Topshop Giftcard Expired!

Palm0804

Hi,
I received a giftcard as a Christmas present in Dec 2011 & had been saving it to purchase something special. However, I tried to use it at the weekend & have been told that it has now expired. Having rang the customer services number as advised on the reverse of the card I understand that the card was purchased in Sept 2010 & the remaining balance, of £34, has now been deleted.
I had made a purchase over the summer & at that time enquired as to it’s expiry date (as there's no expiry date on the card) but unfortunately the sales assistant unable to see or retrieve this information & as the sales assistant didn't refer me on I was under the impression that there was no way to do this.
Also, as I had made a purchase, I believed that the card that would remain active for another 24 months as per some other giftcards. Though spoken to customer services, I now understand this is not the case & there is nothing to be done about it. I now feel really cheated & conned! There's no expiry on a £10 note!
I also googled this & an article in the Observer estimates there's '580million languishing in drawers – and many will expire before they can be used'! I now think gift cards are a total waste of money!
But other than contact Topshop directly, what else can I do, is there any regulatory body over this? Any & all recommendations, welcomed!

mattyprice4004

In future note down expiry dates, and use this as a lesson in not using gift cards.

Cash is a much better option.

There is no regulator of gift cards.

bris

There is also no terms and conditions on a £10 note, but you didn't have a tenner, you had a gift card. which has terms and conditions attached.

peachyprice

Ah, the joys of being an innocent 'vicitm' of re-gifting. I blame MSE

Valli

Why don't you write to them, nicely, and point out, nicely, what happened when you last use dthe card and how surprised you are to find that having been used only last summer the balance on the card has been deleted. Add someting along the lines of perhaps, given that you tried to ascertain the expiry date but were unable to they might be so kind as to restore the balance on your card.