There are a number of these kinda deals and sometimes you can click up to 2/3 times on the same website for extra sweets. These take no effort whatsoever and within 5 minutes you could have earnt 10/15 sweets for just clicking away. You are also credited with a tube of Smarties just for joining and extra tubes of Smarties for referring someone to the site. I also like the fact the sweets are all different depending on which offer/click you complete. Sometimes it can be Smarties, or it could be Blackjack chews, Fruit Salad, Pixie Sticks, Jelly Monsters, Double Dips, Haribo Starmix etc etc.... Before long your account rewards looks like a mini sweet shop. Much better than just accumulating points like on iPoints or MutualPoints. Plus on Ipoints and Mutual it can take forever to accumulate enough points to be able to cash out whereas on Sweetcollect as soon as you've accumulated 25 sweets in your reward account you are able to cash out. In fact cashing out is done automatically on Sweetcollect. As soon as you reach at least 25 sweets rewarded your order is placed on a list to be sent to the dispatch centre. So yes, in theory it's a very good site......


BUT.......and it's a very BIG BUT
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I've now been a member for a few months and within no time i'd accumulated enough sweets to be able to cash out. By 30th of August I had easily enough sweets and was eagerly awaiting my package through the post. When I looked at my account information I was notified my order was on the list and due to be sent to the dispatch centre around the end of November. That was 3 months after i'd accumulated enough for payout. Oh well I suppose I could wait. In the meantime I carried on clicking away on the site and my reward total kept going up.

BUT what I also noticed was the date to be sent for dispatch also kept changing. One day it'd say November 30th, then it'd go up to December, then January, then back to December, then February, then December again etc etc and today I checked and it'd gone right up to January 21st again. My total amount of sweets accumulated now stands at 130 and still i've yet to see/eat a single reward. Needless to say I now use the site less and less, in fact they're lucky if I visit there once a week right now. The only thing I bother to do is check my account. They're having no more clicks or joining things from me until they show me they honour their obligations.

AND ALSO. Your Sweet collect personal account has a section for 'not completed' transactions. These are things you've clicked on/joined but not fully completed APPARENTLY. My 'not completed' list is massive. I can't be bothered to count every 'not completed' link in my account but there's easily over 40. I know for a fact some of these 'not completed' things HAVE been COMPLETED by me. For example I downloaded the new version of Messenger using a Sweetcollect link and was supposed to receive a free Skittles mini bag. They say I didn't complete the transaction when I KNOW I did because i'm currently using the new downloaded version of Messenger that I downloaded using this site. Another one is for Glowbay which I joined and was supposed to receive a Drumstick Lolly for. They say 'not completed' when I KNOW it is completed because i still go on Glowbay to this day (I'm 99% sure that Sweetcollect also own Glowbay) Another one is MutualPoints which they say 'not completed' Bullsh*t!! I joined through Sweetcollect and still use that site now so HOW did I NOT complete it.

I can hear you saying 'why don't you contact them about crediting your account for these not completed transactions?' Well the thing is I have no proof I completed these transactions. I will put an email together for them but I don't hold out much/any hope. Besides which, what's the point of disputing sweets which haven't been added when i'm having such trouble trying to get them to cash out on what I have been awarded? Yes that's my biggest gripe. I take time out of my day to try to earn rewards on a site, make the site itself lots of money through clicks and memberships and get Sweet F A in return. I've even referred at least 2 people to Sweetcollect so God knows how much profit they're also making from them.


Recommended or not?
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Not right now I wouldn't recommend it. Hopefully some time next year i'll receive my sweeties but it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when you have to wait so long for such a pathetic little reward. I thought when I joined that taking 20 minutes outa my day to accumulate enough sweets for a payout would be time well spent and it would have been if they'd sent my damn sweets. They've lost a frequent member in me. If they'd paid out promptly I would've been on that site every day but no way am I spending time on a site that so far is showing itself to be a scam.

Yesterday I sent an email to the Sweetcollect team enquiring (and generally moaning) about their dispatch date stupidity. They sent me this email back

"I will try to explain to you how the system works and hopefully shed some light for you.
As for the dispatch date the system is a computer. It doesn't know when things are going to happen in the office, it doesn't know if staff that are supposed to be packing sweets are going to be away, so it guesses a date.
As SweetCollect is big, and is growing bigger and bigger , it gets
harder and harder to get everyone's sweets etc... out to them, but the staff try and get everything out as fast as they can.
And if you find you keep moving backwards in the queue, this could be because people who were supposed to receive a package of sweets but haven't will get moved to the front of the queue (because they were expecting them a lot longer before)."


OK then let me just quote the final part for you "And if you find you keep moving backwards in the queue, this could be because people who were supposed to receive a package of sweets but haven't will get moved to the front of the queue (because they were expecting them a lot longer before)." So just HOW long were these poor buggers waiting for their sweets? and WHY didn't they receive their sweets when they were SUPPOSED to? This email didn't leave me feeling any better of the site than I did prior to the email. I applaude customer services for getting back to me so quickly but this message did not fill me with confidence.

At this point I feel it right to point out we cashed out on iPoints last week for a £50 Amazon voucher. iPoints is a far bigger and more popular site than Sweetcollect and yet ipoints in conjunction with Amazon sent out our reward by mail and it was received by us within a week. Now THAT is how it should be done.

For now I give Sweetcollect a total of 1 star for their site. If they finally do pay out i'll revise this review slightly and possibly increase the star rating by one star (if they're lucky) Watch this space.


UPDATE 24.12.2005
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As of today my account now says it'll be sent to the dispatch centre around the 7th of May


UPDATE 27.12.2005
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My account today says it'll be sent to the dispatch centre around the 28th of June


UPDATE 06.01.2006
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Now it says it'll be sent to the dispatch centre around the 6th of February. At least the date's come forward as opposed to being put back again.


UPDATE 30.01.2006
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The date it'll be sent to the dispatch centre is now June 28th.


UPDATE 04.04.2006
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Today i'm in shock. Apparently my order will now be sent to the dispatch centre around January 16th 2008. OH MY GOD!!!! I'll be dead before I receive them at this rate.

I sent an email to customer services today about my sweeties (and the stupidity of estimated dispatch not being until 2008) Here is their reply

"Hi
The dispatch date in the system is a computer. It doesn't know when
things are going to happen in the office, it doesn't know if staff
that are supposed to be packing sweets are going to be away, so it
guesses a date.
As SweetCollect is big, and is growing bigger and bigger , it gets
harder and harder to get everyone's sweets etc... out to them, but the
staff try and get everything out as fast as they can.
And if you find you keep moving backwards in the queue, this could be
because people who were supposed to receive a package of sweets but
haven't will get moved to the front of the queue (because they were
expecting them a lot longer before). Please ignore the date you are
seeing,we are having technical difficulties at the moment, of which we
are trying to resolve as quickly as possible.
We appreciate your patience, and be assured that you will get your
sweets in turn, and I hope this has cleared things up for you."


As you can see it's more or less the same as the first email I received from them. Only difference I can see is the technical difficulty explanation towards the bottom. Grrrrrr I HATE sweet collect.


UPDATE 05.04.2006
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i joined the sweet collect forum today http://www.swearch.com/forum/
My purpose was to find out why this reward site was not honouring their part of the deal. They bribe/reward members for joining up to things/completing things/clicking things yet the member has to wait literally forever to receive anything for their efforts (if they ever do) Oh sorry they do receive something. They receive an inbox full of junk and spam emails

Anyway within 5 minutes of me becoming a member, and precisely 30 seconds after my third posting, I was barred from the forum. Why was this? For daring to ask negative questions? I'm in the process of trying to find out (not that I care) This once again has proven to me what a disgusting company Sweet Collect (or rather Carl Knight ltd) is.

If anyone is even remotely thinking about joining up be it on your own head. Stay away from the other Carl Knight Ltd sites too cos they're as bad. They're an absolute disgrace and it's sites like these which give legitimate reward sites a bloody bad name.


This is the email I sent regarding me being banned from the forum

"I think it's very unprofessional for you to ban a member from the forums just because they (with valid reason) dispute some postings. I wasn't abusive, I was just being brutally honest. you wanna know what the general opinion is of sweet collect? Go take a look at the review site ciao.co.uk. I'm not the only person who is disgruntled, it's just that I seem to be the only one speaking out (or have you banned everyone who speaks out?)
Why did you ban me?"


To which I received this reply

"You were banned as you we feel that you're not going to be a positive addition to the Swearch Forum community. You've only made 3 posts on the forum so far and all of them are negative.
That's hardly constructive. If you had made positive postings about other sites and offers then you wouldn't of been banned, but you've demonstrated that your only purpose on Swearch Forums is to be negative and that's simply not good for the forum
community.
Regards,
Carl Knight."


My reply back was

"My purpose on the Swearch forums was to give my opinion about Sweet Collect which is a legitimate reason for joining. So you're saying unless i'm positive about Sweet Collect I gotta keep my mouth shut? That's a terrible attitude to have, especially when i'm a member of Sweet Collect who's slightly peeved off about being messed around with regards to the rewards.

I cannot believe that if you *are* a legitimate business you *don't want* negative views which at the end of the day can only serve to help you improve as a business. Your attitude stinks. Your business knowledge stinks. I don't need to be a member of the Swearch forums, you've answered every question I could've possibly had just by showing me the extent of your ignorance and immaturity. Go back to school and study the Dummies Guide To Running A Business cos you sure as hell need it."


Then I got this reply

"If you think you can talk to people however you like then you're sadly
mistaken.
However as you've replied so rudely then I'm afraid you're not going to get
an unfriendly reply.
You're clearly either a moron, or a complete idiot, or both? At no point did
I say you had to be positive about SweetCollect, I was explaining to you
that we don't allow members to join the forum for the sole purpose of
bitching about things, and that was your only agenda.
I suggest you speak to my customer relations staff and you won't be getting
any more replies from me.
You can email either wendy*******@carlknight.net or
danielle****@sterlingrock.net
Have a miserable day.
Carl Knight."


So I replied with

"HAAAAAA what a nice business manner you have. I don't give a monkeys what you wanna call me. This all sits nicely as a copy and pasted addition on my sweetcollect.co.uk review. You're just making yourself look like an obnoxious scammer. Do your worst to me, it's not me who's trying to (apparently) run a business.
If just one person gets put off joining Sweet Collect and your other sites by reading my review i've done my job. (lots HAVE been put off btw) Thankyou for making it easier for me.
Regards
Erika"



Then he said

"I was simply saying what everyone wanted to say to you. I'll happily include a copy of your emails on our site to demonstrate how popular your comments are.I need to ask consent to include your name and email address with it, do you mind?"


So I said

"Of course I mind. My email address is not for public viewing and you have no permission whatsoever to post anything of mine without me having the right of reply (which is a bit hard since you banned me and I have no intention of ever going back there anyway)"


To which he replied

"Ah so you do understand laws concerning posting private communications then. Remember it works both ways ;)"


So the nob-head got this from me

"No. I'm communicating with a business (you) and I write consumer reviews. If I have a bad experience with a company it's my duty to tell consumers about it. You are talking about posting an ordinary persons details and emails on a public forum. Two entirely different things."


the next boring reply from him is

"If that's what you believe then go ahead and post a review, you're communicating with me directly. If you post copies of these communications, then i'll be doing th same, and there will be no comeback for you if you've posted them on the net already yourself. Maybe you should seek legal (or mental) help?"


Then he got this reply off me

"I wrote the review and posted it months ago. Do what you want, I don't have a business to destroy. Bet you feel all powerful now don't you? Haaaa you can't even argue without getting all flustered. What chance have you got of proving yourself to be a professional and respected business person if you can't even keep your cool with a 28 year old lass? Post whatever you want at your so-called forum. Like it has any impact or makes any difference to my little 'ol life anyway."


Arrogance kicks in again with his next reply

"Ah cool, any chance you could send me a link to your review, i'd love to check it out. Thank you for authorising me to post your communications on our forum (quote: "Post whatever you want at your so-called forum.") I still don't authorise you to re-produce my comments in anyway however.
Have a nice day."


Can't be bothered to contact him again, he can find the review himself if he's so desperate to read it. All this correspondence begs the question, why has he got so much time on his hands? Shouldn't he be working instead of trading insults with me?

I NOW I feel MUCH better about the situation than I did before. Stuff the sweets, this was enough entertainment to pay me ten times over for what offers I completed. They (Carl Knight Ltd) can go and find some other poor sucker cos this sucker here has had more than enough of playing with the 10 year old internet scammers.