Why is it that as a "Advantage" member, I have not been offered anything in the form of rewards?

[stupes18]

I am astonished to read other "advantage" members talking about free hats, etc. I have not received, nor have I been offered, any swag from Paypal since becoming a "advantage" member. In addition, I find it particularly disturbing that every time someone posts a complaint in these public forums, a Paypal agent miraculously appears with a message about how they will "PM" the person with the complaint, to help resolve the problem that is being addressed. Where is the transparency? I think, as an "Advantage" member, I derserve to see, publicly, how Paypal's agents handle a disgruntled customer. Am I asking for to much? Also, I am astonished that Paypal is not recognized in Paypal's spell check, that's absurd!!!

[johns_extras]

This seems to be standard.  It looks like, in the beginning, when they wanted to push the Advantage program, they gave away a bunch of swag to make people happy.  I've been a member for 6 months or more now and I've never been offered anything or seen anyone get anything since I qualified.

They basically do nothing now.  My guess is that they burned through a limited marketing budget and there isn't anything left.  They did their big push and now can just sit back and hope it was enough.  In my opinion, Advantage means very little now.

Heck, most members don't even know about THIS forum/community!  If you go to your main page and click on the Advantage link to find out more, it still says that the community is "coming soon" with no links to get here!  Only if you really dig into the Advantage pages do you see the OTHER "Community" tab that links you here.  Most people won't even get that far.

So, clearly, they aren't pushing nor providing any real benefits.

Note that offering PayPal Here first to Advantage members, for example, would have been a PERFECT opportunity to finally give a benefit that matters to anyone.  It is a shame that PayPal appears to have completely overlooked this.  We're the ones doing the significant volume.  We're the ones supposed to be getting "benefits" for being Advantage members.  We're the ones that should have the PayPal Here kits in our hands right now.  But, nope, didn't happen.  As usual, no real benefits.

 - John...

[BrightMint]

They, had a number of give-aways and I have definatly seen people win things of significant value including myself. Though, I'm not so sure they fully understand what people actually want or what drives people to use their service. Hence, totally bizarre period of time between stuff and overall weird rewards sometimes.

As far as the forums, sometimes they will directly reply sometimes but often it's via email. Not totally sure on there policy there. I do agree though some more transparency will make sense.

In general there has been way less attention on the forums by PayPal which I think is super odd from a public relations standpoint.

[johns_extras]

I get the impression that they had a specific budget and, once that was burned through, there has been nothing (or, at least, very little) more added.  So, in the beginning, they were doing all kinds of give-aways and such.  But for those of us that joined AFTER the period of free jackets and other such swag, there really hasn't been anything.

And, again, it isn't that I necessarily really want nor expect free swag -- it is just that they seem to be ignoring the program completely now.  Putting PayPal Advantage members first in line for new opportunities such as the PayPal Here device would have been a PERFECT way to reward the RIGHT people (i.e. those of us that do a great deal of transactions per year -- that WANT to be able to take credit cards from our phones and such).  Instead, it is just yet another missed opportunity, in my opinion, where PayPal just plain didn't even think about the Advantage program members.

It's a dead program, in my eyes.  I see no real benefit from it.  I see no pushing/marketing of it any more.  I see no employees that appear to be assigned to it.  The only "benefit" left is a special phone number to call if you have problems -- which, well, we shouldn't be having anyhow!  If we're actually having to USE that number on any regular basis, then something else is wrong!  So, to me, the only "real" benefit is something that we should hopefully never have to use!

And, as I said, they haven't even bothered to update the main site for people to see any benefits from the program -- as it STILL says that this forum -- that has pretty much come and WENT already -- is still "coming soon" in the Advantage Benefits section of the main PayPal site.  It isn't "coming soon" -- it came, it got popular for a bit, then it died off, and now it is pretty much dead.

 - John...