to think it is just not safe to buy a shop gift voucher anymore?

[ToeCap]

With all the recent closures, the first thing the shops stop is honouring the gift vouchers.

Poor people losing their jobs though.

WH Smith seem to have a tie up with the Post Office now so I assume its rent bill will be reducing as its sharing some of its floor space with another company. I'd have to say some of the stores look very very tired.

I assume that the problem with vouchers is that you are an unsecured creditor of the company and the administrator is duty bound to treat all creditors of the same class in the same way. So you can't get full value for your voucher if other unsecured creditors will only be getting 10p in the £.

WH Smith+Post Office = Complete nightmare. I try and avoid the shop in town where they have done it. The PO bit is up the escalator.

dh used his voucher just in time. he used them the sunday before last, we were suprised to hear the news this week even tho we knew they had been struggling.

I think WH Smith makes most of its revenue from its station/airport monopoly presence.

All companies need to treat vouchers as Sleepysands describes but there is a good chance you will get an extension with some if you ask for it , eg Amazon. My local beauty salon puts 3 month expiry dates on its vouchers but you can transfer the value to being 'on account' if you don't use it by then: I assume this gives rises to a different accounting treatment but I am not sure why.

Does anyone know if you bought gift vouchers on a credit card if you have any protection? I was returning some mail order clothes for a refund when the company went bust - I wouldn't have got my refund (being an unsecured creditor) but I put in a claim via PayPal and got money back that way.

On another note, I'd advise people not to get travel cheques from the post office as they are just not taken anywhere. I tried in both France and Germany (inc. Paris) and people looked at them like I was trying to barter a dead fish for money!

National Book Tokens are a safe bet - they aren't held by a specific shop, and can be used in most bookshops :)

and, I'll probably get shot by them for this -

with National Book Tokens, the paper vouchers have no expiry date, at all.

the gift cards have a 2year expiry date (but a balance check is counted as movement) from the last time it was used.
but! if you have an expired one, your bookseller can give you a telephone number to ring, and NBT ltd will give you another gift card to the value left when you quote the original number.
they have records to show if it has expired but still had money on it.

nickel - you are wonderful! During my mad clean-up for visitors on Christmas Day I found the Book Token DP's sister gave us for a present two years ago. [I had been unable to find it previously when I searched as I knew it was about to expire!] I will take it to Waterstones and ask for a balance check and see what they say!

i'll do it for you - pm me with the number on the back (there's a long barcode number starting 6337.... - pm me with that and i'll check it for you now.

it has to be a National Book tokens one, though, not waterstone's (i can't do waterstone's ones)
:)