Gift voucher - cheeky?

[Seriouslydodgyname]

Bring deliberately obscure:

I've have been tasked with collating the funds for a group gift. The group had already decided on the gift prior to me being tasked with organising it.

It's a gift voucher for something quite niche, but that we know the recipient definitely wants. I have a gift voucher for that place that I will not use.

My gift voucher is £80 and the total pot for the gift is £150.

WIBU if I used the gift voucher I have and top it up to the £150? I've already contributed to the pot, so I'm not trying to get out of giving money.

YABU - it would be cheeky and inappropriate to do this

YANBU - seems totally fair, you aren't depriving anybody of money/ a gift

FWIW - the gift voucher is paper tokens of varying amounts, not a credit card, do won't look odd if I add to it.

I may have misunderstood but if the collection is £150 cash have you contributed to that total or not? So two scenarios. 1. You've put say £20 cash into the collection. You're proposing to use your 80 voucher and buy another 70 of vouchers for the gift = 150, keeping 80 cash. I think that's fine as everyone has agreed the vouchers are the gift. You have still contributed in an agreed proportion. The only difference/bonus is that you liquidate your 80 voucher into cash which is convenient for you and no one else is in any worse position. 2. You haven't put into the collection yet which is currently 150. If you swap 80 cash for voucher and buy another 70 voucher then you haven't "taken" anything, but you've also contributed nothing. Your 80 voucher isn't a contribution, it's just a swap. Which is the position?

No one ex

No one except you will ever know!

God sorry just re-read the OP and you have already contributed cash to the pot! So it's scenario 1 and totally fine. It would only be cheeky if you'd manoeuvred things to liquidate your voucher when no one else had thought the recipient would want the vouchers!

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, given the lack of expiry dates.

Absolutely fine. As others said, only a problem would be if you decided on that specific voucher just to get rid of yours. If it was decided by others then it's fine.

People saying "it feels a bit off" can't explain why, because it isn't

It's fine, you e contributed to the pot so that the total pot is £150.

The recipient is getting £150 gift voucher.

You are basically just exchanging your voucher for cash, like if you had £10 worth of 10p pieces and swapped it for a £10 note, it's all worked out even.

As long as the recipient gets the £150 that the contributors are expecting, the voucher could have came from the moon and it wouldn't matter.

I’ve done this. I had £100 gift vouchers for Curry’s, but didn’t need anything from
there and there was an expiration date.

So when my colleague was leaving, I bought a gift card (usable in quite a few shops) from Curry’s with my Curry’s gift card. I then expensed the Curry’s gift card to give myself £100 cash.

The way I see, it was a perk of sorting out the leaving gift and card, as it certainly wasn’t my job.

Colleague was really pleased with the gift cards.

If there is no expiry date then no problem to do that.

I think this is fine, especially as you were not involved in the decision to get these vouchers as the present.

To my mind its the same as if you were collecting and giving cash, and you swapped out a £20 note for two £10s. Instead of £80 being used to buy a voucher, you're swapping it for one you already have that is exactly the same value.

If they sell well I’d just do that and keep the two transactions separate. No one actually misses out with your suggestion, but it does leave you a bit open to misunderstanding/suspicion I think.

Yes I think it's fine to do this, who will even know apart from you? It's not like you're profiting from it, just saving yourself the hassle of selling elsewhere.

Yes, scenario 1. The vouchers were suggested by the person who knows the recipient best and their partner. I've literally just collected the funds (a mix of cash and bank transfers) and have contributed cash to the pot.

Is is kind of how I feel. It's not my "job" to sort out the gift and it is hassle! I did sort of volunteer (was asked if I'd do it and I said yes) but only because I life closest to the place we were getting the vouchers from.

I think it’s fine.

Imagine if you had a close trusted friend who had £80 vouchers for the place, and when you are buying the gift vouchers you buy £70 direct from the shop and buy her £80 vouchers from her for £80. Same thing - as long as the “second hand” vouchers look totally new and are trustworthy and won’t expire at a different time etc, they’re the same as new ones.

I can see why you would consider this it's sort of common sense but it's blurring the lines and I don't think I would do it.

I would buy the new voucher with the old one

So you'll be keeping £70 of other people's money?

So you have to drive to this place to buy the vouchers?

No one is losing and you are getting a small perk for going above and beyond what your job requires.

In exchange for vouchers of the same value.

Money they've given specifically for the purpose of it being exchanged for a voucher. And OP has also contributed money.

I mean I know she isn't taking anything and it all adds up etc but unless she has contributed £70 then why is she the only one to end up with cash at the end of the collection?

OP is essentially buying the vouchers from herself. She isn't making a profit, just converting the money from one form into another. She isn't "ending up with cash" - if she didn't own the vouchers she'd already have that cash anyway!

Well yes, as I say I am not suggesting the OP is stealing or anything like that.

If it was common practice to swap gift vouchers for cash then I am sure the OP would have cashed in her £80 of vouchers ages ago.

I am also assuming the OP was gifted her vouchers, so she is potentially making some kind of profit?