Marks & Spencer gift cards - with no credit!

offshore1

M&S have made an horrendous lash up with a batch of gift cards which were depatched without credit on them.

The M&S delivery system also seems to be going crazy. On 15 December I ordered three gift cards with a total value of £140 to be sent to relatives. Delivery was promised by 22 Dec, a later check on the website said they were delayed until 2 January. I complained and received a prompt reply saying sorry and that my account would be credited with £15. In the event the tracking system indicated they they had actually arrived on 24 Dec. An elderly relative made a special trip to use hers on 28 Dec only to be told there was no credit on it. I fired off another complaint to M&S who called this morning asking for the card number. I obtained the details from the disappointed recipient and rang them back - only to be told that a batch of errors had been identified and they did not need the numbers and the affected cards would be switched on pm 30 Dec.

Regarding delivery - the problem clearly lay within M&S - not with the Post Office who got them to doorsteps pretty quickly once M&S had got around to preparing them - a job which they have quite evidently made a mess of.

In contrast a case of wine also ordered on 15 Dec from M&S was delivered without problem well before Christmas to a remote and snowy part of Shropshire.

It would be too much to hope M&S will offer some some compensation to purchasers and unlucky recipients of blank cards.
My relative said she felt humiliated and embarassed. What a wonderful Christmas gift - a gift card with no money on it! I wonder how many cards in total were affected?

ShaneUK

That is awful! I hope they sort it out pretty soon!

Can I ask - do you know if this just affects ones that M&S have posted out, or ones purchased in store as well?

pwa

We had the same problem.

Relative bought 2 gift cards online for us and one of our kids so we could spend in the sale at Christmas - both bought 2nd December.

Gift cards received and posted onto us. Sale started 24th Dec - tried to use both cards and it came back with an error message saying they weren't valid.

Contacted relative and M&S and was eventually told that they weren't on their system as delivered and would be delayed until 2nd Jan before they were credited. They had been delivered and posted onto us and we received them the week before Christmas so that was incorrect!

We put through 2 orders for the sale and were hoping the cards would eventually be credited and M&S would hopefully credit our account given it was their error in the first place.

We kept contacting M&S each day or so to check up on the situation as the cards still had not been credited. We were then told that it was a technical error and that they were working on it and the cards should be credited by Monday 27th.

Still nothing. On Wednesday 30th our relative received an email from M&S to say that the cards had now been despatched!! (funny that they were despatched weeks ago!).
The evening of Wednesday 30th Dec we received the credit on both our gift cards and immediately phoned M&S to see if they could credit one of our orders with the gift card amounts as it was showing as not yet despatched and we were able to change the payment option/card online so assumed if we phoned M&S they'd be able to change it to the gift card as for some reason it wasn't an option online even though we could change the payment card details.

Was given a brush off on the phone saying it wasn't their problem and loads of people had the same issue of the cards not being credited.

We then emailed M&S to complain given we weren't getting anywhere over the phone - we sent the email to two addresses. The first address resulted in a phone call yesterday morning saying that there was nothing they could do and there were at least 1000 other people with the same problem and we just had to put up with it as did they. We complained that we were given the cards for Christmas to use in their sale and we were now out of pocket as we had to pay using our own cards for the amount and not use the gift cards as it took M&S 27 days to credit them. We were told that all we could do was cancel our orders and reorder but they were sales orders so we weren't going to do that given there was nothing left by then anyway. The final option was to take our sales items to the local store when they arrived ask them for a refund and then buy all the stuff back and use the gift cards - but they couldn't guarantee the local store would allow us to do this - and we don't want to have to take everything into town to be told NO at the checkout -it is their error so they should sort it out for us!

The 2nd email resulted in an apology by email and a request for our address details so they could send us something as a goodwill gesture. What that something is we are unsure as yet - but at least we have actually had an apology in writing - though short - and not a complete barrier/nothing we can do attitude from whoever dealt with our first complaint on the phone and who called us back yesterday morning.

It felt like it was us at fault and not M&S. Our relative is clearly embarrassed that a gift has resulted in us now being out of pocket and that we have had to contact M&S constantly since 24th Dec to try and find out what has happened. The customer service on the phones has been terrible. It doesn't take much to apologise at all nor admit that it was their error. 27 days to wait for a paid gift card to be credited is ridiculous!!

We will not be asking for M&S giftcards for presents again given the mess up.

Oh and if you do a google search for a complaint like this you will see on a review on a review website that there is a similar complaint from October this year where the same thing happened!!!??

brightonman123

this isnt a foul up.. its an M&S foul up.. poor show.

offshore1

pwa wrote: »

We had the same problem.

Relative bought 2 gift cards online for us and one of our kids so we could spend in the sale at Christmas - both bought 2nd December.

Gift cards received and posted onto us. Sale started 24th Dec - tried to use both cards and it came back with an error message saying they weren't valid.

Contacted relative and M&S and was eventually told that they weren't on their system as delivered and would be delayed until 2nd Jan before they were credited. They had been delivered and posted onto us and we received them the week before Christmas so that was incorrect!

We put through 2 orders for the sale and were hoping the cards would eventually be credited and M&S would hopefully credit our account given it was their error in the first place.

We kept contacting M&S each day or so to check up on the situation as the cards still had not been credited. We were then told that it was a technical error and that they were working on it and the cards should be credited by Monday 27th.

Still nothing. On Wednesday 30th our relative received an email from M&S to say that the cards had now been despatched!! (funny that they were despatched weeks ago!).
The evening of Wednesday 30th Dec we received the credit on both our gift cards and immediately phoned M&S to see if they could credit one of our orders with the gift card amounts as it was showing as not yet despatched and we were able to change the payment option/card online so assumed if we phoned M&S they'd be able to change it to the gift card as for some reason it wasn't an option online even though we could change the payment card details.

Was given a brush off on the phone saying it wasn't their problem and loads of people had the same issue of the cards not being credited.

We then emailed M&S to complain given we weren't getting anywhere over the phone - we sent the email to two addresses. The first address resulted in a phone call yesterday morning saying that there was nothing they could do and there were at least 1000 other people with the same problem and we just had to put up with it as did they. We complained that we were given the cards for Christmas to use in their sale and we were now out of pocket as we had to pay using our own cards for the amount and not use the gift cards as it took M&S 27 days to credit them. We were told that all we could do was cancel our orders and reorder but they were sales orders so we weren't going to do that given there was nothing left by then anyway. The final option was to take our sales items to the local store when they arrived ask them for a refund and then buy all the stuff back and use the gift cards - but they couldn't guarantee the local store would allow us to do this - and we don't want to have to take everything into town to be told NO at the checkout -it is their error so they should sort it out for us!

The 2nd email resulted in an apology by email and a request for our address details so they could send us something as a goodwill gesture. What that something is we are unsure as yet - but at least we have actually had an apology in writing - though short - and not a complete barrier/nothing we can do attitude from whoever dealt with our first complaint on the phone and who called us back yesterday morning.

It felt like it was us at fault and not M&S. Our relative is clearly embarrassed that a gift has resulted in us now being out of pocket and that we have had to contact M&S constantly since 24th Dec to try and find out what has happened. The customer service on the phones has been terrible. It doesn't take much to apologise at all nor admit that it was their error. 27 days to wait for a paid gift card to be credited is ridiculous!!

We will not be asking for M&S giftcards for presents again given the mess up.

Oh and if you do a google search for a complaint like this you will see on a review on a review website that there is a similar complaint from October this year where the same thing happened!!!??

Didn't think I'd be alone on this one. What is really galling is the complete lack of contrition from M&S. My elderly relative made a special trip to use her card - after Christmas - because of M&S' inability to organise delivery on time - ie taking 8 days to put an envelope in the post - she wasted money on her bus fare etc only to be knocked back in the store and be told her card was worthless as though she was trying to cheat them. No doubt M&S' "holier than thou" image will win the day and they won't make any tangible expression of regret but I will be making a formal written complaint to the head of the company. Only a gesture I appreciate, but this incident has well and truly tarnished the retail halo they love to
wear. These gift cards are interest free loans to the company until such time as they are used so when things go wrong they should make amends.

offshore1

Just received six emails from M&S promising delivery on dates between 3 & 6 January - despite the items being belatedly delivered on 24 Dec Perhaps they're going to send out a new set of cards with the right amount of credit on. I won't hold my breath.................

pwa

You should check the balance of the gift cards as you'll prob find they have money on them now - ours were credited the night that despatched email was sent out! You can check it on their website if you have the card numbers.

pwa

Thought I should update that M&S have sent us a £20 gift card as compensation....the gift card was credited!!