Kingfisher group (comet, b&q, woolworths) vouchers suspended?

LELAN

Still got to admit I missed noticing the combat kit!

There are 2 B&Q's in Ipswich plus a Screwfix. One (Ransomes) is a Giant one, I find these rather toooooo large and prefer the more normal size ones. The one you likely see also seemed huge when first opened -(It started life as Homebase), -- but after a year or so closed to reopen as B&Q. We do still have Homebase and most of the others in the immediate area.

blue_box

Hi There Iam Well Behind After Jus Reading These Note Looks Like My Vouchers Are Only A Crap Piece Of Paper As No One Seems To No Who To Go To Ive Tried The Kingfisherhe Number No Luck And Comet Will Not Help At All.to My Amazement They Even Said Its Not There Problem I Cant Understand Why Not As They Issued Me The Vouchers.what Are My Options Plz Help

blue_box

I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY COMET ARE NOT LIABLE FOR THIS AS THEY . GAVE ME THE VOUCHERS THEY DIDNT EVEN MENTION THAT THE VOUCHERS BELONG TO SOMEONE ELSE JUS THAT THEY ARE FOR LIFE.SOMEONE PLEASE HELP AS I FEEL SICK AT THE THORT OF LOSING MY MONEY FOR SOMEONE WHO IS HONEST AS HELL IT FEELS AS A STAB IN THE BACK.

DebsD

:mad: I have £50 of these vouchers. Didn't know anything about it until today when I went to B&Q to redeem them. Am fuming as if I had of known about the problem I would have used them at Woolies before Christmas (got rid of all my Woolies ones then). It never crossed my mind about these ones as I thought they would be ok with them being for B&Q! Anyway, came across your post when looking for info and have just emailed them with the info you state so I'll post back on here when and if I hear anything from them.

nigebc

DebsD wrote: »

:mad: I have £50 of these vouchers. Didn't know anything about it until today when I went to B&Q to redeem them. Am fuming as if I had of known about the problem I would have used them at Woolies before Christmas (got rid of all my Woolies ones then). It never crossed my mind about these ones as I thought they would be ok with them being for B&Q! Anyway, came across your post when looking for info and have just emailed them with the info you state so I'll post back on here when and if I hear anything from them.

Im in the same boat as DebsD

Did you get anywhere?

Oops :embarasse, ive just found £40 of these vouchers. Recently moved house (about 3 months ago) and have only just found them. After reading through all these posts i must say im not hopeful i can get any money back.

People obviously did well when they got some cash back from woolworths when they were open, but obviously i dont have that option.

By the sounds of it, that helpline isnt very good, so maybe i'll try a letter. Must admit im not any good at that sort of thing.

Has anybody else had any success by writing and getting their money back?

LELAN

nigebc wrote: »

Im in the same boat as DebsD

Did you get anywhere?

Oops :embarasse, ive just found £40 of these vouchers. Recently moved house (about 3 months ago) and have only just found them. After reading through all these posts i must say im not hopeful i can get any money back.

People obviously did well when they got some cash back from woolworths when they were open, but obviously i dont have that option.

By the sounds of it, that helpline isnt very good, so maybe i'll try a letter. Must admit im not any good at that sort of thing.

Has anybody else had any success by writing and getting their money back?

Firstly, I'm truly sorry for your situation:

But, ---- DON"T be at all embarrassed! ---- There are many forgotten Vouchers hiding away and as yet to be discovered.

I have seen a figure printed that there are still £10 Million (an unconfirmed figure this) worth of useless KINGFISHER vouchers floating around in hidden corners out (t)here! :eek: ---- Who will take the hit for them:question: NOW/ -- As usual honest Joe Public. It is a scandal. :mad: ---:mad: --- Corporate theft in my opinion.
The whole issue of these shopping/gift VOUCHERS needs sorting out, REALLY proper like, in the meantime (IMHO) -- only use Vouchers issued by the Bank of England, hopefully they (Fivers, Tenners and £20 notes) will continue to be honoured for the foreseeable future, :T

As for claiming, seems only place to go is poor old Woolworths Plc Receivers Deloitte. --- A cynic might possibly think that the 'smart' boys at B&Q (---- a KINGFISHER GROUP Company, and Comet -- an 'EX" KINGFISHER GROUP Company) are/have taken the opportunity to 'dump' their responsibility for redeeming KINGFISHER Gift Vouchers unto the unfortunate, incompetent and non public reasponsive (and now disappeared of course) -- Woolworths.

This has knocked on to us the ‘PUBLIC’ not anything new here then? Just ask yourself, Is that in any way a MORAL action? -- :rolleyes:

Personally during the period up to Woolworths closure -- (quite an emotive time of course for their poor staff :grouphug: :grouphug: ) -- I in turn found them extremely helpful :T for 'cashing' KINGFISHERS vouchers (Woolworths Plc - The shops owner had ceased to be a KINGFISHER Group company many years ago), --- through to EXTREMELY aggressive, that to the point that I was actually assaulted by a group of 6 of them in their Ipswich store in Mid-December. Not a good experience _pale_ _pale_ for any 62 year old, when the assailants were 19/20 something young men who were well charged up with emotion about their personal situations.
In that incident, Woolworths "permanently deprived" me of one £25 Kingfisher voucher, destroyed two others (these were subsequently returned to me and then encashed by Woolworths). My spectacles were destroyed as well.
Note here: -- Local police attended, now, fully 3 months later they have advised me that the powers that be say on the taking my voucher and personal damage issue, they see it all a 'civil' matter which I need to take up with the representives of Woolworths! -- Hmmmm, not too helpful when it means dealing with Deloitte ---- PAHHHHH!!

Also, seems with me injured, MY blood on the floor, items and spectacles destroyed, and permanent deprivation there might just possibly have been some sort of "Section 5, Public Disorder" criminal offence commited by some member or other of Woolworths staff! OPINIONS?:question: ???
--- An indication as to how these matters can quickly escalate from a simple issue to a fairly major one there!

"Do I detect a soup-cent of negativity towards this brave, bold and quite frankly crappish idea?"
*******************************
A previous couple of my posts on on this thread:


Flogistics -- a Woolworhs Group company issues the KINGFISHER GIFT VOUCHERS (KGV's) Woolworths Group (and therefore Flogistics) is NOT in administration.
Woolworths PLC which owns UK stores IS in Administration.

Woolworths actually gave cash for them without any purchase, yesterday -- Christmas Eve.
They cannot give credit, so HAVE TO return cash.

Ask for store manager if any problems.

Neither Bent&Questionable (A KINGFISHER GROUP Company!!) nor Comet (Ex Kingfisher Group) will accept KGV's

I am now banned from all Woolworths stores! --I have an illegibly signed, by a 'manager', letter dated 15th December to this effect.

Only got it on Tue 22 Dec. - Bit pathetic really.

I just can't imagine that the Woolworths stores BAN will be changing my life all that much though.
Ho! Ho!

and somewhat later -- mid- Jan

Thu 15th Jan 2009
Hi again sydneybeam and first I must thank-you for trying to find out what has been going on with Kingfisher vouchers.

The phoneline has NOT worked for me. (as you say (Hmm....)
I have left messages twice.
I have not heard of this "CIL" set up in my probings, nothing surprises me now on this voucher racket.
I am actually a great fan of B&Q bug am thoroughly disgusted at their decision not to accept KINGFISHER vouchers.

Some of what I have trawled up follows:

Flogistics Limited as far as I know do the vouchers and ARE actually a part of WOOLWORTHS GROUP and WOOLWORTHS GROUP are NOT in administration. That is the 'Worldwide' WOOLWORTHS GROUP "handle" --- Deloitte are carefully wording their communications which is not being particularly helpful to punters!

It was Woolworths PLC. (our UK shops) who WERE in joint administration with their Music arm. ---- Deloitte ARE the joint Administrators for Woolworths PLC. Correctly they tell enquirers that Flogistics Limited are really nothing to do with Woolworths PLC.
Seems there is some dispute between Flogistics and Kingfisher, guess who is suffering as a result?

There is a long (and very likely deeply meaningful) relationship between Kingfisher Group and Flogistics Limited.

It all rather stinks to me.

B&Q ARE of course currently part of Kingfisher Group.

Woolworths WERE part of Kingfisher many years ago.

Comet WERE part of Kingfisher until about 16 months ago I believe.

"What a tangled we weave when we practice to decieve"

There is a pretty colorful history of court actions surrounding vouchers, Tax issues and members and ex-members of Kingfisher group.

Hardly surprising that no-one really wants to take responsibility for all that useless (and I guess non VAT able paper) circulating as 'Vouchers" The £2 million you have discovered represents lots of little peoples money of course.

I believe we just aint seen nuffink yet!

I also cynically wonder what is behind the recent opening of Screwfix (Kingfisher Group again) retail branches, sometimes these are in quite close proximity to B&Q outlets.

Everybody I speak to has seemed perfectly happy to use Screwfixes well established and very efficient mail-order system.

Most of these people also shop at their local B&Q's as well.

Doesn't really seem much of a demand for localScrewfix branches does there? Oh! Unless of course there is some great master plan afoot to "

---

" (Please feel free to insert your own ideas here!!)


But what a load of Hassle it has led to for me, and it still ain’t over yet! Any legals up for giving advice in what could be a very interesting Civil claim, I haven’t really got a clue where to start.

LiverpoolChris

not sure how to find out whats legal or not however I have left comments on BBC Watchdogs web page if we all complain they may take these complaints on board so everyone leave comments on the website you never know we may see it on telly:mad:

nigebc

LiverpoolChris wrote: »

not sure how to find out whats legal or not however I have left comments on BBC Watchdogs web page if we all complain they may take these complaints on board so everyone leave comments on the website you never know we may see it on telly:mad:

Worth a try

Might just give that a go

zenseeker

It might get a mention on Watchdog, but you won't get anywhere with it. No laws are being broken, so nothing will be done about the situation.

Maye_M

Like many others on here I too was caught out with these vouchers, given as an incentive scheme from my work, last winter just before the two other companies stopped taking them and not long before woolworth went bust. I've only lost £25 compared to some others yet it's still a lot to me in the present economic situation.
I am as angry as anyone on here can be about it but I'm more disappointed than some, since some employees at my work who received the exact same vouchers got theirs replaced (theirs run by a company called Vouchershop - hurrah to them for replacing them!). I however, thinking mine would also be replaced, found that our department used a different voucher company - one called Globoforce, an Irish company, and that not only would they categorically not replace them but on the three occasions I phoned them about this, once they said their systems were down and were unable to help so had to end the call, once as soon as I touched on the matter I called about the phone went dead without explanation, and the third time the person told me it was my own hard luck.
So, as a cautionary note for future reference to anyone who gets vouchers from their work, if you have any say in the matter at all ask for Vouchershop ones not Globoforce in case anything similar happens in future. And even if the shop doesn't go out of business, they still have no legal duty to accept the vouchers anyway so I gather - something of which I was completely ignorant before. Hope it helps someone else in future. I know I won't be accepting them from that company again if I have any choice, though I know my work isn't cleared of blame for allowing some employees to get a better deal than others, since ultimately they pick the voucher companies to buy from, and they should ensure all their employees are treated the same. But I was very disappointed in Globoforce, yet good on Vouchershop, so check where your employers got them from, maybe you'll be luckier than me. Good luck.