Littlewoods charging back customers who use excessive codes

Shoppaholic12345 · 25 June 2009 at 12:11AM

Littlewoods snatch back year’s worth of voucher discounts

By Paul Smith

A couple of weeks ago we received an email from a distraught customer of Littlewoods called Mary. According to Mary, the catalogue company had added £500 worth of charges to her account for goods ordered over a six month period, because she had used discount voucher codes circulated online.
Now another case has come to light, this time in the HotUKDeals forums - a member called Toratown claims to have received a phonecall yesterday from Littlewoods’ “fraud department”:

I have been using these vouchers for about a year and all was fine… now the Littlewoods Group solicitors are going to retrieve all the voucher amounts, from all of my accounts.

This has happened countless times before; a quick search of the net will reveal plenty of chatter concerning this in the HUKD forums and elsewhere online. Last year we highlighted a similar issue with Littlewoods attempting to claw back a specific discount which essentially equated to free money, and we eventually got a result for customers.
The issue from the company’s point of view goes as follows: Littlewoods states that discount vouchers are intended for specific individuals and may only be used by them, regardless of whether they appear in public forums - if a third party is found to have used them after the transaction has been agreed and the goods dispatched, then Littlewoods’ terms and conditions give them the right to retrieve the discounts back from the customer.

There are plenty of HUKD forum members who don’t necessarily agree with Littlewoods’ conduct but have in the past pointed out the dangers of using circulated vouchers; they point out that the terms and conditions for using the vouchers apply, regardless of whether a customer reads them or not; in the eyes of the law, ignorance is no excuse and customers who use voucher codes not intended for them are committing fraud.
Then there are those who believe that Littlewoods are in the wrong, both morally and legally; they say that to demand monies up to a year after a transaction is unfair on the customer, and that including a clause in the terms and conditions of a contract does not necessarily mean it has any legal standing. Others question why, after several years of this problem occurring, has Littlewoods not introduced any measures to prevent misuse of codes, such as matching specific codes to specific customers, as countless other online retailers do. These sentiments were summed up by one forum member on HUKD:

Is it possible that they might be deliberately slow in picking people up on using invalid codes - after all, how much more money can you make by sending out codes, letting thousands find them on the interweb, take in a load of orders based on apparently lower prices and then clean up 6 or 12 months later?
Just how long did they take to find these inconsistent usages? It must have been quite a while if one person has managed to build up so many. And it must be pretty bleeding obvious if you send out 1000 codes and get 10,000 people using them that something isn’t working right - so why does it take them so long to work it out?
In fact, why does a company like Littlewoods need a fraud team at all? As others have pointed out, if their systems were set up correctly to check codes against email addresses that the codes were sent to then there wouldn’t be any need.

Clearly there may be customers abusing codes through multiple use across multiple accounts, but when voucher codes intended for individuals (which Littlewoods states they are) can be published and circulated online, sometimes by annonymous sources, then there’s bound to be innocent misuse of them. Bitterwallet is looking into the matter and will get back to you shortly.:mad:

http://www.bitterwallet.com/littlewoods-get-heavy-attempting-to-retrieve-voucher-discounts/13903

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/427132/dont-use-these-vouchers-littlewoods

Browntoa · 24 July 2009 at 10:33PM

bump as new codes posted

emweaver · 16 October 2009 at 1:51PM

this is awful! littlewoods no full well that people wont be keeping the letters and emails with these codes on for 6 - 12 months to prove a code was sent to them

Littlewoods are doing this deliberately!

They have always been greedy and its a shame they have now taken over and ruined most other home shopping catalogues out there

gismo1554 · 16 October 2009 at 2:32PM

Very (Ex Littlewoods Direct) are now texting you codes. Does this mean I should be keeping my texts for a year just incase? Its crazy!

galvanizersbaby · 16 October 2009 at 2:42PM

emweaver wrote: »

this is awful! littlewoods no full well that people wont be keeping the letters and emails with these codes on for 6 - 12 months to prove a code was sent to them

Littlewoods are doing this deliberately!

They have always been greedy and its a shame they have now taken over and ruined most other home shopping catalogues out there

I keep them just incase (but only because I remember the code fiasco first time around!

sweetchick2 · 22 October 2009 at 7:04PM

i use the code a few times but i never knew i was doing wrong as it was on this website i paid by my bank card but would using these voucher affect my credit score? could they take legal action? I'm a bit worried incase i hear from the fraud company i havent as of yet, but i cant order from them.

Froggitt · 23 October 2009 at 4:07PM

If they dont want you to use a code in a transaction, they should tell you at the time, not months later. Its not that hard to send out codes tied to accounts, or to limit the number of times a code can be redeemed, or to check how many codes an account has used over a period of time.

emweaver · 24 October 2009 at 2:01AM

i had 2 ordered declined last week for using a code I wasnt entitled to so maybe they are going to start doing this? just hope this hasnt made them look through all my orders (touch wood)

*Jelly_Tots* · 24 October 2009 at 8:21AM

I could be wrong but I don't think people who pay upfront on their credit card are at risk of chargeback. It seems to be the people who get credit and pay on a LIttlewoods/Very/Choice/Additions etc account. (Unless someone knows different).

withabix · 24 October 2009 at 8:26AM

Their systems validate codes when you order now, so I can't see this happening any more.

Sometimes their system won't even allow me to use codes that I HAVE been sent!

It's quite amusing when you return stuff and they sometimes accidentally refund the full amount though!

Littlewoods charging back customers who use excessive codes

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