MSE News: HMV administration Q&A: gift card, refund and job rights

chatterboxbodil

According to Asda's website if you have bought HMV vouchers from an ASDA store and you have proof of purchase they will exchange your HMV voucher for an ASDA gift voucher until 30th January 2013. I hope this helps someone.

http://your.asda.com/news-and-blogs/bought-a-hmv-gift-card-at-asda-we-can-help

Samba123

highnal wrote: »

I rang Amex this morning to see what they could do about the £150 vouchers I bought from an offer they advertised just before Xmas (20% off!). The nice person on the other end said they already had a number of calls on the issue this morning and they were in the process of deciding how to deal with it. They will either ring me back this afternoon or tomorrow morning with more information.

Will report back when I hear from them.

Please do - I'm in exactly the same boat having bought £200 of evouchers from the same deal so hoping Amex will do something.

roonaldo

I know it sucks,but people need to understand what going into Administration means.

KevPip

Interesting that HMV suddenly woke up in January and thought we are in financial problems. Although legally they are not in the wrong I do question whether that is true - They traded in December taking peoples money on gift cards knowing that financially they were in trouble - As somebody said they were even giving re-funds on gift cards
This can't be right

Flying_yardarm

Two of my customers went into administration last year. The administrators appear to have no controls on them. On both we saw charges by the administrator of up to £500 per hour for some individuals. What hope is there for consumers that there will be anything left?

Caddyman

Sadly, this is the problem with Companies in financial difficulties. They often can't or won't give people a 'heads up' that they are in trouble because of the potential further damage it might do to their trading figures or for their shareholders. Even if they had suspended the selling of vouchers in December, it would have shown everyone that they were in trouble and they wouldn't have been able to just shrug it off with Christmas sales being a crucial time for them. On the other hand, it might have helped if they did, if only to allow people to go into their stores, spend the vouchers they had and thus generate sales, although technically I suppose, the Company has already had the money, in some cases months before, so maybe it wouldn't have helped. I'm still not entirely sure why people insist on buying vouchers in the first place. I know we've all done it, but even so soon after Comet collapsed and the fact that most savvy people know that the High Street (along with everyone else) are struggling in this economic climate, why would anyone go into any retail outlet and buy vouchers for goodness sakes!

I can see the frustration of all of those people who have bought gift vouchers which are now effectively worthless. The Company hasn't stolen anyone's money though. They sold them in good faith and as has been told umpteen times, once the Administrators are brought in, the Company ceases to exist in its previous form, so the vouchers become null and void unless the Administrator deems otherwise. The simple answer to avoid the loss of money is not to buy vouchers in the first instance. Without ringfencing voucher sales money, this form of product selling is deeply flawed.

I've signed the e-petition started by dship. It would be nice if this e-petition was given some national advertisement to force retailers to wake up and realise that this form of product sale is no longer in the consumer interest.

Li0nhead

First of all a warning:

DO NOT DO THIS

But according to the Irish Independent a Dublin Grandfather walked out with items after staff refused to take his vouchers:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/grandad-walks-out-of-hmv-with-computer-games-after-staff-refuse-to-accept-gift-voucher-3354747.html

Krycek2018

Hi just looking to see if anyone can help me. My wife works for HMV and she's five months pregnant, obviously a scary time for all members of staff but even more so for us.

I've had a look at various websites to see what her legal rights are if she's on her maternity leave and HMV goes bust, and it seems to be a bit of a grey area, some websites say she will still be entitled to statuatory maternity pay from the government, as long as she was on maternity leave when either made redundant or the company goes bust. Where as some websites say her entitlement to her SMP ends as soon as her employment does.

If anyone can shed anymore light on the matter it'd be very much appreciated.

The other issue is she hadn't put in to start her maternity leave until the middle of April, but she can potentially take it I believe up to 15 weeks before the estimated due date, which would be the 28th January, is it worth her while trying to start her maternity leave as soon as she possibly can to protect future SMP?

Thanks again for any assistance.

bestyman

Li0nhead wrote: »

First of all a warning:

DO NOT DO THIS

But according to the Irish Independent a Dublin Grandfather walked out with items after staff refused to take his vouchers:

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/grandad-walks-out-of-hmv-with-computer-games-after-staff-refuse-to-accept-gift-voucher-3354747.html

Good on him. I would do the same if I had a voucher. I would leave the vouchers and my name and address and walk out. I`m not sure what the charge would be?

sproutyrouty

Can you use your HMV Pure Points that are loaded onto the cards?