How should shops refund you, when a gift card partly paid for your items?

Planter12

Should a store gift card be applied to the complete order value or divided, in proportion to the cost of each item, and subtracted from the cost of each item?

For example: if I order 10 things for £10, it costs me £100. If I use a £50 gift card, I only pay £50 on my debit card. Should the £50 gift card be applied to the whole £100 order or split 10 ways, meaning £5 comes off the cost of each item? It doesn't matter if I keep everything I ordered, but what if I want to return things? The shop won't refund any of the gift card, just the 'cash' I paid, so it really matters how it allows customers' gift cards to be used.

If I return two items, what should I be refunded?

If the retailer simply deducts the gift card value from the total cost of the order, then any partial refund of the whole order should be of the 'cash' value first. In this instance, I would be refunded £20.

But, if the retailer splits the gift card between each item, then each item was paid for with £5 of the gift card and £5 'cash'. I would only be refunded £10.

I think gift cards should be applied to the overall value, naturally.

LABMAN

It's most usually the gift card that the refund goes to first. i.e. refund is not split proportionally. Check the sellers terms and conditions to see if it's mentioned

boo_star

I'm struggling to see how the shop refunding you via cash first is detrimental.

In fact I'd imagine that almost everyone would want to be refunded like that, rather than being refunded in the form of a gift card.

Fosterdog

In general shops don’t assign any particular payment method to particular items. You are given the total and that is paid without consideration as to how it is divided up.

If you want it divided in a certain way you either need to slit your order and pay separately for each part, so in your example you split your ten items into two orders of five, you then pay for one order all cash and the other all gift card.

Or, and this would be way too much work, split the order into ten individual orders and paying for each item as £5 cash and £5 gift card.

bris

Everything will be refunded to the gift card first otherwise it would be like getting a cash refund for a gift card, never going to happen. If you want to you can return everything then just buy back what you want on the gift card.

boo_star

bris wrote: »

Everything will be refunded to the gift card first otherwise it would be like getting a cash refund for a gift card, never going to happen. If you want to you can return everything then just buy back what you want on the gift card.

The OP said

The shop won't refund any of the gift card, just the 'cash' I paid

So they’re refunding cash first, apparently.

HHarry

Planter12 wrote: »

The shop won't refund any of the gift card, just the 'cash' I paid, so it really matters how it allows customers' gift cards to be used.

I took that to mean that the value of the gift card is 'lost' once used and won't be refunded by the shop. So (potentially) the first £50 of returns gets no refund - if the gift card is assigned as the payment for that portion.
Hence the question about how the card is applied.

OP, which shop are you talking about? You can usually get a refund after paying with a gift card, but it'll be in the form of a credit note.

unholyangel

If they're saying that you returning the order under CCRs or CRA would result in you only being refunded the cash you paid and the gift card would be lost - they're acting illegally.

Shaka_Zulu

OP the shop isn't going to turn your gift card in to cash!

Fosterdog

unholyangel wrote: »

If they're saying that you returning the order under CCRs or CRA would result in you only being refunded the cash you paid and the gift card would be lost - they're acting illegally.

Unless it was a one time use voucher code, gift card has now expired, offer has expired, or a promotional gift card with terms attached. It also depends on whether it was an in store sale as they could have a refund policy stating no gift card purchases will be refunded, or any gift card value will be deducted from a refund. (Excluding claims under statutory rights).

Say it was a gift card with an expiry date of 31/12/2017 and you used it on 30/12/2017 then chose to return it on 1/1/2018, that gift card has expired and there is no law to say the expiration date of a gift card has to be extended, or that you have to be issued with a new gift card. Even if a refund could be forced, it could only be forced to a gift card that expired on 31/12/2017 so it would still be worthless to the customer.

Of course they are extreme examples, and not something I’ve ever actually come across but it wouldn’t necessarily be illegal for them to refund that way based on the above. Hopefully OP will come back and shed a bit more light on the actual situation for us.

unholyangel

Shaka_Zulu wrote: »

OP the shop isn't going to turn your gift card in to cash!

Technically thats exactly what would happen if rejecting under CRA or CCRs and the retailer was unable/unwilling to return the gift card that was used to purchase the items.