Allstate Insurance review: using points that have been earned for auction. 22

I agree totally with all you have said it's useless and the rewards is a joke . I sat once or twice watch the bidding ... nothing soon as I placed a bid it went nuts ? I think its a scam . I complained to them and got No response

I agree you can look at the auctions they lay dormant, the minute you make a bid the things goes nuts with you have been outbid. I am willing to bet Allstate has an auto bidder on their system designed to always outbid so they do not have to pay out prize winnings. I have tested this over and over with even the auctions no one would really want, nothing then BAAM suddenly everyone wants it ? I think not LOL

I totally agree, it looks like a scam. who wants to sit in front of the screen and pressing PLACE BID all day. It's just wasting my time, I rather buy it from the store. It's a stupid ideas by pressing PLACE BID one at a time. REALLY, REALLY STUPID.

I personally don't believe that there are THAT many people, that are allstate users, sitting on their site, bidding all day long. Not even ebay gets this much attention. I am with the rest, this is nothing more than a scam, ... operating to make it appear as if there is actually excitement using their system.

My question is, do any people really even use their offers for points? Quite frankly, I can clip the same coupons from a book or get them on line with out having to have "points" from Allstate. No value.

I agree. Who actually sits at the computer all day to place bids? Maybe someone house bound, but not your typical Allstate customer. I have only won 3 auctions in the 2 years I have been on the site, and 2 of them were for Restaurant.com, which doesn't count because if you don't frequent the restaurants on their site, these cards are useless. I have also noticed that in the summertime the bidding goes sky high for stuff that just isn't worth the large number of points being bid. What's that about? Everyone on vacation? (Refer to comment in first sentence above.) The bids are way, way too high to be real, so I agree with the others that have said it's a scam. I would rather they allow us to use our points to save $$ on our premiums. Commerce Visa allows you to amass points and deduct from your CC bill. Why not Allstate? I have asked but have never gotten a reply. Oh, and they just changed their webpage so when you step away from the computer, it reverts back to your Allstate main page, not the Rewards page, so you have to log out and log back in again. I've also asked them about that ... and of course, no answer.

I also agree. I get so frustrated trying to win something, but I keep trying. Now, I see it just won't happen! Allstate needs to find a solution to this
problem. Someone is winning the items, aren't they?!?!?!?

I checked out the auctions about a year ago and 100, 000 points was worth comfortably about $500 in merchandise (assuming you win an auction), after checking closed auction results. Now 100, 000 points is worth at best $100! I noticed the minimum bid was increased to 20 from 10 on most auctions (instantly doubled the point price). As well, I noticed that the price will be driven up with 10-15 minutes left in an auction with a maddening rate of bids! No one is that dumb to drive up the price with a no minimum. You just wait until the final 10 second and you all hit it at once.. I think Allstate either has a bot bidding or they pay some people minimum wage to sit on auctions and counter bid every time someone bids. I think this is why they don't show who is bidding in an auction, just that a bid was made, since would see the same few idiots doing this over and over only to find they are Allstate paid staff. Also, same reason they don't let us set a maximum bid and let the auction self run, since the Allstate staff would win every auction when they bid over the max of the real bidders! I think Allstate didn't like that people were getting a real benefit that impacted Allstate's bottom line. The bigger issue for me is that out of the four categories they track me I'm an A level on three of them, but total miles I am 15, 000 a year. That is a 4% discount only! They weight miles 90% of the discount, the other categories are a joke. Give up my privacy (and they probably sell that data as well!) and points are almost worthless now. I'm shopping around now for other insurance.

This gimmick is advertised as a benefit, but it is more of detriment to the Allstate business. I am going to tell my agent about the misleading advertising and ask that they report this back to their corporate office. If not, they will be loosing me as a customer.

I have been an Allstate member for over a year and have not been able to out bid anyone yet, these rewards are a scam and I believe we are all being scammed, just wait the truth will come out in a few years and they will get fined by the government and pay millions and we get nothing.

I have tried to win and bid on several things...I cannot click to do anything fast enough to win. Called Allstate and she said it just the way the computer chooses people to win gift cards. I'm out! Done!

Yep. No amount of clicking will win you any of their stuff. I have now bid on roughly 15 items on the site, having socked away 225, 000 points. Doesn't matter. Can't win anything. Even when I am positive I was the last to click something, it still went to someone else.

This is so obviously a scam and so obviously not sent by AllState. I hope none of you provided your personal information.

What's with the high bidding the last couple weeks? Seriously, 150, 000 points for a $5.00 gift card!? I agree this is a scam. When I first signed up over 2 years ago, I won 3 sweepstakes within 6 months; $10 Whole Foods card, $20 gas card, and junk necklace worth about $20. Since then, nothing. Can never win auctions. About a year ago, they reduced the number of auctions and increased bid increments. Then came higher winning bids on each item. Now the bids are thru the roof! There should be an investigation. Very suspicious activity! If Allstate can't run a legitimate rewards program, I'm skeptical about them if you have an insurance claim. Not to mention the drivewise program which is probably collecting info. To base your premiums on. Buyer BEWARE! Protect your personal information. I see a class action coming very soon.

So I was thinking about a year ago I should save my rewards that way I can bid really high...I go into the auction and there are bids at 400, 000 to 300, 000. yes I am convinced this is a scam and no one is actually winning. the bids are too high and realistically no one is going to bid 150, 000 for a $5 auto zone gift card...

Since when does a bid on a $100 value item require a half of a million points? How does anyone accumulate so many points?

I used all my points for a $10 AMC gift card but when I went to claim it I was told the product had sold out? WTF? I'M calling tomorrow. This is a [censored]ing scam! [protected].

I did manage to get my gift card after calling customer service. They claimed it was an issue with my phone and tablet not being able to download the card... 2 years of points for a $10 gift card. What a waste of time. I think it's still a scam to get you to buy stuff.

Very frustrated with the structure of the rewards program and particularly the use of points for auction items.
A few years ago, bidding for auction items was live, meaning you had to be on-line to submit a bid. Because my internet connection was not fast enough I was never able to successfully bid. Not sure if that was my problem or Allstate's. Nevertheless, $10 gift cards regularly sold for 1, 000 to 2, 000 points. Trust me...I tracked it.
Then Allstate decided to go to automatic bidding (ala Ebay) where the bidder submits their highest bid and the auction site automatically submits a new bid if someone bids higher. Almost overnight, $10 gift cards started going for 400, 000 or 500, 000 points or more. I currently have a balance of 381, 000 points. Under the old bidding arrangment, these poinys would have an equivalent value of about $900. Under the new setup my 381, 000 points are worth $10 or $20 perhaps.
No here is the kicker. Upon reviewing closed auctions I was repeatedly seeing items that did not show up the day or two before when I looked at active items. I called Allstate and they admitted that there are different levels depending on your point totla. People with large point totals are in one group and are presented with set of goods they can bid on and people with lower point totals have a different set of goods they can bid on. When I looked at active items on a recent date, there were ten items for available for me to bid on for which bidding was ending the next day. After bidding closed for those ten items I reviewed the listing for all items that had closed on that date and there were thirty two. In other owrds, there were twenty two items offered for those having a lower point balance that were not offered to me. In otehr words, they did not appear to me as items up for bid. I also noticed that the winning bids were much lower for those items I was unable to bid on. For example, $!0 gift cards might go for 20, 000 or 30, 000 points as compared to twenty times that for cards sold to the group having higher point btotals.
To make matters worse,
msot of the irtems that I am eligible to bid on go for point totals that are higher than my balance. So, I am locked out of bidding for many items that are not showing up for me and then I am locked out of most of the items that I can bid on because my point balance is not high enough to submit a successful bid.
I am also frustrated with the Drivewise discount which is tied into this program. Initially, I signed up using the device that plugs into the diagnostic port on my car. Discounts were OK but the they declined over time. to almost nothing. I then switched to the app based program and the discount started out OK and has now declined considerably. I am 68 years old so my driving habits are pretty set. I am convinced that Allstate keeps raising the bar to make sure that the money allotted to Drivewise discounts doesn't get too large.

The live auctions are a total ripoff, I have 52k points so I have bid on at least 30 auctions, always outbid... but then I noticed something, there are never any auctions available for me to bid on that are really low but they show MANY auctions that closed that day or the day before with $10 cards for 5, 10 and 15k points... now I've been watching VERY closely all week, never missed any auctions that closed for that little, then I found out why... when I use ALL my points on an auction (not some, I even bid down to keeping just one point, I couldn't see the "cheaper ones") but when I use ALL the points up, then Viola, there they all are, but wait... I have no points left to use, so now there's 10 more auctions I could bid on but alas, no points available, it's a total scam, they aren't giving any of those cards away at ANY amount of points. What a F'N scam! Class action suit anyone?!?

It's a ridiculous auction...cut it out, and just sell your insurance plans at the best prices !Wasting time, even if you're retired...have better things to do.

Agreed. This is the biggest scam ever. I had been outbidded instantly. Doesn’t matter what amount of points I bid, one second later the system tells me that I was outbidded. Scammers.

Their only silver lining to this program, was you could buy giftcards at a 10% discount. Now it seems they completely did away with that so the program is literally trash now.