Account credit - slightly unusual case

Thomask

So, a little unusual one for you.

I have (had) an account with ASOS. Since making my first couple of orders, I had numerous issues relating to Customer Service, quality of the products, missing credits etc.

After finally being taken seriously (first email below) ASOS admitted fault and went about fixing this.

After my response to them (second email) I receive a notice of closure of my account (third email).

As I had an existing credit of £86, surely they are legally required to reimburse this amount if they have decided to close my account?

Thomask

Hello Thomas,

My name is X and I also work on our Customer Experience team here at ASOS, and I’m very keen to help you further with your outstanding concerns.

Having read through the entirety of your correspondence with us, since your first contact with us last year, I am confident that I have gained a full understanding of your history with our Customer Care department.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything that I may have overlooked, but I hope that I will be able to draw this to a close for you.

I can see at times that you have discussed your concerns with several members of staff from higher management. Going forward, I would like you to feel that your queries can be adequately addressed by either myself, or my team. I have ensured that any member of staff who responds to this query, has been briefed fully, and I would like to apologise for any previous oversight on our part.

From your last contact with us, I understand that you are querying the vouchers that have been, or are still available to you on your account.

Below, I have listed the Gift Vouchers under the account of X, and their current statuses:

£110.00
Created on the 28th August 2014
Redeemed on the 1st January 2015

• Used on order XXX

£28.00
Expired on the 28th August 2015

• Created from the return of order XXX

£1.00
Expired on the 28th August 2015

• Also created from the return of order XXX & used on order XXX.
Order XXX was subsequently also refunded.

£12.00
Redeemed on the 23rd April 2015

• Used on order XXX

£32.00
Expired on the 23rd April 2015

• Created following the refund of order XXX

£10.00
Redeemable

• Created for you as a gesture of goodwill, by our Customer Care team, in May 2015.

All of the above mentioned expired vouchers, have done so a calendar year after they were issued.

At the time of issue, it was within our policy for a Gift Voucher to expire a year after they had been created.

We have recently reviewed this policy, and have made the decision, as a company, to extend the vouchers’ validity to two calendar years from purchase.

With this in mind, on this occasion, as a gesture of goodwill, and in recognition of the length of your ongoing query, I have replaced the expired vouchers for you.

This is not within our usual procedure, and in the event that the Gift Vouchers remain unused by the time they next expire, we will not be able to replace these again.

In addition to this, I can see that my colleague X offered you a £25 Gift Voucher on the 7th January this year.
I can see that you later accepted this voucher, but it seems that at the time, this was not created, and for this I apologise.

With the intention of resolving both of the above queries, I have created a Gift Voucher for the value of £86.00, and sent this to your ASOS registered email address (X).
This can take up to 72 hours to arrive in your inbox and it’s always worth checking your junk folder too.

I hope that you now consider all of your concerns to have been addressed, but please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything further that you would like me to look into.

Best wishes,

X

ASOS Customer Care

Thomask

Hi X

Thank you for your email which I appreciate you writing after actually fully investigating the history of my corrospondence. It is nice to see someone using their intelligence for a change rather than firing off templates like blanket emails which leave the customer further aggravated.

Given how many people I've been in contact with why is it only now I'm receiving a tailored and relevant response?

Why has it only come to light when dealing with you that a missing voucher was present? This is particularly concerning.

Judging by the responses others from your company have written to me with, I do not have a lot of faith. Whilst always very polite and consistent with the tone, none of the replies have ever been helpful or contained any substance in order to answer my questions - instead they have been politely constructed almost generic responses. Where is the value in that?
I appreciate these generic like responses allow for the handling of large quantities of email correspondence, however, as someone who use to run a customer contact centre myself, I can assure you this is counter productive as customers will shop with their feet by choosing alternative retailers.

Why hasn't anyone been prepared to use the formula I provided in order to assist me? Had they done, they would have discovered the missing voucher you found. I have no doubt in my mind there are probably additional missing amounts / vouchers.

Regarding the shoes, this issue remains unresolved in which I require your assistance.

As you've discovered, I've had an awful lot of my time and energy wasted in trying to resolve otherwise very simple issues. I would like to know what feedback will be given to those I've dealt with to date. It's also important that they are forwarded a copy of this email. It concerns me that some of the people I dealt with are of senior management level, at least in the customer service arena, yet struggled to assist me.

A customer should always have the right to speak directly with the Customer Service Manager should he or she wish to. I appreciate you have a senior team within Customer Service however in my case despite being in contact with them, I was clearly making no progress. In fact, it is clear there was competence missing to resolve my queries.

Given the huge amount of time and energy I've had wasted, I would like to know what ASOS plans on offering to 'put matters right'?


Regards,

Thomas

Thomask

Hello Thomas,

Thank you for getting back to me,

I'm glad that I was able to address your outstanding concerns about your ongoing query.

Having reviewed your account again, with our senior management teams, and after great consideration, we have made the decision to close your ASOS account.
Due to the number of issues across your account, we feel that this is the best decision for all involved.

This means we’re unable to accept any further orders on this account and any other account opened in the future with your details. If any orders are placed we will have no choice but to cancel them, and no further notification will be sent.
I appreciate you may find this frustrating; however I hope you can understand that this is a business decision, and not one that we will reconsider at any point.

Regrettably, this does also mean that we have also cancelled the Gift Voucher that we replaced for you.

If you have outstanding concerns about the faulty item that was purchased on your client's account, please ask them to contact us directly to resolve.

I appreciate this isn't the answer that you were looking for, but we hope you can understand.

Any future responses, or correspondence received across any of our contact channels, will be closed without response.

Best wishes,

X

tomtontom

Sounds like you've been a difficult customer Thomas. They only extended your vouchers as a goodwill gesture, but you exhausted that goodwill in your antagonistic response. From what I can see these were only ever gift vouchers (now expired) or credits, so there is no reason why they would reimburse you by other means.

Fosterdog

Your response to the first email should have been a simple thank you and ended there.

Instead of accepting an apology and a generous goodwill gesture you antagonised what sounds like the only person left willing to deal with you.

Poppie68

I agree with the other 2, ASOS wouldn't of closed the account unless they were pushed to it, and it seems you pushed them to their limit. They were being generous extending the vouchers and you still weren't happy and threw it back in their face. It seems you have invested a lot of time in complaining but that was your choice, you should of walked away after the first problem occurred. I really don't think your going to see the vouchers again.

Thomask

With all due respect, they caused me a lot of agony and wasted time and energy, hence why the vouchers were issued in the first place.

Regardless, my question is more about the legalities of my credit balance being taken from me?

Poppie68

Thomask wrote: »

With all due respect, they caused me a lot of agony and wasted time and energy, hence why the vouchers were issued in the first place.

Regardless, my question is more about the legalities of my credit balance being taken from me?

Agony? After the initial problem you really should of walked away if you find dealing with these problems this hard. As they have said they have now closed your account and will not be responding to any further correspondence, you should of used the reissued vouchers and closed the account. This was a goodwill gesture which has been withdrawn so I would just put it down to experience... My daughter's use ASOS on a weekly h(sorry edit: Monthly)basis and have done since it was founded any have never had any problems whatsoever....As there are a few similar online retailers maybe it's better you give them a miss, imo walking into a shop is so much more fun.

Fosterdog

Thomask wrote: »

With all due respect, they caused me a lot of agony and wasted time and energy, hence why the vouchers were issued in the first place.

Regardless, my question is more about the legalities of my credit balance being taken from me?

How did you actually accumulate your credit? I've only ever bought from them once and ordered the same item in two sizes, upon returning the unwanted item my card was credited with the full amount for that item. How has yours been given as account credit? Did you use gift vouchers originally? Did you return something outside the returns policy and only been given credit instead of full refund or has it all been given as good will gestures?

If the breakdown in their email is correct then the only balance remaining on your account after previous credit had expired or been spent was £10 from a goodwill gesture. They are now revoking goodwill gestures from you which leaves you with a balance of £0.

There is no credit left on the account for them to owe you.

Latazza

I wouldnt want your business if you are sending back that many items