Habitat Gift Voucher Scam

Jan_Walmsley

Hi
I would like to know of any ones views on this topic and what you think I should do.

I had a gift voucher for £30 for a wedding present in March 2006, It got missed place
in the process of moving. I went to the local Habitat to spend it on a lovely tea set.
To my shock when I got to the counter to pay for it with my wedding present voucher they assistant said sorry your voucher has expired bascically you can't have the goods.
I was very embarrased as there was a queue behind me. The assistant said to me call the number on the back of the card and they may be able to help you.
I got home very upset and decided to phone the number, the number didn't exsist and the address was wrong. I phoned the local Habitat and asked for thier head office number and they bluntly said we don't have one. I said could I have the address and it took him 15 mins to find that. I was fuming,
I eventually got the address and wrote Habitat a letter explaining the situation mentioning that they have had my money and kept it and not allowed me to spend it.
They replied saying basically its not their fault and wont do anything about it

great to hear your views and advice

I will scan in the letter they sent me if any one want to see it.

Jan

MarkyMarkD

It's not a scam.

Some vouchers last forever; others expire. If they expire, it says so on the voucher.

If you don't spend it in time, that's hard luck.

CHR15

Didn't the voucher have an expiry date on it??

My Tesco's 5p off a litre of fuel is only valid for one Month.

Two and a half YEARS does seem a very long time to sit on a voucher though.
I can understand the embarassment with a queue behind you, why didn't you just buy it withyour own money if it was nice?

It could always be argued that if the voucher was a gift, then it was never your money you were trying to spend in any case.

Jan_Walmsley

Hi
I think you are missing the point. In my message I stated why the vouchers hadn't been used as they got misplaced when moving.

The Point I am making is that Habitat have had my guests money sitting in their bank account for 2 years obviously making interest and then telling me that I can't have the money to spend on goods in their shop it doesn't make sense, in my eyes I see that as theft and fraud Don't you? It shouldn't matter how long I have the vouchers My guests have still paid for them and they have had the money.

Don't want to argue about it just wanted some advice really.

Jan

RadoJo

This topic has come up on these boards before, and the upshot of it always seems to be that so long as the expiry date is printed on the voucher there's not much you can do. Unfortunately, vouchers are offered by stores and they can impose their own Ts and Cs on them, so provided that they are available to the recipient of the voucher, they aren't breaking the law and all you can do is ask them to reconsider, so if you have tried this and it hasn't worked, there aren't any other avenues available to you.

Unfortunately, I think you have reached the limit of what you can do about this now, unless you fancy starting some kind of campaign for increased ergulation of the gift voucher industry - this would be the place to start it if you want to take them on...!

lesley1960

Next have expiry dates , but if you find one that has run out ( as i did recently ) you can send it off and they will replace it.

wary

I guess one can argue whether gift vouchers should have expiry dates or whether they should be usable until infinity & beyond. But it is standard practice, so unless the vouchers did not clearly state an expiry date, then you can't legitimately class it as theft, fraud or a scam.

I've had vouchers that I've allowed to expire, but I've only ever blamed myself for it. So I can't agree with your criticism of Habitat for refusing to accept them, although you may have stronger grounds for being unhappy at the way they handled your complaint.

MarkyMarkD

It's not a scam; it's not unfair.

If a business offers gift vouchers that are perpetual, it causes lots of issues. They need their staff to be trained to recognise every single type of voucher they've issued over the last 40 years; they need to keep a provision in their accounts for these liabilities which may, in reality, never crystallise.

It's far more straightforward for them to set a reasonable expiry date - typically, 2 years or so - and to then treat the vouchers as irredeemable (and hence recognise their value as profit) at that stage.

All manufacturers' money off coupons have the same sort of expiry date, and nobody complains about that because, presumably, nobody handed over money for them in the first place. But if your friends/guests/whatever had given you a cheque, and you'd lost that, it wouldn't be presentable after 6 months had elapsed, let alone 2 years.

moggylover

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

It's not a scam; it's not unfair.

If a business offers gift vouchers that are perpetual, it causes lots of issues. They need their staff to be trained to recognise every single type of voucher they've issued over the last 40 years; they need to keep a provision in their accounts for these liabilities which may, in reality, never crystallise.

It's far more straightforward for them to set a reasonable expiry date - typically, 2 years or so - and to then treat the vouchers as irredeemable (and hence recognise their value as profit) at that stage.

All manufacturers' money off coupons have the same sort of expiry date, and nobody complains about that because, presumably, nobody handed over money for them in the first place. But if your friends/guests/whatever had given you a cheque, and you'd lost that, it wouldn't be presentable after 6 months had elapsed, let alone 2 years.

But in those circumstances the cheque could be cancelled and no-one would have actually PAID that money to the Company;) . It may not be illegal, but it sure is immoral and lacking in integrity of ANY Company to behave as Habitat has: regardless of what they print on their Voucher!

I was unaware of this sort of practice tbh - but it does mean that in future I would not waste my money on any kind of a gift voucher, with Habitat or any other shop.

The only way that this would be acceptable would be if the money was returned to the person who bought the voucher on the date at which the voucher expired! Otherwise it becomes a kind of legitimised theft!

This is a gift voucher - bought and paid for - not some bonus offer or freeby offered by a shop.

Freddie_Snowbits

Scam definition
dishonest scheme: a scheme for making money by dishonest means

So why is the expiry date for a voucher a scam?

MarkyMarkD

Moggylover I thought someone would say what you say about cheques expiring.

It's up to retailers what terms they offer their vouchers under. It's not a scam unless they impose an expiry date which wasn't made clear at the time the voucher was bought - and, as the date is printed on the vouchers, it's the buyer's fault if they didn't notice it and in turn, the recipient's fault for not noticing it.