To not accept this customer service solution?

[Thejoyfulstar]

Last Christmas, for one of my gifts, my husband gave me a voucher for a store in the country I live in, worth around £40. The voucher itself was printed on a receipt.

There is a branch of this shop at a mall near me, so I tried to redeem it soon after. Put my things in the basket but was told I could only redeem it in the city centre store, where it was bought so had to put my stuff back and leave empty handed.

I was pregnant at the time, getting huge and pretty immobile. I also have two other small kids. Getting into the city centre just wasn't on the cards at the time.

Then I had my baby by c section, recovered from that, was just generally exhausted and didn't get into the store for ages.

A few days ago, I was in the city centre with my husband and kids and brought the voucher. It had just been folded in my purse since I got it. I checked and it was still valid until December 2022.

I checked that I could use it in the store, filled my basket and went up to pay using the voucher. No, turns out it won't work as the barcode has faded over time. They could see the numbers on the barcode but couldn't put them onto the system for some reason.

Cue lots of sales assistants huddled around the computer, calling the boss, ringing back, basically nobody knowing what to do. I was standing in the hot shop for around 15/20 minutes. My husband and other kids were waiting around the corner in the heat and eventually I asked for the voucher back.

I went home and contacted customer services, who told me the voucher is indeed still valid and to go back to the store on a certain date. If the staff have any problems they are to ring the IT department.

I said no. Why should it be so hard to spend a gift voucher? Why aren't they printed on something more durable than a receipt if they are valid for a year? Why couldn't I have used it at another branch? Why do I have to keep having to be inconvenienced?

I've asked for either a refund or to be able to spend it online. Am I being unreasonable in being sick of trying to redeem this voucher?

If you think I'm not being unreasonable, what should I do?

Write to the CEO now
dreadful how u were treated!

Glad you finally got it sorted. So annoying when you keep hitting a brick wall. I'm having a similar problem with getting a refund or postponement for an event I booked for next Monday but the place is closed due to funeral now. I don't mind place being closed, just don't want to loose my money because no one knows how to sort it out.

You can only ask for an alternative and if nothing else is physically possible for them to agree, then you can only go with what's available. No matter how many times you tell them you want it an alternative way, if they literally cannot perform this task, then it's pointless carrying on. They can only offer what they have available and what their system allows them to do. They won't be able to make up a new rule on the spot. Your ideas might make sense and be better, but doesn't mean they can just suddenly do something they've never supplied before.

Escalate and put on social media

Sounds like a weird shop. They should be able to type in the number.

I absolutely think it should be printed on something more durable and that head office should sort this for you or give you a refund, but I must say I work somewhere that frequently offer vouchers and deals that you need a code to scan and the feeling when a voucher isn't working is awful. No staff member is benefitting when a voucher won't scan, we frequently aren't even told about codes until a customer presents one let alone taught how to use them! As floor members we don't have the power to override tills, often our managers don't even have the power to make a code work even if it's an IT issue and head office are notoriously slow to sort anything out for us - they're perfectly happy to make us put up with abuse from customers who insist we are thick/doing it wrong/stealing from them (not saying you did this OP but far too many customers do, some wonderful customers even resort to physical threats). The people who can fix it are the ones higher up, not the staff members who probably weren't so much reluctant to fix it but unable to do so and felt a bit helpless.

A lot of local newspapers will publish consumer problem stories like this. Basically you are getting the run-around. Call the store and tell them you will contact the newspaper with this story if they don't fix it.

Why did your husband buy you a gift voucher, instead of an iou, I’ll take you to this shop. Money doesn’t expire and can be used anywhere. Not like a relative living abroad. It was from your husband, shouldn’t he sort it?!

That happened to me once but they found sale of voucher on cash register by the date and card detail

Many years ago my sister had a washing machine that went wrong. Instead of a wool wash, it boil washed her son's woolen jumper which when it came out of the machine had shrunk so much it would have fitted a baby!. She found out the manufactures head office and posted the jumper to the CEO with an accompanying letter saying please accept with my compliments my teenage son's jumper which I washed in your washing machine , (model number etc). She received a letter back saying if she paid the delivery charge she could have a brand new machine. So don't bother with the monkey go straight to the organ grinder!

@Trunchbull1969 awesome !! Thanks for the tip

What happened to the customer is always right? The store has OPs money already and is making it difficult to supply goods. Not the customers fault to assume that branches are capable of talking to each other. A customer shouldn’t be having this much difficulty it’s terrible customer service from the business.

If you just want to spend it, my suggestion would be:

Take a picture of it on your phone and adjust the contrast so it is nice and dark with good contrast. Then get them to scan your phone screen when you hand them the receipt.

This is like all 4 one vouchers they are bloody horrendous, if you don't use it for so long they literally start taking all the money from the card until it's gone as a 'fee' I have argued this is seriously flawed as they are gifts and the person receiving it typically wont be told, nor is it told to you on buying from shops and post offices, which in itself is incorrect advertising and failure to notify a contractual obligation. They always get super shitty about it with anyone however if you buy someone a £50 card that says it is valid until Jan 2024 then surely it should be until then?? Not the person using the card for some Primark shoes and then remembering it a few months later only to find instead of 30 pounds it now has 10! Inflation can't even be an excuse as items literally get more expensive to buy and there is a bloody cap on validity of the cards!

What A joke. I'd jot be accepting another voucher: I'd never soend money in that shop again. Full refund plus compensation for the wasted time, at whatever you usual hourly pay rate is.

You shouldn't accept this thougj as then they are still making money from you so don't have any penalty for having treated you this way. Ask for your cash back, and soend it somewhere else. And they should also comoensate you for the inconvenience.

As someone who works with hospitality and has worked in retail, the customer is often very, very wrong. I'm not saying that the OPs scenario is right and that the company should be sorting this out for her - but the phrase 'the customer is always right' is ridiculous. Customers have abused me and my colleagues for things which we have no control over - is that right? Customers have demanded things that are against store policy, just completely impossible and in some cases actually illegal, are they right? I had a family screaming and swearing at me because I could not remove the VAT from their bill just last night.