Winebank Voucher

Squire_Fulwood

I bought something online, I forget what. In the box was a voucher for Virgin Winebank. The voucher was for £40 off a case of wine. That’s a good idea for Christmas, I thought.

After I pressed the Commit to Buy button (and not before) it said, “This is how it works. We collect £20 from you each month and after three months we add £20 to it”. Good idea perhaps but there had been no mention of this prior to the completion of this initial purchase.

I am not averse to spending £20 a month on wine but I don’t like being suckered into it so I looked into how I might cancel the deal. I found a phone number eventually and I found that I could delete the credit card number in “My Account” which I did.

I phoned the number and explained I wanted no part of it and he wanted to argue. He said that it was all explained on the back of the voucher. I have just been over that with a magnifying glass (literally) and he lied. He also said that the voucher was just an introductory offer and the case of wine would need to be cancelled if I did not take the deal. The voucher is a stand alone deal according to the wording so he is mistaken about that too.

Each of you can decide just what you spend your money on, even wine but if you don't want to keep on doing it every month with just the one supplier then I can't recommend that you use this voucher. They keep your credit card number in "My Account".

reserved

I received the same voucher, ordered a case of wine and then got an email which mentioned this debit of £20 per month. I hadn't seen any mention of this before so I emailed Virgin & said I wanted to cancel my membership of the Wine Bank. I also deleted my cc details from "My Account" section. I received an email acknowledging the cancellation but wanting to know why I didn't want this good deal. The wine was delivered 2 days later!

So if you get one of these vouchers and use it, my suggestion is that you then delete your card details from "My Account" and cancel your membership of the Wine Bank before thay take the first £20 on the !st of the next month!

lisyloo

I had a voucher recently and it did say something on it about meaning that you had to join up to "winebank".

You said your voucher was for Virgin "winebank" so this is a voucher for a scheme that you sign up to.

When you went to buy on line did you read the "terms and conditions" or did you jsut check it.
It's not a criticism, it's a question because I know that most times, I just click it as I haven't got time to pour through it.

I think that there probably was a box you had to click to say you agree to the terms and conditions and it may have been in there.

Thanks for the warning, and I appreciate what you are saying but I think the details of the scheme probably were "explained" in the detail. You just didn't read it.

Again that's not a criticism (as it's what I do) but legally you don't have a valid complaint.

Squire_Fulwood

I was about to go and check up on whether or not there was a terms and conditions box but I decided against going to the site in case I agreed to something else.

I have no recollection of a terms and conditions box and I was under the impression that I was spending a one off voucher to buy some wine. As I said there had been no mention in any of the plain advertising that the spending was ongoing and they had plenty of opportunity to say so.

The rep said (as I cancelled) that it was explained on the voucher and it isn't so I think that the firm has that tacky feeling about it that I do not want to do business with.

reserved

lisyloo wrote: »

I had a voucher recently and it did say something on it about meaning that you had to join up to "winebank".

You said your voucher was for Virgin "winebank" so this is a voucher for a scheme that you sign up to.

When you went to buy on line did you read the "terms and conditions" or did you jsut check it.
It's not a criticism, it's a question because I know that most times, I just click it as I haven't got time to pour through it.

I think that there probably was a box you had to click to say you agree to the terms and conditions and it may have been in there.

Thanks for the warning, and I appreciate what you are saying but I think the details of the scheme probably were "explained" in the detail. You just didn't read it.

Again that's not a criticism (as it's what I do) but legally you don't have a valid complaint.

You are quite right, it's all here http://www.virginwines.com/help/hl_help.jsp

However if you took time to read all through there before you hit submit your browser may well time you out!
:xmassmile

Squire_Fulwood

Lisyloo, I have no wish or intention to make a legal complaint. I just don't want to buy from a firm that uses guile or small print to sucker me into a deal whether they consider themselves legal or not.

We still haven't established the existence of the Terms and Conditions box.

Squire_Fulwood

reserved, nice one. Certainly a lot of help there but I think I will buy my wine from Tesco's in future. Less legal and probably cheaper at the end of the day.

I still think there is scope for being a lot clearer on the voucher because it still looks like a one off offer to me.

Mutton_Geoff

On the other hand, Virgin £25 off vouchers often fall out of Amazon/Donald Russell purchases I've made. There is no mention that they are for new customers only, but their website always rejects them and so I call up and push for the credit to my account. They've done this three times over the last year, coupled with the Winebank deal (which I'm happy with as they credit £20 to your account for each three months of payments you make, so it's like a 25% discount effectively).

If you buy wine and don't like the taste of one, if it's a single bottle, they just credit your account, if it's a case, they come and collect the remainder FOC.

The downside is you'll find a wine you like, order it and then they rarely have stock again so you have to try something else. Prices are comparable with the supermarkets or Majestic.

Squire_Fulwood

Mutton Geoff: I bow to your skill. The rest of us are obviously a bunch of amateurs by comparison. Mind you, I only ever got this one voucher to the best of my knowledge.

Interestingly, the money for the first case has been taken from my account so I hope this is not going to turn ugly.

y5d

I joined Winebank by using an Amazon voucher. I had 3 lots of £20 paid into it, and they added in the £20 'bonus'. I then asked for a refund of what I had paid in (just because I had other uses for it), which was credited back to me very quickly and without argument. And I have still got the £20 bonus in my account for when I want to go back. I didn't expect that, and was pleasantly surprised. Probably good marketing, because I will use them again when I need lots of wine delivered.

Mutton_Geoff

I bow to your skill. The rest of us are obviously a bunch of amateurs by comparison

No need to be a***y, just work on the simple principle that nothing is for free. Or how about "if it looks too good to be true etc". Virgin's T&C's are in plain English on their website. (I seem to remember they were one of the first to start writing terms in Jamie-Oliver-speak). If a company sends me a voucher "worth £40" I'd have a damn good look at it, and if the info wasn't clear, read the T&C's on their website first.

Clicking "I accept the terms" without actually reading them leaves only one person to blame when the offer isn't as simple as it first looked.

My comments were to simply say I think Virgins product is OK, they've been pretty straight with me. There are thousands upon thousands of other companies out there ready to do the dirty but Virgin Wines (imho) isn't one of them.

I'm not skilled, nor more clever than you, I just applied common sense