Marks & Spencer - Problems using Gift Card on website

madtrekker

I recently got married :j and we received a number of M&S Giftcards as wedding gifts. In November, I purchased a number of items on the M&S website and used some of the gift cards to pay for the order. The order total was £152 and I had £145 of credit on the giftcards to put towards it (4 different cards - 2 x £50, 1 x £20 and 1 x £25). The remaining balance of the order total (£7.50) was to be paid by credit card.

When my order was despatched, I received the invoice which showed that M&S had taken £80 from my giftcards and billed my credit card for the remaining £72. Well I was furious. I had only expected to have to "pay" £7.50 for the order and at that time of year, could ill afford to have almost £65 billed to my credit card that I wasn't expecting. I bit of investigating (you can check gift card balances online) showed they'd taken £20 off each of the 4 cards, rather than the full balance from each.

I immediately contacted customer services and asked them to take the money from my gift cards and refund my credit card. Somebody took my details and said they'd come back to me. They didn't so I chased again and then a few days later had an answerphone message to say that it was all sorted, a cheque was in the post as a refund as they couldn't refund the credit card direct (surely they have to - it was their error).

Well the cheque arrived - it was only for £30 instead of the £64.50 I was expecting. Again I phoned up and queried it and was told that they could only refund £30 as there was no remaining balance on the giftcards. I checked for myself, both online and instore, and indeed there was (and still are) funds on the cards. I have phoned, emailed and even written a letter to no avail. I have had no further contact from them since the end of November - about a week after the order was delivered.

I am really cross that they did this. I have since had to pay the credit card bill and couldn't really afford to do so when it was so close to Christmas. I know I still have the money on the gift cards so they haven't taken money off me as such but it means I still have to spend them in M&S and I've bought all I wanted to from there. What rattles me most is that their customer service was shocking and that nobody has had the courtesy to reply to repeated emails / calls / letters except to say that the matter is closed - quite clearly it is not.

If you've read through - thanks - and is there any way that I can resolve this with them?