Mugged - in broad daylight - at Asda!

TheGardener

So - I decided to buy some holiday euros while the price is good so I ordered up on line and toddled of to Asda with my jar of pennies I save for holiday spends. I tipped the coins into the Coin Star machine and got my little voucher, £48, not bad! - so far so good.
I then realised I'd left my currency order slip at home so I dashed off home and got stuck in the traffic. I decided I'd pick the Euros up in the morning on the way to work.
Next morning I present my coin star voucher at the customer service desk to get the cash and the lady says "I'm sorry, we can't accept that voucher" :eek: So I ask what the problem is and she says "we can only cash them on the same day you get them" So where's my money? and the lady says, "Coin Star keep it"
I jump up and down a bit and she points out that the vouchers says on it (in small print) that they have to be cashed on the same day - is this even legal!

flashg67

Don't know if it's legal, but seems to be the 'norm'

http://www.coinstar.co.uk/faq.aspx

No idea why this needs to be so though - thanks for the warning - sorry you had to lose £48 to warn us! Harsh springs to mind!

Collabora

you could call Coinstar FOC at 0800-328-2274, seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and see what they say

TheGardener

Thanks for the link - it looks like Coin Star blame the stores where their machines are .
I have put in a formal complaint to Asda so I'll just have to hope they take pity on me.

wealdroam

In Coinstar's FAQs (link post#2) it says:

Does the Coinstar cash voucher need to be redeemed for cash the day of the transaction?

Most retail locations require vouchers to be redeemed the same day or within a certain timeframe. Please check with the store before you leave with an un-cashed voucher.

This, to me, is saying that it is up to the store where the machine is sited to decide whether or not the voucher needs to be used on the same day.

In your case OP, I would be pestering Asda about their policy.

TheGardener

Its outrageous! To just keep so much money. If it had been a parent with the kids piggy banks the kids would have been howling the shop down. £48 is a lot of money for me and it took a long time to save. I'm gutted

Collabora

they could argue it states on the voucher the time frame to use the voucher

daytona0

I'm one of the sad gits who reads the small print on pretty much everything.... food, receipts, scratch cards, contracts etc.

I have to say though that I haven't found anything so brutal as what you have described. That is pretty crappy from either coinstar or asda. I'm confident that asda will do something if you kick off (facebook/twitter etc) though because they are a huge company with a strong reputation.

That being said, you really ought to read the small print on things. The sort of information it provides you is pretty astonishing at times. For example, the chicken breast I just took out of the freezer (asda's decent frozen brand) contains 77% chicken and a huge list of extra ingredients.... some of which are not very healthy! Companies are out to screw us over sometimes, and you have to be on the ball to spot it. The fact that they have it in small print basically covers them in a legal sense, and it ultimately boils down to a "better luck next time" scenario for you, unless asda relent.

geerex

I'd ask that this thread is moved to the consumer rights section. A 24 hour redemption window is unnecessarily punitive, I'm not convinced that it would hold up in court as its a restrictive term.

JJG

Those coinstar machines are a ripoff at the best of times. More banks should have the change machines which pay the sum directly into your bank account.

mije1983

geerex wrote: »

I'd ask that this thread is moved to the consumer rights section. A 24 hour redemption window is unnecessarily punitive, I'm not convinced that it would hold up in court as its a restrictive term.

Playing devils advocate here but I assume they would argue that 24 hours is more than enough time to walk from the machine to the customer service desk probably 100 yards away. It's not as if you have to go to another location to redeem it (in fact, you can only redeem it in the store you used the machine in).