[nod]

A big Thank you to Jayne for her huge contribution to this thread

This is a brief guide for newcomers. It is designed to help you learn a bit more about how your Buckscoop works.
You can also find more information in the BuckScoop help section.


What is BuckScoop?

BuckScoop is an Australian online community providing a combination cashback site and deals forum.
The forum is a place for people to share bargains. Bargains they have found and wish to share with others, or simply, bargains they wish to find!
The cashback aspect is essentially a cooperative. Buckscoop collects referral commissions from online merchants and passes them all on to our members. The Buckscoop cooperative is a cashback revolution where members get cold hard cash each time they make a purchase through one of the Buckscoop merchants.


Who can use BuckScoop?

Anyone can use BuckScoop. It is free to join and MOST importantly free to use. There are no annual fees or charges.

We are also ad-free and spam-free.

Only Australian residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to open Buckscoop accounts.

We allow only one account per person, and multiple people may not use the same account.

This does lead us into a few rules that we have set up for forum usage with regards to merchants and self promotion.

Merchants are not allowed to submit their own deals, or carry out "sales talk" in any threads.

However, they are encouraged to respond to queries in threads about their own business, although this will be closely monitored by admin and moderators. We ask that merchants are up front and honest about their identity.

Any posts we consider to be viral marketing will be removed.
Members are not permitted to post personal referral links, or any third party affiliate links.

Our experience shows that if we allow merchant deal postings, referral links or viral marketing, the objectivity of the forum is lost. The forum is no longer controlled by the consumer, i.e. you the Buckscoop member.


How does the cashback work?

The first thing to understand is Cashback is not a guarantee .. but should be viewed as a bonus with your transaction

Cashback is the term for the money that you may be eligible to receive for making purchases with merchants listed on Buckscoop.
The process is all pretty simple but there are a few things to consider before you start to shop.

We strongly recommend all new users have a read here when you sign up and before you start shopping.
We want to be able to pay you your cashback but you need to ensure your computer and purchasing practice is set up correctly.

The easiest way to explain the cashback is to start with an example.
Let us take Deals Direct
When you make a purchase with this merchant you are eligible to receive a minimum of 4.5% cashback.
So…
You make a purchase of $100 at Deals Direct
The value of $100 is EXCLUDING GST and EXCLUDING ALL delivery/handling fees
Your calculated cashback = a minimum of $4.50


In point form here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. You must be a member of Buckscoop and logged in at the time of purchase to receive cashback

2. All transactions should appear in your earnings section. This can take 2-4 weeks depending on the merchant and type of transaction

3. All transactions must be completed in one sitting i.e. Please do not click away from the merchants site once you have clicked through from Buckscoop. Visiting any other site during the transaction process may interfere with the tracking of your cashback.


4. We strongly recommend that you clear your cookie cache before clicking through a Buckscoop link. This will greatly reduce the risk of untracked transactions

5. If your transaction has not appeared in your earnings within 2 weeks, we ask that you generate a ticket enquiry. The enquiries are processed and forwarded to the merchant concerned. Unfortunately, for various reasons, not all ticket enquiries will be honoured by merchants. DO NOT CONTACT THE MERCHANT DIRECTLY REGARDING YOUR BUCKSCOOP CASHBACK. THEY ARE UNABLE TO ASSISST YOU IN YOUR TRANSACTION ENQUIRIES DIRECTLY

6. Please make sure that the value of the transaction you provide in your transaction enquiry is minus GST, delivery fees and any gift or store credit vouchers used. Some merchants will not honour cashback if a gift voucher or store credit has been used to pay for your transaction. ALL merchants will not pay cashback on the portion of the sale paid for by gift vouchers or store credit.

7. Cashback is not available when you purchase a gift certificate. Cashback is very often not available when you use a discount code with your purchase

8. Please be aware that many merchants will not honour cashback when a purchase has been made using a discount code. Some codes result in the cashback being attributed to another site/merchant. We are unable to pay you Buckscoop cashback in these cases. When we know of such cases, we do let you know. However, please be aware that merchants policies do change without warning.

9. Please be aware that payment of the cashback takes 2-3 months. Your payment occurs as soon as funds have been received from the merchant.

10. Payment of your cashback can be via either Paypal or direct transfer into your bank account.We provide more information in our Payments help section. Please ensure that you set up your Paypal account or provide your bank details when you join Buckscoop. This can be added under your settings

11. Before you make a purchase it is always a good idea to clear your cookie cache. This removes the chance of another cookie interfering with your transaction tracking.

12. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ALL TICKET ENQUIRIES MUST BE SENT TO THE MERCHANT CONCERNED WITHIN THREE MONTHS OF THE TRANSACTION DATE. THIS MEANS THAT YOU MUST RAISE AN EARNINGS ENQUIRY TICKET AND PROVIDE ALL THE NECESSARY INFORMATION TO ENABLE US TO SEND THE ENQUIRY OFF TO THE MERCHANT FOR INVESTIGATION WITHIN 3 MONTHS OF YOUR TRANSACTION DATE. Merchants will not investigate transactions that are over 3 months (12 weeks) old.
Click here to lodge a transaction enquiry

13. Please be aware that merchants will also NOT investigate any missing transactions that have a cashback value of less than $1 AUD


Cashback Tab:

Here you will find ALL your cashback merchants listed on Buckscoop.
Click on the tab to search the merchants using the menu on the left hand side:

or using these tabs:

[nod]

Voting for deals

Once you are registered on BuckScoop, you have the ability to vote on deals, to offer your opinion. This is simply done by clicking either cold, warm or hot on a particular deal. At first, you should see something like this:



Once you click one of the buttons, the whole scale will "grey" out and you should see a change in the temperature, like this:



If you do not notice that they gauge has greyed out but there has been no change in the temperature, do not worry, this is not an error. Newcomers to the forum do not have a very high vote "power", but this increases over time using factors such as post count and time registered.
However, the biggest factor for vote power is the average temperature of the deals you have submitted yourself. So if you want to have a larger impact voting for deals, your best bet is to start posting your own hot deals, and the hotter they are voted, the more impact you will have when voting.

You are free to vote cold or hot, whichever you choose. Buckscoop is a democracy.
However, if voting cold, it is good forum etiquette to put a brief reason in the thread as to why. For example, if you feel that it is not a good deal, and you have found the same model elsewhere at a cheaper price. Please do not just vote cold. Adding a brief comment explaining your vote, and if possible, a link to the better deal, helps us all. There are several other valid reasons for cold voting, but a brief explanation is a courtesy to the original poster, who may have no idea why their offering has been voted cold, and is left feeling confused and bewildered.

The Deals Tab:


We have put together a new and improved filtering system for your deals.
When you click on this tab you will see all the latest deals that have been posted to the forum. The deals appear in chronological order.
You can then you the filter the deals if you have something more specific in mind

Using the search toolbar:

[nod]

Vouchers Tab:

Click on this tab and up will pop the complete list of discount codes and vouchers we have available on the site.
You can use the same filter system detailed above under the ‘Deals Tab’ to filter your vouchers and narrow down your search.

If you find that any of the vouchers are not working for you please post a comment so that we can expire the offer and keep our voucher listing up to date.


Contests and Freebies Tab:

When you click on either of these tabs you will find a full list of all the contests and freebies available on the site.
The filter system detailed under the 'Deal tab' also applies to these pages and can allow you to narrow down your search


Buttons on posts:



There are a few other buttons on deal posts which may need a brief explanation.

* Share*
- Using the Share button allows you to post your fav deals direct to your Facebook, Twitter or Digg page. You can also chose to send your deal over to Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon or Technorati.

Spread the word when you find a good deal
If you wish to spread the word a bit wider then if you doubled click the 'share' button, a new window will load that lists about 20 social media sites. Simply click on the site icon you wish to use

* Email deal *
- This simply emails the deal to the recipient of your choice. This is a one-off email and we will never contact this address again, it is not stored in any way.

* Mark expired*
- It really helps if you can utilise these buttons in the course of your general forum usage. If a deal is no longer active, please click this button. When you click the button it counts as a vote and when enough members vote EXPIRED then the deal is marked as expired. EXPIRED will then automatically show in its title and it will drop out of the active deals list. Also, if it is a voucher it will no longer appear in the vouchers list. As your forum reputation grows, your power in the use of these buttons also grows.

* Mark spam*
- Similar to the expired button, if enough members click this, the post will disappear. It is to be used for obvious spam posts, merchants self-promoting, duplicate deals. If you think that something needs spammed, it helps to put a brief comment in the replies to say why. For example, if something is definite spam, you might say, "Spam post, clicking the spam button, please click it if you read this"... that way the regular members will click it, and the post will disappear.

* Edit deal *
- You can edit any part of your own deals, by using this button. Also, you can click "edit deal" on other member's posts to add useful information, but you cannot edit their original text. This is a useful function if some extra information has come to light in follow up replies. However, please be sure to use this button with respect to the original poster.


The Forum Tab:

The forum is where we bring everything together.
Once you click on the forum tab, you will see a variety of boards: Hot deals, Find me a bargain, Freebies, Contests, Off on a tangent, Comments and Site tips, and For sale/trade. Feel free to browse each area and see what happens in each. They are all open forums, meaning you can post in any of these.

By far the busiest of these forums is the Hot Deals forum. Here is where you will find a complete list of all the deals and vouchers posted on the site.

You will see upper right in the grey tool bar of every forum the SEARCH THIS FORUM
This a very useful tool if you are looking for something in particular within that forum.
You can also use the Advanced Search function. This allows you to narrow your search, as well as search several areas of the forum at once



Buttons in forum posts

There are a few other buttons in the forum posts that may need an explanation.

The most important is the report button, to the left. If you click this, there is the option to write a brief message to admin and the moderators. This will automatically send an email, which marks this post for their attention.

Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.


Adding images to forum posts

You can add an image to any of your forum posts. For example, if you are posting about a particular make or model of something, you can add an image too.

Firstly, find the online image that you would like to show in your post. If you hover your mouse pointer over the image, right click it and you'll see either "Properties" in Internet Explorer or "Copy Image Location" in FireFox. If "Properties" in Internet Explorer, you'll need to highlight the image Address or URL completely and copy it by right clicking over it once it has all been highlighted. FireFox is easier, as you only need to click on "Copy Image Location". The image URLs usually end in .jpg or .gif.

Then in the forum post, click the "add image" button, which looks like this: . Paste the URL and click ok. The image should now be in your post.




Customising your account

You can do a few things to customise your account and add a bit of colour to your Buckscoop alter ego. Account customisation can be done from your UserCp.

For example, you can add an avatar, that's the little image underneath your username to the left hand side. Avatars help identify who is posting, and you can easily recognise forum buddies from their avatars. Avatars must be smaller than 80 by 80 pixels or 19.5 KB.
If you are having any trouble with this, check out Brad's avatar guide here.

You can also add a signature to your profile. This can really be anything you like. The only thing we ask is please do not include ANY business or referral links.

You can also have a read of your Private messages via your UserCp.


Buckscoop Updates

Some of you may notice that Buckscoop looks a like different of late. We are busy improving the site to ensure our members get the most out of their Buckscoop.

If you have any questions, here is our ‘Questions on the new Buckscoop' thread. Post any comments or queries you have in there.
We are planning another round of updates in the near future so if you have any suggestions let us know about them.
And of course .. if you find anything odd or buggy then please pop in a post so that we can get it fixed for you ASAP

[lyrebird]

an excellent informative post...... as a newbie this is something all newbies should read, answered all the loose questions in my head.....
thank you for taking the time to post this

Tracey

[Donkey]

welcome to buckscoop lyrebird.

Lyrebirds are pretty amazing.

A Lyrebird's tale
During the early 1930s, a male lyrebird, called "James", formed a close bond of friendship with a human being, Mrs. Wilkinson, after she had been offering food to him over a period of time. James would perform his courtship dance for her on one of his mounds which he had constructed in her backyard — and he would also put on his display for a wider audience, but only when Mrs. Wilkinson was one of those present. On one such occasion, James' performance lasted for forty-three minutes, and included steps to a courtship dance accompanied by his own tune — and also included imitating perfectly the calls of an Australian Magpie, and a young magpie being fed by a parent-bird, a Eastern Whipbird, a Bellbird, a complete laughing-song of a Kookaburra, two Kookaburras laughing in unison, a Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo, a Gang-gang Cockatoo, an Eastern Rosella, a Pied Butcherbird, a Wattle-bird, a Grey Shrike-thrush, a Thornbill, a White-browed Scrubwren, a Striated Pardalote, a Starling, a Yellow Robin, a Golden Whistler, a flock of parrots whistling in flight, the Crimson Rosella, several other birds whose notes his audience were not able to identify, and the song of honey-eaters (tiny birds with tiny voices), that gather in numbers and "cheep" and twitter in a multitudinous sweet whispering. In order to mimic the honeyeaters' singing faithfully, James was obliged to subdue his powerful voice to the faintest pianissimo, but he contrived, nevertheless, to make each individual note of the soft chorus audibly distinct. Also included in James' performance was his perfect mimicry of the sounds made by a rock-crusher at work, a hydraulic ram, and the tooting of motor-horns. [9]

[nod]

Welcome Lyrebird

I am glad that you have found this to be useful.
If you do have any other hanging or nagging questions, please be sure to post them up. If you have a question, there is a good chance someone else does

We want this to be a work in progress ...... so we are happy to edit when needed

[lilpretzel]

Who can use BuckScoop?

Anyone can use BuckScoop. It is free to join and MOST importantly free to use. There are no annual fees or charges.

nod can you please add info about being Aussie resident and 18+.. Maybe can't share account.

Who can be a Buckscoop member?

Only Australian residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to open Buckscoop accounts.

We allow only one account per person, and multiple people may not use the same account.

We reserve the right to suspend user accounts without notice if we have reason to suspect that any of the above requirements are not being met, or if we find that a member is being in any way abusive to either our staff or our merchants.
We require our users to act according to the guidelines laid out in Buckscoop Etiquette and in a way that is conscientious of Buckscoop collective well-being.

We're sorry to have to make a few rules, but as Buckscoop is a cooperative, where all members participate in making themselves cash, its necessary to provide a few guidelines.

[nod]

Great idea Lilpretzel
All added

[nod]

Just thought I would bump (or highlight) this post again. I know it is in my siggy all over the forum but I can not stress enough to all Buckscoopers that it is important you understand the process of cashback so that we can minimise any problems

And as always if anyone has any question please please please do not hesitate to ask. All questions/answers are useful. You can start a thread, pop a post in here or open a ticket (yep you can use the question option)

[marcy85]

What a great thread. Very helpful. Thanks!