Gift card nightmare

Clairebarrett1983

Please help! I have 2 daughters who were given 2 different Smyths toy gift cards for their birthday, one valued £174 and the other £145 we tried to spend on this however they wasn't working, we was advised they could see there was money on each of them however Smyths IT department had put a stop on them. After chasing IT they said it wasn't their issue but a till error and they would have the cards replaced.
I chased Smyths again who then said they could see the money on each card and this was a ongoing issue with their gift cards which their looking into.
Today I recived a email saying they can not do anything at head office and I need to go back to the store where I had the original issue. I done this only to be advised the gift cards are still not scanning for me to spend and without head office authorisation there is nothing they can do!
What are my rights where do I stand? Please help

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Did you tell the shop about the email you had from Head Office?

agrinnall

The problem is that you don't really have any rights, the person who purchased the gift cards is the one that has the rights. If you don't get anywhere with the store or head office you may need to go back to that person and ask them to ask for a refund then give you the money in some other form - cash is nice!

AJXX

I'd question why Smyths are making the OP do all the leg work here? Local store, head office, IT department - who cares, Smyths should be sorting this out for the OP and coming to a resolution, the OP should not be forced to ring round various Smyths places sorting this out himself - sounds like terrible customer service to me and I'd expect someone from Head Office to be doing this sort of fannying about, not the OP.

OP perhaps a formal complaint sent to head office explaining in detail everything which has happened so far - asking why you are being expected to do the legwork? The end result is you have over £300 of Smyths gift cards that you can't use and Smyths on a whole are not being terribly helpful about it.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Before coming to that conclusion I'd like to know how much the OP is linking together their various conversations. If they had an email from head office telling them to go to the store to sort it out, I'd would be surprised if any store manager would simply have turned them away saying they couldn't do anything without head office authorisation. The email is head office authorisation; and if they dispute that, get them to phone head office and have it out with them while you stand there.
If however when they went back they simply tried to use the cards again and spoke only to someone on the tills, this is a more believable outcome.

London50

I cannot understand that if the amount is showing when the card/cards are put to the till why {as it seems from what the OP has stated} either the card/cards or till is faulty why new cards cannot be given that work.
It is not as if the OP cannot show the card/cards do have the credit on it.
Perhaps I am missing something :0(

daytona0

London50 wrote: »

I cannot understand that if the amount is showing when the card/cards are put to the till why {as it seems from what the OP has stated} either the card/cards or till is faulty why new cards cannot be given that work.
It is not as if the OP cannot show the card/cards do have the credit on it.
Perhaps I am missing something :0(

Because there is probably an issue with the scanning of cards, so any new one issued would have the same problem!

London50

daytona0 wrote: »

Because there is probably an issue with the scanning of cards, so any new one issued would have the same problem!

You may be right with that it just IMO seems a shame that if the facts the OP has given are correct and nothing has been left out from the post it is the children through no fault of their own that are being made to suffer.
I am long past that worry as all of ours are adult and for the OP it just seems a case of going round and round and no one taking any responsibility for the problem. Even if credit notes for the store was given IMO it would sort it out as the gift cards were for the company anyway so with a store credit note the store gets the money {they have it already} and the family gets the toys they want.:think:

hollydays

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