Spurious PayPal/Boots "£10 off a £50 Online spend" Promotion

mywifenow

Anyone else been sent an email from PayPal offering "£10 off a £50 online spend using PayPal" promotion at Boots.com?

A weird one, this: I received said email from PayPal (it addressed me personally by name and the sender's email address was PayPal's usual address, so clearly not a scam/phishing email) and it contained a link to Boots' own website, where the promotional code 'PPDC5' was provided along with further instructions. Shoppers were invited to spend a minimum of £50 online at Boots.com, select PayPal as their method of payment, apply the promotional code at the checkout and a £10 discount would be applied.

I put £50+ worth of items in my basket, put in the promotional code, only to have a message flash up saying that the code was invalid. I rang the Boots Customer Care number (again, found on Boots' own website), where I was given a Customer Care ref number, advised to complete the transaction and call back with the ref number when the goods had arrived, and they would apply the discount retrospectively. My goods arrived today, so I rang the same number again only to be told that Boots didn't have any such promotion running in conjunction with PayPal, but that they WOULD honour my £10 discount.

I have checked and checked again ... the email from PayPal was genuine, the Boot's website was/is genuine, the money I spent went from my PayPal account directly to Boots, and the discount (which Boots have honoured and refunded today) has come straight from Boots, yet they claim no such promotion with PayPal exists!

What's weirder still is that, even though I have forwarded this 'spurious' PayPal email to Boots' Customer Care team, they STILL haven't taken the promotional page down from their website as I write this!!

Anyway, I thought I'd post this as a 'heads up' in case anyone else gets caught in the middle of this confusion, with Boots refusing to honour the discount.

Valli

Which company's site is showing the offer - the Boots site or Paypal site?

antrobus

Valli wrote: »

Which company's site is showing the offer - the Boots site or Paypal site?

Boots it seems.

http://www.boots.com/en/Save-GBP10-when-you-spend-GBP50-or-more-using-PayPal-on-Boots-com_862262/

It looks real enough.

Valli

I couldn't find it! Fair enough then - might be useful to screenshot it if ordering;)

mywifenow

Valli wrote: »

Which company's site is showing the offer - the Boots site or Paypal site?

The offer is 'introduced', if you like, in PayPal's email but the code and further info is given once you click through to Boots' own website ... I tried to include a link to the webpage showing the offer but, being a bit of a MSE forum newbie, they wouldn't allow me to include the link in my post. I just tried again here too, but no joy.

AND THE PAGE IS STILL UP! What are Boots playing at?

mywifenow

antrobus wrote: »

Boots it seems.

<link removed>

It looks real enough.

Yup, that's the page (though, as I'm a newbie forumite, they wouldn't allow me to include the link YOU'VE posted in my reply!)

The Boots' Customer Care team member I talked to mentioned getting a lot of calls from confused and disgruntled customers about this issue, so you'd think they'd have taken the page down by now.