HMV Not Accepting Vouchers - Surely This Is Fraud

HannaM

Im sooo angry about this its not true. Surely selling vouchers when you know your in financial trouble is fraud as your selling a product that you know you are unlikely to honour.

Joined the thousands that undoubtedly brought people gift vouchers from HMV for Christmas today.

Im even more annoyed as I vaguely remember hearing something on the news that they were in a bit of trouble before Christmas but sent the oh out to buy vouchers without the penny dropping.

Surely as a consumer the government should be doing something to protect our consumer rights as someone, somewhere must have had a pretty good idea they were going to go under yet they were allowed to continue to take our cash in return for a promise they were NEVER going to honour.

kronenbourg

Bit daft buying them in the 1st place , HMV have been on the brink for months and now they finally have gone into administration

Cue a slew of sob stories like the comet debacle with people having £100s worth of useless vouchers

cracklepop

It's not fraud.

They didn't know they were going into administration when they sold the vouchers. If they do go into administration then it's up the the administators whether or not vouchers are accepted. Sometimes they are, even for a short period of time, as was the case with Comet.

There's a MSE article about vouchers and Comet here which explains it
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/shopping/2012/11/use-comet-gift-vouchers-now-before-it-goes-into-administration

keyser666

kronenbourg wrote: »

Bit daft buying them in the 1st place , HMV have been on the brink for months and now they finally have gone into administration

Cue a slew of sob stories like the comet debacle with people having £100s worth of useless vouchers

I am with you on this one.

cracklepop

kronenbourg wrote: »

Bit daft buying them in the 1st place , HMV have been on the brink for months and now they finally have gone into administration

Cue a slew of sob stories like the comet debacle with people having £100s worth of useless vouchers

Steady on the sympathy!

I wouldn't call them sob stories. It's pretty understandable to be frustrated and annoyed if you have vouchers. Still, I reserve most of my sympathy for the HMV employees today.

Sad news all round.

zenseeker

Why did you think giving gift vouchers was better than just giving the equivalent in cash? You know cash can be used anywhere, right? And if a store goes bust, cash still has a value.

cRuNcHiE

I was given a HMV voucher that was bought from WHSMITHS.

Can i get a refund from WHSMITHS seeing as i have the receipt?

System

cRuNcHiE wrote: »

I was given a HMV voucher that was bought from WHSMITHS.

Can i get a refund from WHSMITHS seeing as i have the receipt?

Probably not

lazer

cRuNcHiE wrote: »

I was given a HMV voucher that was bought from WHSMITHS.

Can i get a refund from WHSMITHS seeing as i have the receipt?

That is an interesting one - try and see - what have you got to lose

Naf

It's not fraud at all; the voucher has been perfectly valid for use since purchase up until now. They don't know when someone is going to use it; don't know when/if they are going to go into administration and don't know if the administrators will accept gift cards even if they do.
So what, exactly, are you expecting companies to do? Should all companies, regardless of their apparent level of solvency (even Apple?) need to spell out the law to you every time you purchase a gift card.
"For legal reasons I need to inform you that in the unlikely event that our company were to enter administration, your voucher may or may not be honoured"
Even saying that means nothing, because it 'may or may not' - nobody knows. It's not the businesses fault that people don't bother learning their rights.

lazer

zenseeker wrote: »

Why did you think giving gift vouchers was better than just giving the equivalent in cash? You know cash can be used anywhere, right? And if a store goes bust, cash still has a value.

I would rather give vouchers than cash - if someone gives me cash - I would probably save it or spend it on normal everyday stuff so it doesn't seem like a present.
Vouchers - I will actually go and spend them and I know everytime I look at the thing I bought that I bought that with a lvoely gift voucher from xxxx.

Cash as a gift is thoughtless - vouchers at least you have actually made the effort to go to the shops and buy something.

If you choose the shop wisely they should be safe enough