Love to shop voucher and M & S - left baffled and speechless

[bagpuss90]

So I received a love to shop voucher for £150 - I’ve spent some of it. I went to use it in M & S and I wasn’t able to because I didn’t know the exact balance left on it. I tried scanning the QR code to get the balance but that didn’t work. Anyway I only live a 2 minute walk away went home and scanned the code there . Got the balance - back to M & S and told them the balance. All good - there wasn’t enough on the card to cover the cost of my goods. This time the said I couldn’t pay the balance using my debit card . I asked to see someone else - they were adamant this was right. I lost the will to live and walked out. Has anyone else been asked for a balance on a gift card? Can anyone shed some light ?

These are the absolute worst cards and shouldn't be allowed.

Yes, I had this in TKMaxx. Apparently if they put the card through it will 'pay' for the whole balance no matter what the balance is on it. Seems it is something wrong with the Lovetoshop end of so many shops have a problem with it.

I would go the cash route - there is no more generic or widely spendable 'gift card' than cash. If you are not going to see her in person, send her a cheque the good old-fashioned way; if she has a banking app she should be able to credit it to her account easily.

They are basically a loaded debit card, so the shops cannot tell you the balance just like they can't tell you the available balance on any debit card.

Yes, same here trying to buy books in Waterstones. I did finally find out the value and get the books but it was just a lot of unnecessary hassle.

Love2shop is pointless. I don't understand why people bother with it.

Love to shop is awful. I had this issue online I could only use it if i spend the exact amount. But I ended up using it in a shop Clark's I think and they let me pay the rest on my bank card

No it will just be declined

I still remember fondly the lady in WHSmiths who somehow managed to let me use 3 of these cards as well as my card, in a single transaction. Her hate for them had inspired her to find a way to get the till to do it.

I think there should be a special place in hell reserved for anyone that buys these cards as gifts. Total ball ache. Also take care as it may be the one where, if you haven't used it for 12 months they take a % fee off the remaining balance each month.

All 4 One cards too. Bastards

This. I immediately use them to buy a proper voucher. Some including M and S are good for 2 years then all you have to do is occasionally have them scanned to check the balance and it extends that date

Cash.

They definitely let you use multiple methods at once for one transaction

I had one of these years ago and had the exact same problem. Can't believe this is still happening. Tbf it's not the shop's fault as they don't have the info. I'd never buy/gift one again

I like her!

I write the amount on the back of them with Sharpie.

John Lewis let me use three of them in one go so that none of us would ever have to deal with the things again. It took ages.

You can use their app to find out the balance left surely? I had a One4all card recently that is similar.

I loaded it into Apple Pay on my phone and then just bought a gift card on ASOS. Bit convoluted but meant I could spend more than the gift card amount.

Thanks everyone. I’ve never had one before. The assistant said they’re an absolute pain

Rainbowshit
it didn’t seem to work

Oh that's a shame. I thought they would work similarly.

Yes. I tried to buy some food using self check out at M&S, innocently thought I could just use the remaining balance and then top the rest up on my own card, but I couldn’t. It Kept declining the love to Shop, and in the end I just paid for it all on my credit card, which defeated the point of going to M&S because I only went to use the voucher to buy myself some nice food for a treat!

Be aware if you only have £2.50 left or something on your card. you’ll have to find something specific to use The exact remaining!

Love2shop and All4One are an absolute scam. They are nigh on impossible to spend, discovering the balance is a total ballache and then they try and rob you of your voucher value in an 'admin fee' if you don't manage to spend it within a certain time.

I hate them with a passion. Every time the kids got one, I would have to buy it off them and then I would spend it in Iceland as quickly as possible. Eventually we begged all the relatives not to buy them. Both companies must be raking it in with the countless vouchers that people just give up trying to spend

You could but I begrudge taking up storage on my phone for an app purely to be able to use a crap payment card where they also get to possibly harvest my data and take £ off it for the pleasure of keeping it +12 months. But realise I'm grumpy about such things

I make sure with One4All which is similar to have a label on the back that keeps track of the balance. You can look it up online. But it's a faff.

But I always go to a proper, staffed till so I can split the balance. Those are getting increasingly difficult to find. Are self service set up to split transactions? I hope so. When I worked in a shop I split transactions semi-regularly. Often then it was cash then card, so you let the till knock the cash off. But these days it would likely be card then card which means you will have to specify an amount.

This was a staffed till

Sounds a nightmare, however why didn’t you just do two transactions - one with items up to the voucher amount and then scan the rest through to pay on card.