Gift vouchers with expiry date

not_tonight_josephine_2

Hello, is it allowed for shops to sell gift vouchers with a (relatively) short validity period? I was given a £50 voucher just over a year ago but have held onto it as couldn't find anything I wanted in the shop in question - I finally found something at the weekend but they wouldn't accept the voucher as it was only valid for 12 months! Having now looked at the voucher more closely, it does state this in the small print.

I'm guessing that the £50 is now gone forever, but just wanted to double check that there isn't anything I can do to get the money back? It just seems very unfair that they have been given £50 for nothing at all! I can't see any valid reason why the voucher couldn't be indefinite, seems like a way of them making money for nothing if people take a while to get around to using the voucher!

If someone could just confirm the position on this I'd be grateful...

Tre-beam

Hi,
This happened with £60 worth of vouchers that I didn't realise had expiry dates. I emailed/wrote to the head office asking if there was anything I could do and they very kindly replaced them with a valid gift card.

It might be worth a try?

djb215

Gift Vouchers are effectively purchased credit notes, and as far as I am aware the issuer (the retailer) can set as long/little expirey date as they like - sorry can't be of much further help!

The_Pedant

There was an article about this on the Guardian's pages. As one might expect, under existing consumer law there may well be some protection, as the onus would be on the retailer to make it clear there is an expiry date at point of sale.

Here's the link to the article:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/apr/29/consumernews.moneysupplement

Tokens are probably more clear cut than the gift cards though which tend to come with the terms & conditions on a backing card that is conveniently discarded without reading.

I thought myself there was a case some years back that resulted in a ruling that stated that expiry dates were not allowable on the old gift tokens. I haven't been able to find anything though.

alan.s_4

To me, I'd call it stealing. I found a WH Smith Book Card with a 2 year limit and the balance was 0.00 which means that someone else's balance has increased by the same amount as my original credit.

The_Pedant

I was also under the impression that case law had deemed expiry dates on *tokens/vouchers* to be unenforceable. This was however about 10 years ago or more and I too have been unable to dig out the cases (I remember as at the time I had a gift token with an expired date). I'm sure it had something to do with money being exchanged for a direct equivalent that was therefore deemed to have equivalent standing. It might well have also been down to a failure to inform about the expiry date.

It's probably why the legal bods then pushed for a switch to cards and all their associated small print.

dmg24

This is another example of why old threads should be locked!

gordikin

dmg24 wrote: »

This is another example of why old threads should be locked!

I agree dmg24...but after how long? 12 months has been suggested...and that would not have 'helped' here!

KeithP

HeHe.

Good to see The Pedant agreeing with and supporting a poster of ten months ago...

Oh wait... that poster was also... The Pedant.