M&S feeling the pinch ?

[HorsesAreRunningOn3LegsTonight]

I’ve had an M&S credit card for years ( mainly because the cost of my yearly fee is far out weighed by the incredible free worldwide travel insurance I get for myself and my husband)
Up until this year, when it was your birthday they would send you a gift.
In the past five or six years ago, it was a afternoon cream tea, then for the last couple of years it’s either being a £10 gift voucher or I’m sure at one time it was a £15 gift voucher.
Well, I received this years “birthday gift “ - 10% off my next shop!
Not the most exciting “ present “
Am I being unreasonable ?

Chip on your shoulder much?

I never said anything about M&S being “wonderful”. I don’t shop there. OP was asking a question relating to her expectations of an equivalent birthday “treat” from them to previous years and I simply pointed out that the recent cyber attack is likely to be a significant factor in why that hasn’t happened.

That's your definition of "beyond generous"?
That people who happened to have their birthdays then weren't unfairly penalised for something that wasn't their fault?

Firstly big companies don't offer these "treats" to be generous at all - they solely do it to make more money, with the aim of enticing people in with a discount/freebie with the hope they'll spend more money.

Secondly honouring their own terms and conditions (i.e once they've advertised rewards including a birthday treat to encourage people to sign up for their loyalty card they have to then provide those rewards) for something that was their fault in the first place is the bare minimum I'd expect, hardly "generous" at all, let alone so exceedingly kind that it goes above and beyond all expectations.

Yes. The offers are presumably subject to availability and terms subject to change. Given the entire company was in melt-down, I do think it was generous to address the fears of a handful of CFs panicking over a free Colin the Caterpillar.

I can get into my sparks account but I can't use sparks pay to pay which is annoying

On a tangent, but since we’re gathered here 😁. The best customer service from M&S was about 20 years ago when their tills stopped working for about 10m or so and when they finally sprang back into life (I think I hung around as I was buying my office lunch there), and I asked how much, they said it’s free because of the wait! For some reason I’ve always remembered that and now as a wrinkly 52 year old it just make me happy lol.

They aren't doing their usual 20% off school uniforms this year. I think they have had a really bad year and are just trying to keep going.

I'm viewing the silver lining on that as upgrading sizes when I need to rather than playing guess what the DCs will need to bulk buy at a discount ahead of time. I will buy what I need there anyway in due course. I'll stick with them for their fit options and quality.

yeah mine is only the credit card, also the free sparks card, not the one you pay for cos I am a skinflint

You can get insurance against cyberattack, but it can get very, very complicated and they might not have got anywhere near the money back they lost.

The group that targeted them are currently one of the no.1 cyber criminal groups on the planet. They are fast, clever and have a lot of resources. Security is a really tricky balance - there are lots of companies that are massively underrepresented, but two things are also true from my experience in the industry.

1. No company, and i mean noone, is ever completely secure. Its simply not possible.
2. If you aimed for 'as secure as you physically can be' as a business of M&S's size and industry, then prices would be sky high and noone would shop there. Its a very expensive game.

So you think they should have paid the criminals? Even if they had there is no guarantee they would have got access back?
There was no threat, they lost access to all of their systems.
They refused to pay a ransom and rebuilt their systems which is what most companies would do. Co op also fell victim, however because of what happened at Marks and Spencers they actually saw the hackers were gaining access and someone literally went to the data center and pulled the plug out of all the hardware. That's the only reason it wasn't as bad.
Why should anyone be sacked? Yes they were attacked as are many companies unfortunately they did have some lapse processes and that of course made it worse.
It won't have been down to one person. My husband works in cyber security and thank god he isn't at risk of getting sacked of his company gets hacked. They get multiple attempts a day as does my company.

There were a few things I wanted from M&S, all were in stock and available on their website...right up until you log in. Then everything was out of stock.

I've given up and put an order in to Tu for clothes and Dunelm for household stuff.

It's not just M&S, Halifax have scrapped their monthly £5 reward on their current account

Ive never had birthday presents from M&S but since the cyber attacks, Co-op have started giving us £1 off our shop on their offers each week along with 50 p off milk.

So seeing as pretty much the only thing we ever buy from them is milk, that's effectively a free 4 pint bottle of milk each week which is nice but makes no sense for the Co-op.

I’ve had my usual vouchers and haven't had to change my password or anything else.🤷‍♀️

If you had an M&S account at the time of the attack I urge you to change your password, and if you used that password for any other sites change it there too.

Me too.

Mine is the original one where I get free travel insurance for myself and DH until we are 80 ! They dropped it to 70 a few years ago, then stopped it as far as I know. But mine is still valid.
I tweeted M&S and it’s correct - a 10% discount is this years birthday treat.

Tell us you know nothing about the topic at hand without telling us...
The advice from all governing bodies and security experts globally is to never pay a ransom.
You could pay a ransom and they've stolen your data and will sell it to the highest bidder anyway. You could pay a ransom and them not release your systems and ask for more. Neither of these are hypothetical suggestions by the way, they happen daily, globally. Certain groups will manipulate you to pay a ransom then come back later and reveal theyve taken your data and ask for a second ransom.
By not paying the ransom they've done exactly what they are supposed to do.

Would you expect to be sacked if you worked in a shop and someone robbed it? You could have the best security in the world and someone could still hack you, its impossible to be impenetrable. Sure, there could be systematic failings that meant security was below standard, but these are world class criminals and investigations into these things take MONTHS. And this would be prime lawsuit territory. You wouldn't fire an otherwise exemplary employee for leaving the door to your shop unlocked. Its just really not that simple.

Don’t think they are feeling the pinch, they’ve just spent £6 million on revamping my local store, the changing rooms now have upholstered chairs, toilets are now unisex individual cubicles with hand basin in each, new food court, bakery and hot food, new cafe.

@swimlyn M&S IT is run by a third party company so you wouldn’t expect any M&S heads to roll.
As @Daisyvodka said, companies never pay the ransom. They build a new system because you can’t trust the hackers to not release the data or trash your systems anyway. It’s exactly what you are supposed to do.
I don’t spend much at M&S but I feel for the employees and hope that there are no job losses due to the attack. I was coincidentally in M&S today and it was busy and the stock levels appeared high.

I’m really angry with them. I’ve been more than accommodating with them over their cyber attack. They hadn’t delivered my online order and I waited until they were able to credit it back to my card. However they remained silent about customer data being accessed I now get email from persons unknown pretending to be M&S which I didn’t get before.
however the worst thing for me was purchasing a dress from them for a wedding. I couldn’t find the receipt. Infact I think the assistant came over to help as the dress was tagged and asked me did i want no receipt. This isn’t usually a problem as they track everything through the bar code. However this is now not the case. They want a receipt, or they won’t even give you a credit.
even worse I had a faulty item that I wanted to return. No without a receipt. They knew it was new stock. We did have that receipt but the point is they are not being clear that they d changed their returns policy. I’ve stopped going. Next I buy on account and return no issue.

Eh, I’ve had a M&S credit card for years and never had this. Feeling robbed!

You might want to check with them as I have all my offers, £25 voucher to spend. Free coffee for the next few months.. Sparks offers in my online account.

Odd as when you logged in online you would have been asked to change your Password because if the cyber attack and before you could use the site. I did that and all is well.

I got an email from M&S with a £5 online voucher to compensate me for less-than-normal service in April! Tbh i don't remember any poor service in April....
Anyway, what other credit card company gives a prese to on someone's birthday! Just be thankful for the money you've already had!