Aibu to think Dunelm are unreasonable?

[LadyGodHelpUs]

On Saturday I bought £217 worth of stuff from Dunelm. I paid £40 using a gift card given to me as a Christmas present. The rest I paid by card.

Today I returned £97 worth of things. They insisted that £40 had to go back on the gift card.

I wasn’t made aware of this or I would have carried out separate transactions. I didn’t sign anything and it didn’t mention this on the back of the receipt where it said refunds would be no problem within the set time period.

AIBU that this is unfair practice?

For those saying it's the norm, this wasn't my experience recently. I bought two things from John Lewis last month, one was £70 and one was £20. I paid for it with a £50 gift card and £40 on my credit card.

I returned the £20 item and they refunded it to my credit card, not the gift card.

This, using the gift card again.

That would be the LEAST they could do.

Yeah, but Dunelm see it differently (because they can). They'd naturally say that OP spent the gift card on the item she wants to return so they're refunding that first, because it benefits them.

It's pretty standard policy that if you do a split payment with a gift card, the gift card will always be refunded first up to its original value and then the other payment method gets the balance.

Well no. The OP is not legally entitled to anything at all unless the item is faulty.

No she didn’t.

In the real world, an assistant with a queue of people may either miss the fact that it was purchased on a gift card or pretend they didn't see it for an easy life.

Well if Dunelm have a policy that says you can have a refund if you don’t like it as long as you return it within 28 days unused (which they do) then OP is absolutely entitled to get a refund!

That's crazy, as long as you're keeping £40 of stuff, that's the gift card covered, the refund should be cash. I'd take the whole lot back, then rebuy £40s worth on the gift card, and tell them to poke the rest.

What on earth has your marital status or child's 'needs' got to do with a refund from Dunelm?

@Headabovetheparakeet Doesn't surprise me - John Lewis is an entire world apart from Dunelm!

To be clear I don't necessarily agree with Dunelm's policy, just saying that I do totally understand why a retailer chooses to refund gift cards first if you do a split payment. It's penny-pinching but better for their cashflow.

@Everanewbie Surely as Dunelm conditions state they offer refunds etc on their receipt that constitutes as a legal contract as its in writing ?

It’s normal and most shops will do this to stop you returning goods for cash. Lots of people try to buy something with a gift card then want to return to get the cash.
The fact that you spent a lot is neither here nor there. It’s a blanket policy.
The only thing you can do is return the whole lot. Then re buy it in 2 transactions.

No. This is john lewis policy as I returned an online purchase at the weekend at the store. It automatically refunded to the payment method (paypal) and then a pound onto a giftcard (which basically is my john lewis card). The assistant didn't have to do anything really, just scan the barcode and the till did the rest.

GENIUS!

I was merely explaining I cannot go out to shops often! I don’t get a chance to leave the house because of my single parenthood and the fact that kids with complex needs are often not easily to take shopping. You are coming across as very rude.

this.

Nope.

@Face2facet I think you've missed that it was a second poster talking about trying to return something to Dunelm initially without a receipt and they wouldn't accept it even though it was obviously from Dunelm. The responses you've quoted are referring to that not OP.

I'd be annoyed at this too. I worked in Next for years and it was always cash or card refund first and then move onto gift card if the refund exceeded what had been paid in that form.

Yep

This seems the most likely and understandable explanation.

Tell them you'll return it all. Then reorder the items you want to keep using the gift card.

And that would be fine for Dunelm to have done had OP bought the goods only with a gift card. This isn’t the case here, and Dunelm have been underhand.

I haven’t worked in retail for a LONG time but I think it’s standard practise. I remember when processing refunds you had to return money the same way it was spent ie if it was debit / credit card, you had to check the last 4 numbers to check it was going back on same card and then also check signature.

It’s PayPal policy in this case. PayPal does not allow any mixing of payments on any transaction where PayPal was used. Stores usually can’t even do two different PayPal returns on one transaction, they have to do them completely separately.