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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Would you query this-empty gift card.

28 replies

Mumsfret1976 · 26/12/2022 19:55

DD has had a £10 voucher from a friend of the family. It doesn't have any money on it, I think it probably hasn't been activated at the till. Would you ask the friend for the money or just let it go?

YABU-let it go
YANBU-ask the ff for the money

OP posts:
gamerchick · 26/12/2022 20:03

I wouldn't ask for the money no but I would tell them it doesn't look like it has been activated at the till and leave it there.

Cococomelon · 26/12/2022 20:07

gamerchick · 26/12/2022 20:03

I wouldn't ask for the money no but I would tell them it doesn't look like it has been activated at the till and leave it there.

This.

Of course I wouldn't ask for the money but I may point out it didn't work and the giver could go to the shop if they wanted.

surreygirl1987 · 26/12/2022 20:09

They'll have paid for it so if you ask then for the money they'll be paying twice. That would be a really rude expectation. Personally I wouldn't mention it as it might embarrass them.

MissAtomicBomb1 · 26/12/2022 20:14

I'd probably not say anything at all and just sun DD with a tenner to be honest but I admit I'm a bit of a wimp!
Def wouldn't ask for actual money though. That's rude.

xmasdinner · 26/12/2022 20:18

I would tell the friend as they may have unknowlingly purchased a scammed gift card

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/beatthescammers/article-10833557/Gift-card-fraud-surging-heres-scam-works.html

Keyansier · 26/12/2022 20:20

X-post with @xmasdinner but was about to say I would definitely mention it because she could have paid £10 for nothing and your daughter would have lost out. If I was the gift giver, I'd want someone to tell me so I could rectify it and so I wasn't out of pocket.

BlooberryBiskits · 26/12/2022 20:20

I maybe give your DC the money (on your friend’s behalf, because children can’t be expected to wait) & when you thank your friend for the gift, mention to the friend it wasn’t activated, so they can correct it in their own time

If this was me doing the giving, I’d want the shop to correct it (as I would have paid for something I didn’t receive, & the shop’s errors has caused inconvenience/embarrassment)

What do you think your friend would want you to do? Is £10 a lot for them, are they generally an organised type who would keep the receipt…

OnTheRunWithMannyMontana · 26/12/2022 20:21

MissAtomicBomb1 · 26/12/2022 20:14

I'd probably not say anything at all and just sun DD with a tenner to be honest but I admit I'm a bit of a wimp!
Def wouldn't ask for actual money though. That's rude.

This would be me too.

PlaitBilledDuckyPuss · 26/12/2022 20:21

I would probably just let it go, to be honest and give DD £10 myself. I wouldn't want to embarrass the friend.

nettytree · 26/12/2022 20:30

Did they give you the gift receipt as well as the card. I work at a supermarket and always staple the receipt to the card.

Mumsfret1976 · 26/12/2022 20:53

Thanks everyone. I'm going to let it go. It's only £10 and I wouldn't want to make them feel bad or risk them having to pay double.

OP posts:
ThatsRoughBuddy · 26/12/2022 21:00

You could try contacting the company the £10 voucher is for. When I've had voucher issues they’ve always been fixed by emailing them.

Keyansier · 26/12/2022 21:05

Mumsfret1976 · 26/12/2022 20:53

Thanks everyone. I'm going to let it go. It's only £10 and I wouldn't want to make them feel bad or risk them having to pay double.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad OP but I don't understand this logic at all and why you wouldn't say anything? It benefits nobody:

Your friend has spent £10 of her own money on nothing.

Your daughter doesn't have £10 even though that's what your friend intended.

Actually, I take it back, it does benefit someone: the multi-billion pound company. They've got a free £10.

I would be so upset if I'd spent money on a present for someone and it turned out I had spent money for literally nothing. And I would be quite angry if they didn't tell me but I found out!

NoelleSnowman · 26/12/2022 21:06

Just ask the company the voucher is for. Simple.

Beautiful3 · 26/12/2022 21:06

I'd want to know if a gift card I bought, didn't work. Just tell them it wasn't activated.

LimeTwists · 26/12/2022 21:13

I’d want to be told. Tell the friend you went to use it but there was no balance on it - either it’s a card that’s been picked up, taken out of the shop and not activated at a till (so not a paid for gift at all), it’s been used, or your friend has been scammed because they’ve been charged without receiving the credit.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 26/12/2022 21:55

They'll have paid for it so if you ask then for the money they'll be paying twice. That would be a really rude expectation. Personally I wouldn't mention it as it might embarrass them.

They may not have paid for it - whether they just took it off the rack and pocketed it, without realising they have to be activated, or - possibly more likely - they did forget to activate it.

That said, I may be wrong here, but iirc, the last time I bought a gift card from a supermarket, I asked the assistant, and she told me that it was automatically activated once it had been scanned and payment successfully received.

If that's the case across the board, it does look like it's either been nicked (whether deliberately or if it fell down the side of the trolley and she forgot to scan it) or used accidentally. Might somebody have given her an identical card that she used, and then she accidentally gave her used one as a present by mistake, instead of the new one she'd bought?

Does anybody know: does it come up differently at the till, when you try and spend it, if it hasn't been activated, as opposed to it was activated but subsequently has all been spent?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 26/12/2022 21:58

You should definitely tell her about it, though.

If she has been scammed, she should be made aware.
If she made a mistake or there was a glitch at the till - she needs to make the shop aware.
If she stole it and then deliberately passed stolen goods on to your DC (albeit not worth what she thought it would be worth), she deserves to be either pulled up on it or, at very least, learn an embarrassing lesson not to try stealing again.

MrsPerfect12 · 26/12/2022 21:58

i have always been given a separate receipt for the gift card and include it in the envelope. It should never be an issue.

Soakitup37 · 26/12/2022 22:04

“Thank you so much for the gift card, xx was thrilled, v kind of you, we’ve tried to redeem the card but it says it’s “not loaded/ valid?” We just want to make sure you weren’t charged for a card that wasn’t activated?”

job done.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 26/12/2022 22:05

A friend of mine was once given a magazine subscription card that the giver had bought off the rack at WH Smith; then, when she went online to enter the code and set up the sub, it told her it had already been used, so she didn't get the gift after all (she wasn't too bothered as it wasn't a magazine she really cared about).

That said, this was well over a decade ago, so the technology wouldn't have been so hot. Presumably, somebody either scraped off the foil in the shop and noted the code or had some kind of algorithm based on the format of the codes used and just set it going entering every combination until it found a valid one.

Voucher issuers have got much more vigilant in tracking their products and avoiding crime - not just from thieves in shops but people who do genuinely buy them, but in suspiciously large numbers/values, where they've often fallen for online scams and been told to 'pay' the scammer in gift cards, which are obviously much less easy to trace than bank transactions.

123woop · 26/12/2022 22:16

Definitely would tell them! Not in a rude way but tell them as they may have paid for money on the card, I don't understand why you wouldn't tell them - I'd definitely want to know

melj1213 · 26/12/2022 23:17

Why wouldn't you just tell your friend? It doesn't have to be accusatory, just factual. If I bought someone a gift card and it didn't work then I'd want them to tell me so it could be rectified ASAP.

"Hey friend, DC went to use the gift card you so generously bought them but on the till it came up as not activated. Do you happen to still have the receipt so we can go back to the store to get that fixed? Don't want you to be out of pocket for it if it was never processed properly"

Also, as someone who works in retail and sells gift cards on a daily basis there's always the odd one or two at Christmas which don't process properly and it's easily fixed as long as you bring the gift card and receipt back to store promptly. The supermarket I work in had a massive influx of people buying gift cards (even more than the usual Christmas uptick) in the last week before Christmas and it was because Tesco's system (not sure it was just our local branch or a nationwide issue) had gone down and it wasn't processing or activating gift cards for third party retailers for a few days so everyone was coming to us instead as there's only 2 supermarkets in town.

If your friend got caught up in that, or a similar, glitch when she purchased the card then the store will be aware that any cards purchased between X date and Y date may have been affected and will have a system set up to deal with anyone returning with those gift cards.

Blinki · 26/12/2022 23:19

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Bellabatwings · 26/12/2022 23:39

I work in retail and as far as i’m aware the only way it has not been activated is that it was not scanned.
when its scanned that activates it.