United we stand: Zavvi gift vouchers/cards

pinkshoes

zenseeker wrote: »

It's all very well getting militant, but that won't change anything. The administrators know what they are doing, and how to handle the situation, and are more clued up on the legal side of things than anyone here.

All anyone can do is follow the guidelines laid down by the admins and hope for the best...anything else is a waste of time and effort.

Yes, indeed the administrators do know what they are doing, and it's pretty much daylight robbery!

Anyone writing to the administrators and making their claim for their vouchers will go to the bottom of the list of priorities for pay outs, and I'm thinking that by the time all the other debts and overheads have been paid (and the administrators take their fee...), then those claiming for gift vouchers will get NOTHING, or perhaps if they're lucky, they'll get 5p for every £1 of vouchers they have.

jammin_2

Would claiming via Money Claim be a possibility?

northerngeezer

For those of you who have any vouchers..

have you posted them off or are you hanging onto them in case there is any change in policy?

ThinkingOfLinking

I don't know why they want you to send them the vouchers anyway; surely they should ask you to send them a copy; I do not have a Zavvi voucher but I assume from what I have read it's an electronic gift card so it's harder to defraud than the paper vouchers?

Without the customers, Zavvi would never have opened in the first place or survived as long as it did, so I feel their administrators should recognise that and show some goodwill towards them. I mean, if I was a customer who had a gift card, and it was not being accepted, I would never shop at that store again. You may say, but they don't care as they're on their way out, but even at this stage, they need all the customers they can get. And for example, let's say there's something I've wanted for ages which is £30, and I have £20 of vouchers, I am going to spend £10 in cash a well, whereas if they were not taking the vouchers, I would not be able to afford to spend the full £30 in cash, so they'd be losing out.

Again, with the sale on at the moment, I'd be more inclined to buy more things at Zavvi, but if they refused to honour my card, I'd just dump the whole lot and not bother buying any of it. I know it's not the sales staff's fault and I would never want to abuse, upset or take it out on them though.

I applaud those who're making a stand with the taking the items and leaving the gift card at the till; I would never have the guts to do it!!

gjchester

withabix wrote: »

It is long overdue that the laws should be changed in this country, to put the CONSUMER at the top of the list in terms of priority unsecured creditors, rather than HMRC.

Consumers should also have priority over suppliers, as the pro-rata loss is greater for the consumer than it is for the supplier.

Eg: Supplier has unsecured loss of approx £5 for a £10 CD, whereas consumer has £10 unsecured loss for a £10 CD.

Also, the consumer is losing money that has been subject to income tax, NI, VAT etc, whereas the supplier can write their losses off against corporation taxes etc, can they not? (assuming that they are profitable, as most companies are!)

So if you are a supplier and goods get ordered from a company you'd never dealt with before (or were unsure of) you'd not allow that order unless you get paid up front.

Excellent idea, no-one would do anything without payment up front, and cashflow issues for most small business's would ensure they get sent to the wall, who need credit to keep them competative with the big boys.

Zippy123

As I understand it, one of the largest creditors to Zavvi is a company owned by Woolworths called Entertainment UK. So using the vouchers would relate to Woolworths honouring them anyway.
It was Zavvi's inability to find another supplier to replace EUK that led to these problems.

johnbfan

I wrote to E&Y and enclosed the plastic card - kept the receipt and a copy of the letter. Not heard a dickie bird. I wonder why.

Also wonder how much E&Y will make out of zavvi - enough to pay us voucher holders and still walk away with a nice little earner.

magyar

It really isn't fair to be critical of E&Y. Their job is actually to get as much cash into the business so that the creditors can be paid. Since people with gift vouchers are creditors, then they're actually on your side!

magyar

gjchester wrote: »

So if you are a supplier and goods get ordered from a company you'd never dealt with before (or were unsure of) you'd not allow that order unless you get paid up front.

Excellent idea, no-one would do anything without payment up front, and cashflow issues for most small business's would ensure they get sent to the wall, who need credit to keep them competative with the big boys.

Add to that that any one consumer is unlikely to have more than one or two small debts with a bankrupt retailer.

A small business might well do the majority of it's business with one large retailer, so you're talking about someone's livelihood, not just £5 for a CD.

sapphire6

Following discussion with one of E & Y in-house team at Zavvi, I have today decided to send off 2 unused vouchers to the Administrators.
Mr Chris Aspen agreed, that if a buyer was found, they may honour the outstanding Gift Cards - in the same way as Zavvi did, when they took over Virgin. So do you send off now, in the hope of getting 5p in the £1 for your Gift Card, or hold on.
Personally I think it is a disgrace, that Ernst & Young have proceeded in this manner, causing great distress and abuse to store staff at a time when they least need it.
The discount at Zavvi is now up at 20%, so will be getting less and less for the stock as the time goes on, yet those of us with genuine Gift Cards cannot redeem them.
Would it not be a good idea for Ernst & Young to declare a 'Gift Card Holder Amnesty', even if only for a week.
Not only would this enable holders to purchase items while they were still at a reasonale price, - before the vultures start stripping the stores at 90% off.
It would also reduce the number of Gift Cards having to be registered and accounted for at the Administrators, causing less work.
If no such Amnesty is put in place for the benefit of Zavvi Gift Card Holders, this will a further knock-on effect to the recession. As noted in many of your earlier posts, plenty of people are walking around with one or even 2 Gift Cards in their wallet for various high street stores. Will consumers ever trust a Gift Card again, - they should be refused.
Since the introduction of the Electronic Gift Card I have never trusted them.
Take the case of any major High Street Retailer who find themselves in trouble. Would it be possible at such a time, that for some reason their computer system crashed, at the same time wiping off all the money on the outstanding Gift Cards.
This would be all to easy to do. Don't forget all you people holding these Electronic Gift Cards - read the back. It states that if the card is not used - usually within 2 years - any balance on the card will be wiped off.
So there is some little guy in an office, saying 'okay how many cards will I wipe today for fun'.
It has hapenned to us. A £25.00 Boots Gift Card used for the first time had about £11.00 disappear from the remaining balance. When a supervisor arrived, she advised they had all sorts of problems. Even having new cards being issued that already had money on. - no such luck with that one.
Come on Martin can't we put some weight on E & Y to do something about this Zavvi fiasco?