Warning re M&S Lingerie £5 discount with £30 spend

chrisann_2

:mad:Bought 3 bras in M&S (£14, £16, £18) and used the £5 discount voucher that requires a £30 spend. Returned the £14 bra and £11.67 was credit to my card. I pointed out that the £5 voucher requires me to spend £30 to receive the £5 discount and I had spend £18 + £16 = £34. They insisted I had only paid £11.67 for the £14 bra!! I refused to leave until they had refunded me the whole £14. The customer services staff kept telling me it was "the computer - it works it out and is never wrong". Please take this into consideration if you are thinking of taking up this M&S offer - the only way around it would be to take all purchases back, claim a refund, and then buy the items you want again with a new discount voucher. Or do what I did and stand your ground and insist in getting the correct refund.

bcl999

Congratulations on your success at getting them to ignore their "never wrong" computer! I've never been able to do it and generally end up making a complaint to HO when this situation arises. (Last time was with a £10 off £100 spend voucher. When I returned something, I had still spent over £100 but they took off a pro-rata amount form the item I returned).

Lala69

chrisann wrote: »

:mad: "the computer - it works it out and is never wrong".

I don't know about their computer never being wrong, I took back some items bought at a discount to M&S' Moorgate store a few months back and the computer insisted on refunding me 0.00p and 0.01p for several items which I'd paid around £50 for! It took 35 minutes standing at the customer services desk (and consequently arriving late for work) with three assistants trying to work out how to give me the correct refund, before I finally came up with a solution for them of refunding three of the items twice without using the receipt, to finally get the correct amount of money recredited to my M&S card! They really do need to address their till systems.

chrisann_2

Here's what M&S said in reply to my email sent to their Customer Services dept:-
"Thank you for taking the time to contact us about our £5 off when you spend £30 on lingerie. I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with the refund you would receive.

When returning products to store for a refund where a voucher has been used, if you are only returning some of the items from the transaction a discount will be applied to the items so the refund you receive will be the amount you paid after the voucher was used."

I've been a loyal M&S customer for many years but their refund policy in this instance is, in my opinion, underhand and dishonest.

Are there any more examples that forum members can share? Has anyone had any experience of going to Trading Standards with cases such as this?

upsadaisy

I suppose it's feasible they can work out the percentage that £5 would have been off your total spend and deduct that. Which off £30 is about 16.7%. Which means you are in the wrong.

LittleVoice

upsadaisy wrote: »

I suppose it's feasible they can work out the percentage that £5 would have been off your total spend and deduct that. Which off £30 is about 16.7%. Which means you are in the wrong.

Not if, even without the returned item, the purchase would have totalled at least £30. If they hadn't bought the returned item, they would still have had £5 deducted!

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

M&S are ridiculous and can't be reasoned with.
Among other incidents a couple of years ago I ordered a dress costing £35 they invoiced me and charged me for this item however sent me a totally different dress that was priced at £89.
I went to my local M&S store to return my order and explained what had happened to the assistant.
When she put the refund through she insisted on refunding me for £89 as she had to go by what price "the computer" said when she scanned the ticket on the dress.
I once again explained what had happened and she called the supervisor who after explaining again quite sharply said they go by the price on the computer.
After I finally tried to explain they would be refunding me over £50 too much the supervisor said that I was returning a dress for £89 so she had to refund me that price.
The mind boggles
I gave up and accepted the free 54 quid and waited to be contacted,they never did.
Is it any wonder these firms lose money.

upsadaisy

LittleVoice wrote: »

Not if, even without the returned item, the purchase would have totalled at least £30. If they hadn't bought the returned item, they would still have had £5 deducted!

Yes even then, as the total was £48 then the op received 10.5% off the total order by using a £5 voucher. So by rights they could refund her money less that percentage. But what is happening is that they are deducting 16.7% because that is how much £5 is of £30. So no you aren't entitled to a full refund, but M&S should be subtracting 10.5% as this is the actual discount for the OP. You wouldn't question it if it were a percentage discount voucher i.e. 10% off purchases over £30.

shirley999

I've had problems when returning items to M&S as well. The answer is to take your custom elsewhere.

chrisann_2

upsadaisy wrote: »

Yes even then, as the total was £48 then the op received 10.5% off the total order by using a £5 voucher. So by rights they could refund her money less that percentage. But what is happening is that they are deducting 16.7% because that is how much £5 is of £30. So no you aren't entitled to a full refund, but M&S should be subtracting 10.5% as this is the actual discount for the OP. You wouldn't question it if it were a percentage discount voucher i.e. 10% off purchases over £30.

I think you might be the only one siding with M&S on this one (perhaps you work for them??). You're correct, I would not have questioned it if it had been a % discount. However in this case the T&Cs clearly state £5 off a spend of £30 or more - not £5 off a spend of £30 or more unless you return something and regardless of your total spend we're going to fleece you!!! If I ever find myself in the same position I'll know to return all the goods and re-purchase the ones I want with another coupon - a waste of time for both me & M&S but if that's the only way to pay the correct price then so be it.

upsadaisy

I don't work for M&S, just because I can understand where the store is coming from.