Quidco and TopCashBack are fine - both pretty similar. I use TCB because there is no annual fee, rates are very slightly higher and if you take payment as Amazon vouchers then you get an extra 5%.
With both of them, it is the merchants that are variable.
The first thing is to make sure there is no issue on your side that could stop it tracking. Some say use a sepearte browser, some say clear out your cookies, some say do the tracking test first - all valid suggestions, though I don't usually bother with any, though I might for a big transaction.
Tracking should be pretty quick - from instant to a day or so. There is no reason why it should be longer.
Most of my cashback problems are not to do with tracking though. They are either
(i) Tracks but never goes any further
(ii) Gets confirmed but at a lower amount (that can't be explained by just excluding the VAT)
(iii) Gets confirmed but at ZERO
Most of my fails have been type (iii). It can get quite frustrating because the merchant is effectively saying, it tracked, we confirmed it but we aren't paying and we are not going to tell you why.
When they track but fail, neither Quidco nor TCB are particularly helpful at resolving the problem.
I like to think of cashback as a bonus, accepting that it might not turn up.
Cheers,
Nigel
