Many sites offer reward programs for clicking on links to retailers from their site (eBates, for example). Typically, you are offered a reward or rebate equal to 1%, 2%, 5% or more of the purchase price of items you buy through those links.
Now comes uTango which promises (with their fingers crossed) to pay you up to $1,000,000 for shopping on their site. A million dollars!?
What’s the catch? (As if there was only one.)
*MOUSE PRINT:
Members can earn … extraordinary LifeStage Cash Rewards up to … $1 Million at 30 years [emphasis added] in return for your long-term loyalty.
That’s right, if you want to earn the million dollars, you have to sign up for a 30-year plan. After 30 years of faithful compliance, your money will be paid out as an annuity over 10 more years. So, how much do you have to buy per year to qualify for the million buck rebate?
*MOUSE PRINT:
They say you have to spend roughly $20,000 a year through their site in order to collect the required 120,000 points annually. Given that 40% of consumers can’t even follow through to mail in a simple rebate form for items they buy now, what are the odds that shoppers can follow through on this scheme for 30 years?
Just to make sure the company doesn’t have to pay out a lot of money 10, 20, or 30 years from now, they have a few other strings in their program rules and member agreement that could trip you up.
*MOUSE PRINT: (paraphrasing)
To qualify for the 10, 20, and 30 year bonuses, members must be married, and they have to sign up for the program when they have been married for less than three years.
To remain eligible for the big payouts, married members must “Stay Married for the duration of the LifeStage Rewards Plan. ”
If the couple fails to earn the required number of points for two consecutive years, they can be deactivated from the program.
And just in case the 50% divorce rate, and the expensive task of always earning 120,000 points a year (which can be adjusted upward for inflation, believe it or not) isn’t enough to disqualify you, they have two final tricks up their sleeve.
*MOUSE PRINT:
The program is subject to “change at anytime” and
“REWARDS UNDER THE PROGRAM ARE NOT GUARANTEED”
With so much at stake, and so many potential pitfalls, not the least of which is whether this company will be around 30 years from now, you might better utilize the cash back provisions of other reward programs that pay you back shortly after you make a purchase.
Update: The above story was written in September 2008. As of January 31, 2009, the announcement below is posted on the uTango website:
That is hilarious. I figure at 55 years old, if I participated i wowuld be 85 before I qualified to get my million *spead out over 10 years. However I just checked the web site and they have apparently already gone out of business. Does anyone know how long they managed to stay in business with this scam?
Their program dont even make financial sense. If you spend 20k a year for 30 years then you would have spent $600,000 to earn 1 million. I guess people will have to go Tango somewhere else!
The only thing equally futile as uTango are the accumulation of “miles” to take a “fre” trip, where the exercise fees on the free trip are nearly the cost of a similar ticket on a no-frills airline.
Thirty years from now the internet will most likely have undergone so many changes that we would never recognize it by today’s standards. Who would have been stupid enough to fall for this scheme?
Aptly named, uTango has gone Tango Uniform.
The first thing that entered my mind when I started reading was what would happen if they go out of business. The UPDATE near the bottom of the article put that notion to rest! Thank God.
Talk about empty promises!
I bet the “exciting changes to your credit card” are higher interest rates!
What disturbs me is not the pitch, but the fact that people fell for it. Don’t people think anymore?
To me the pitch has as much credibility as the idea that some official in Nigeria wants to use me to bring some money into the U.S. You are more likely to a Lottery than you are to spend $20,000 a year for 30 years without a break. There is no way you can collect on this even if the company had survived for 30 years.
Are we becoming a nation of robots who act without consideraing the possible result of our actions? I hope not. But then again…
With such a scheme I seriously doubt this Tango outfit will be in business in 30 years. I wouldn’t take the risk even if I was inclined to keep track of every purchase for 30 years.
i had there card for a little less than a year, got charged 20% interest and now there out of buisness…oh man what a crock…if it wasnt for the 50.00 they would send me every couple of months i would be totally angry…oh well…time to pay off that card
You got points for your regular purchases too with the card, so it didn’t seem to be a completely scam. I just received a letter in the mail yesterday that the credit card program has been discontinued as well, and the card will be closed as of May 5th. The program is completely, totally gone.