HMV Not Accepting Vouchers - Surely This Is Fraud

keyser666

I do have issues with them refusing vouchers yesterday teat-time until close though considering they werent in administration until this morning, that I thought was wrong, not sure if it is lawful either??

HannaM

Naf wrote: »

"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"

But it wasnt unlikely though was it. My point is that companies should not be allowed to sell a product that its quite likely they will be unable to honour. Gift Cards dont carry just a 30 day limit and if as it turns out they are unlikely to be able to honour the promise of payment on the gift card they shouldnt be allowed to sell them.

moistlettuce

Back to the original question, is this fraud? Quite simply and unfortunately for your case, no it isn't.

Although I like to see a silver lining in everything, treat it as an expensive lesson, that in time will more than likely actually save you money.

If that lesson isn't entirely obvious to you, it's that gift cards offer no protection and are technically worth less than the cash paid for them as often you can shop around and find the same product cheaper.

Shelldean

you may find they accept them again in a while, didn't this happen with comet?
Comet stopped accepting vouchers then there was a brief window where they accepted them. Or am I wrong??


My son wanted HMV vouchers for xmas so I duly called the rellies and relayed this info, then I got wind that they may be going under so called everyone again and said NO dont do it.

Most sent cash instead, but one aunt got him love to shop vouchers which could be used in HMV or many other shops. Seems to be a solution

mommacrab

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?

You will not be able to get a refund from WHSmiths. They sell 3rd party gift cards but overnight that money is transferred to the other company, in this case HMV. WHSmiths do not have your money, HMV do.

OlliesDad

As others have advised, it is not fraud. Although there are quite a few people popping up on Ebay selling theres.. the worrying thing is that there are buyers too!

ValHaller

cracklepop wrote: »

It's not fraud.

There is a very shallow slope rather than a cliff edge in this kind of thing being fraud. As things move closer to the time when the administrators are called in it becomes more and more likely to be fraud. But I think that it actually requires something like someone at a senior level to actively demand that staff push voucher sales within the last few days while all the time knowing that the administrators would be taking over for it to be fraud.

Naf

Another perspective;
FSCS aside, would you deposit your money with a bank that you didn't believe would be able to stay solvent?
And would you expect a bank in trouble to stop taking deposits; making the problem worse and more likely to end in disaster?
At the end of the day, from a business perspective the writing was not on the wall, and sufficient revenue could have allowed them too carry on trading (if this were not the case, the administrators would have been brought in sooner). As someone else pointed out, without revenue from gift cards they would have been in much more trouble sooner with little chance of recovery. At least selling the gift cards they retained some chance to keep trading.

k3lvc

mommacrab wrote: »

You will not be able to get a refund from WHSmiths. They sell 3rd party gift cards but overnight that money is transferred to the other company, in this case HMV. WHSmiths do not have your money, HMV do.

But that doesn't automatically release WHS from their rights as the retailer. I'm not sure re the answer to this one so it'll be interesting to see how anyone in this situation gets on

miduck

HannaM wrote: »

But it wasnt unlikely though was it. My point is that companies should not be allowed to sell a product that its quite likely they will be unable to honour. Gift Cards dont carry just a 30 day limit and if as it turns out they are unlikely to be able to honour the promise of payment on the gift card they shouldnt be allowed to sell them.

How do you measure "quite likely"? Retail profits vary from month to month, are you suggesting that retailers pull certain products depending on how their last month has been, but then maybe put them back on sale the next month? If so, we can only be thankful you are not in business - it is a recipe for killing consumer confidence and therefore killing businesses.