Grumble about M & S Oxfam voucher scheme

katejo

Several times I have used the above without any problem. You donate M & S clothes to Oxfam and you get a £5 off voucher to use at M & S as long as you spend at least £35.

The problem arises if you need to exchange or return something. Even if your amount spent is still in excess of the required £35 (eg. you spend £150 on 5 items and return 1 item which costs £30), you lose part of the value of the £5 voucher.

The first time this happened, i lost the full £5. I complained to Customer Services and did get it back. However this is still happening. Today they only wanted to refund me £24 not £25 even tough I was doing a straight exchange of sizes.

Has anyone else had this problem? I think that it should be made clearer on the voucher. My grumble is with M & S not Oxfam.

biscit

katejo wrote: »

Has anyone else had this problem? I think that it should be made clearer on the voucher. My grumble is with M & S not Oxfam.

Not returned anything bought with a voucher, but lost out on vouchers because the things we wanted weren't included (i.e. footwear).

Coopdivi

By the sound of it charity begins at home.

bcl999

Yes, there have been threads about this before and it's not only with the Oxfam voucher. They try to do it with their own conditional spend vouchers (£10 off £100 etc) and the assistants in the stores insist the till can't be wrong! It's the same with returning an entire internet order to store withih the DSR time-limit and them refusing to refund your postage. It's happened to me in both of these ways and I had to complain here to get it sorted out [EMAIL="chairman@marks-and-spencer.com"]chairman@marks-and-spencer.com[/EMAIL]

katejo

Coopdivi wrote: »

By the sound of it charity begins at home.

Not quite sure what you mean by that. I give all sorts of things to charity shops willingly and don't expect anything in return. However if M & S wants to run a scheme like this, they do need to make the rules clearer. As i said, i am not criticising Oxfam and will still give them items.

katejo

bcl999 wrote: »

Yes, there have been threads about this before and it's not only with the Oxfam voucher. They try to do it with their own conditional spend vouchers (£10 off £100 etc) and the assistants in the stores insist the till can't be wrong! It's the same with returning an entire internet order to store withih the DSR time-limit and them refusing to refund your postage. It's happened to me in both of these ways and I had to complain here to get it sorted out [EMAIL="chairman@marks-and-spencer.com"]chairman@marks-and-spencer.com[/EMAIL]

I might try emailing that address. I won on the first occasion by contacting customer Services. I haven't actually lost any money this time but want to know for future reference. I have never used a conditional spend voucher of their own.

liz_vercoe

Martin HELP! For the past two weeks I have been having fruitless exchanges about this. It's happened to loads of people. M&S keep saying
a) the computers says so
b) refunds take into account the voucher.

Of course the refund should take the voucher into account. That's not it.
If I gave M&S £30 plus voucher for a £35 purchase and returned the whole purchase I should only get £30 back.

If I purchased two £17.50 items and returned one of them I should only get back £12.50 because I have invalidated the voucher (and £30 minus £12.50 leaves the £17.50 price of the item kept)

However if the total purchase after refund was and is still over the required £35 they should honour the whole voucher. They can't just pick and choose among the items as to which ones the voucher is set against. (Which is what is happening.)

Unless their small print says "£5 only off the first £35 worth we ring up on your receipt". (It doesn't).

No one at M&S seems to be able to do the maths or see the principle. I was offered "compensation" which I rejected. They should put this right for everyone.

liz_vercoe

On your receipt you'll see a little mark to the right of the items they have set the voucher against. The mark appears until the subtotal exceeds £35 then it stops. If you are unlucky enough to return any of those items they pro-rata the voucher against them.
So when you use a voucher you need to buy single items (or ones you won't change) and buy the others separately.

liz_vercoe

I had an email from customer services today saying we are right! The full £5 should be honoured if, after you return items, there is still more than £35 left on the till receipt. They admitted that customer service at Head Office didn't realise this and the internal communications team will be telling all store managers.
This came from Retail Customer Services
"You are absolutely correct, as long as the minimum spend is more than you return the store should have price corrected the amount being returned. This in turn would have made the voucher redemption against the item you have kept.

I have emailed the internal communications team who is responsible for keeping the stores updated with changed in polices a full communication will go out to store managers to make sure everyone is clear on the correct terms and conditions."

katejo

liz_vercoe wrote: »

I had an email from customer services today saying we are right! The full £5 should be honoured if, after you return items, there is still more than £35 left on the till receipt. They admitted that customer service at Head Office didn't realise this and the internal communications team will be telling all store managers.
This came from Retail Customer Services
"You are absolutely correct, as long as the minimum spend is more than you return the store should have price corrected the amount being returned. This in turn would have made the voucher redemption against the item you have kept.

I have emailed the internal communications team who is responsible for keeping the stores updated with changed in polices a full communication will go out to store managers to make sure everyone is clear on the correct terms and conditions."

I have had this problem again. I wanted to exchange an item for a different size, not return it but still they wanted to deduct about £1 from the exchange value (as I had originally bought 5 items and then wanted to exchange one of them).

Elvisia

I had this problem too, I can't remember what I bought but when I returned half the things I got an insane amount taken off, like £2.43 or something, when I questioned it they said that was what the computer decided to come up with.

In the good old days you'd get a £5 credit voucher. Apparently they changed the rules because people were taking in vouchers then returning the stuff and getting a £5 credit voucher. It's one of those scams that afterwards you think "why didn't I think of that!!".

I would like to add though that I do give a lot of stuff to many charity shops, it's just nice to get something back other than a warm and fuzzy feeling inside!