NCPMobile: Shopping Rewards

I do a lot of surveys and things like that to make a little extra money here and there. This hasn’t worked for me. I wasn’t able to gain enough points to get a reward since I was having a lot of trouble since my c-score/reward point did not (and still don’t) accurately reflect what I have scanned/ purchased. I have an iPhone 11. I’m not sure if it’s my phone, but the app looks very low tech. It doesn’t fit the screen. It makes me feel like this might just be a scam to get people’s information. It might of a software issue. I had to contact customer service (yesterday Aug 19) because my purchases/scans weren’t showing up getting counted. My account on my app said one thing, my account on the website said another when it came to my last scan/purchase, but my reward points didn’t change from the first time. After I contacted them, the only ones that showed up were from last week (I’m guessing because I can’t see a history of all my scans/purchases to be able to determine which ones got counted). None of my scans from this week got counted (they say it takes up to 48 hours but it’s already Friday, not sure what happened to my scans from earlier this week). Maybe it works for other people? It’s just a lot of work for it not to work. I recommend you save your time and energy and try other options as this one is very finicky.

I've been scanning for over 15 weeks and, so far, the app has been great. However, I do have a few ideas to improve the user experience. First of all, I really think that the app should allow users to type in the names of the stores they use. The number of categories available does not always reflect the various types of stores available for a shopping trip. Next, when entering products that don't have a barcode (i.e. prepared foods, produce, cheeses, etc.), there is no option to report multiple items per entry. For example, I purchased two cucumbers from the grocery store and I had to enter this purchase twice. Imagine if I had bought seven cucumbers; I would have to do this seven times over. I also would like to see the ability to scan the receipt and to input prices that way, while correlating each item on the receipt with a scan of the UPC tag (or an associated manual entry). In addition, with this Coronavirus pandemic, I think there should be a null option in the drop-down menu on the app (i.e. "No Purchases This Week"). Entering the barcode provided by NCP is very difficult because the app still asks for a price, a quantity, associated coupons, etc. For those who use a hand-held scanner (not a mobile device), this option is already available, so app users should have parity. Addressing these concerns would make the user experience so much better in my opinion, and would make it a lot less tedious to use the app.

I have been using the app now for about 2 weeks. The app itself is easy to use and their are a couple of videos to watch as well that are really helpful. I happened to start using the app about the time that the Corona Virus started to rear its ugly head here. I have to shop for 3 families so stocking up for 3 families meant long receipts. That of course meant it took longer to scan each item once I got home before I delivered the groceries to my family members who were counting on me. I found that it is easier to just go down the receipt so I didn’t lose track where I was. It is tedious to have to scan in each item but I found that with some major stores you only have to scan the items and not enter prices. For a long receipt it took about 15 minutes to do. The support team is GREAT. I had to call with a few questions in the first week and they were very helpful. I like being able to track my progress and I like that I can scan my online purchases as well. I gave it a 4 out of 5 only because of the time it takes to scan things. Eventually I will get better at this. If you have those extra minutes it is fun and worthwhile and I am glad I signed up.