Virtualrewardcenter Reviews 

45 DAYS AND STILL WAITING FOR PAYMENT FROM
FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPATION IN MANHATTAN,

FOCUS GROUP DATE: JUNE 03 2024
after sending many emails complaining we did not
receive any payment, this computerized website sent me a piece of plastic that is declined everywhere we tried to buy food for our religious family,

I press one star, but the real qualification is
minus five stars,

They are not responding to my complains,
they have already 45 days repeating the same thing
that they sent my complaint to another team,

any time we contact them it sounds we are talking to
a computer and not to humans,

they play too much games, when i email them we only get a robotized email saying:
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "support at virtual reward center dot com" support at virtual reward center dot com
To: me
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 06:18:19 PM EDT
Subject: [The Virtual Reward Center] Re: **sago TEST/$200 _ Cc to reward _ ANY NEWS ABOUT THE PAYMENT _ $200 Technology Study Reconfirmation ***Please Reconfirm***

##- Please type your reply above this line -##
Focus Group by Schlesinger
Jul 18, 2024, 6:18 PM EDT
##- Please type your reply above this line -##
You are registered as a CC on this support request (1068329). Reply to this email to add a comment to the request.

After 43 days spending money on internet access plus extra time to prepare emails for them they
finally mailed me July 16, 2024 /Tuesday a piece of plastic with the VISA logo,
then to activate it on their website we had to provide
sensitive/personal private information,

Yesterday July 17, 2024 wednesday we tried to buy food in local supermarkets in new york and we had an embarrassing incident after another one when
all of the DECLINED the piece of plastic for not having any funds to pay for the groceries,

They has to pay us a small amount of $200 an
we already spent more than $200 US Dollars trying
to obtain the payment from them,

We are a religious family and we never had a extreme
situation like this one, its a contradiction to see how this people spend huge amounts of money by renting
very expensive commercial real estate in Midtown Manhattan, at least $200 per square feet, and they do not have $200 to pay participants of their focus groups, please see below emails from this people:

On Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 09:47:39 AM EDT, support at virtual reward center dot com wrote:
##- Please type your reply above this line -##
Analiz (The Virtual Reward Center)
Jul 18, 2024, 9:47 AM EDT
Hello,
Unfortunately, we cannot locate your reward information from Focus Group. This may be because your reward is still processing in Sago's system. 
 
Please note, if the reward does not say paid, that means the reward has not reached our system and is still being processed by Sago.
 
If you have any additional questions and/or it has been over 20 business days, please contact your SAGO at: (855) 244-0886 or Help at focus group dot com
We apologize for any inconvenience.
 
Thank You,

The Virtual Reward Center
Customer Support Team
Focus Group by Schlesinger
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During the last 45 days we have been receiving this same repetitive message from them, we do not know who is SAGO, we did our job participating n their
3 hours focus group, and know we are suffering
complete frustration, they do not even answere anymore to our request for $200 payment,

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If I had known I'd be paid for my Sago study through Virtual Reward Center, I would've chosen a hard card 1,000%. I was notified today to redeem my digital card to which I did and when directed to Virtual Reward Center to login and "choose my card", I found no card, nothing...well actually something: language choice, change password and log out. NO WHERE is there anything about my profile or digital card. I love Sago for the study opportunities but I can't believe they are using these guys for compensation. SMH. Sad...hopefully, they do the right thing and get me paid. Even if they do, I would still only rate this 1 star or less, because I've already lost an hours time trying to get funds earned online.

These suck. Any merchant who uses your Zip code to help authenticate your purchase will decline. Call number on card and get recorded mumbo jumbo to get to representative. When you finally get to a representative they speak every language except English.
Beware Visa Virtual Reward Card.

Refused to swap my voucher even though it was in date and unused. Accidentally selected the wrong voucher and they are refusing to exchange it to the one I want and can’t provide a reason why

This "business" is a scam. I can't say that I know how they benefit except that the rewards are usually small and therefore easier for someone to give up on and decide it's not worth the headache for what's left of a $10 reward and I would think that they keep the remaining balances which would add up quick.
They offer customer support but they don't actually provide any. If you are able to get an answer it will not be the one for your particular problem. The CVV number on each of the 3 "cards" I have with them, has disappeared. When asked about this, I was told I can check the CVV number by logging into the site and selecting my card and pressing the flip button to see the back of the card. They are, to put it nicely, useless. Not to mention they blatantly lie as to how you can reach "customer support" as they do not provide a chat or a phone number. Only email. And it can take days to receive a response. This is the most unprofessional service I have experienced from anyone offering virtual payments. It's a joke and the little arbitration clause they include, it's not binding, it's just meant to make you think that you may as well not fight them for release of your funds. They are no better than block chains and cryptos. Imaginary smoke and mirrors. They make me question the reputation of the company that paid me through them as well. This service has made me decide not to do further business with FocusGroup/Sāgo/Schlesinger. It's all jumping through hoops for something you already earned. Infuriating, playground antics.

When trying to use their virtual visa gift card to buy either an e-gift card or a physical gift card from places like Whole Foods or Sprouts the purchase fails. I tried to buy a Publix e-gift card and it failed also. These cards have a 6 month expiration, can not be used in a physical brick and mortar store (with the exception of a very few) and fail when trying to buy many things online. I get these cards from doing surveys but I think it's time to stop doing surveys as these are kind of useless to me.

I completed a survey for work and received this reward email approximately one month after completing the survey. The email did look fishy, but the code worked easily!

Similar to prior reviewers, I have had an incredibly poor experience with this company. They have restricted my access to over $250 which was given to me as a form of compensation. My card did not work at most of the places at which I tried to use it, and they now are declining to reissue me a new card. They have placed an unauthorized "unload funds" charge on my account and assumed possession of over $250 given to me as compensation, to which they are now refusing to allow me access. I am reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and I encourage you to do the same if appropriate.

Extremely problematic. I will not do anything that use them as a payment service. I think it is designed this way so people will give up & they can keep the $$. Run & stay away from them!! I would give them minus 5 stars if I could have.

They are absolutely terrible! DO not ever use your company to sign up with them to send out rewards. They give a limited amount of time to redeem and if you cant (because it ended up in SPM, etc.), they just gobble up the entire reward amount. Have had terrible luck with them and hate them.

I have had a ridiculous number of issues trying to use this card. It is VERY limited as far as where you can use it and I have had consistent issues being able to pay for things at a variety of stores. I made the mistake of using it at a gas station in Nov. 2023. I am still waiting for them in Apr 2024 to release my held funds ($225 held for less than $100 total purchases). They hold for 90 BUSINESS days, and though this has already passed I still haven't got my funds. Multiple calls to their customer center have "assured" me my issue has been escalated to a supervisor, but it's been over 2 weeks and still nothing. I will avoid this company like the plague.

put gas from Costco for $26.It put 1

$100 on hold/ pending. Its almost 5 months and money is never released. Still shows pending. Customer service first said 90 days hold. Now it says 90 working days. This card seems like a scam. They want you to throw your card thinking that there is no balance.

Funds Stolen, and Absolutely No Support from Virtual Reward Center.
Short Story: I participated in a study group that took place over several weeks. For compensation, I was directed to request a Physical VISA Card. I registered and waited several weeks for the card to arrive.
Each time I tried to check on the status of the card, I was told to be patient and wait.
Then I was told that the card had arrived quite a few days ago and that it had been activated and used. Impossible since I never even received.

It has now taken me three weeks to find out that the balance of the card was now near $0

I was able to finally get a ledger of transactions. All food and gas charges.

My most pressing question was " how did someone NOT me be able to activate the card and use " aqnd they told me that the only process needed to activate this card was a phone call giving them the card number and selecting a PIN. ABSOLUTELY NO SECURITY INFORMATION IS NEEDED.
NO PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION IS REQUIRED TO MAKE THE CARD COMPLETELY ACCESSIBLE.

Basically, if you find the envelope with the card in iot. Its yours.
It would be no more secure than leaving a stack of $20 dollar bills taped to my front door.

All of my work and time I gave to SAGO was for absolutely nothing. And I have no course of action.

I have used similar merchants that have security ion place. . i.e. you must give them some verifiable information like email address, or DOB or something that would prevent any rando from just finding and using.
ALso, another method. You must use the link that is received in email to make the card work. If someone foind the card and tried to use it... without access to my email, they cannot..
Another method... when I request the card, I pick a 4 digit PIN. That same PIN has to be used to activate the card once received.

I will never use this company again.
I will never use the FocusGroup company that has them as a client.
I will continue to warn other people that I know that this company is not one to be trusted.

My rewards came from my work achievements, and after many emails, can still not received what I have earned! That is called stealing, even when I have emails stating otherwise. Avoid this company, and if the rewards are through the company you work for, advise them of the situation.

Cards expire after a ludicrously short time and they will not do anything to honor them. Somehow they are not beholden to laws that cover any other gift card in the country.

Absolute total disgrace of a company. They have $300 I earned from a study and they claim the link to claim my Visa card cannot be reactivated, as the link to redeem the $300 has expired after 30 days. I contacted them within a reasonable amount of time to reactivate it. Thirty days is the shortest amount of time I've ever seen to have an activate link to redeem your own money you earned. They're making a profit off me. I asked them to reactive the link but they claim they can't. Yet, one of my friends was able to have their link reactived. Absolutely shady, disgusting, horrible, unethical and unmoral company. How would you like it if $300 from your paycheck was missing?

I was given a 'reward' after taking a survey and chose an Amazon voucher but once I'd selected that the next page said "Your Amazon.co.uk eGift Card claim code: N/A. - Click the "Go Shopping!" link below to visit Amazon.co.uk." But, of course, without the claim code I couldn't claim my reward. I guess they hope that as it's not a lot of money we'll not bother chasing it and they can just pocket the money.

This is the most horrible company in the whole wide world when you log in there isn't even a place for each account whoever runs their website needs to be fired you can never find out the balance

This is the biggest scam ever. They make it nearly impossible to use the card, then they expire the card quickly contrary to many state laws. When you complain, they claim they aren't responsible for expiring the funds. Lastly, they go to great lengths to hide their company contact info. It's amazing we allow these scams to continue. Someone please post the company info if you have it.

Update- This company is called Virtual Incentives, they do business as Virtual Reward Center and go to great lengths to hide the actual business entity. Address is:
1401 Route 52 Ste 101
Fishkill, NY 12524-3255
(646) 736-1910
They are no stranger to business complaints and have their process pretty well mastered. You should file complaints with your state AG as it appears they are in violation of a lot of state laws the way they do business.

1/18/24 Update- I must be over the target. The company is pressuring TrustPilot to delete my review. Too bad this company spends so much time being dirt bags instead of simply being customer oriented.

2/6/24 Update- The company continues to try to get TrustPilot to dox me. I must be over the target. I'm also now questioning how valuable TrusPilot reviews are. How many others have been badgered to the point of removing an honest review??