Wowcher voucher code did not work

rama0927

I'll try to keep this short, and not include too much unnecessary detail!

Step 1
I bought a Wowcher for 2 x Two course meal and drink and Franke and Benny's for £19.95

Step 2
Armed with the voucher I went to the valid local F&B establishment, and they confirmed they would accept the voucher.

Step 3
The shift manager / supervisor came to accept the voucher at the end of the meal, she had helped me throughout to pick qualifying items. The voucher code would not work correctly on her system, when entering the code it just came up as "FBP Wowcher - £0", yet nothing was deducted off the total bill. I spoke with the manager and asked if she had accepted one before, as maybe it was meant to show like this and that perhaps the line items should just be deleted apart from the FBP Wowcher. She said that she had accepted these vouchers before and that the line items should be entered for their records and the voucher should deduct the total to the correct amount.

Step 4
Due to this I had to pay £37.34 as you will see in the attached receipt!

Follow up
I have followed it up with Wowcher support and the case has been going on for over a month now. All they have done in that time is speak to the merchant and agree to refund the £19.95 Wowcher as cash or credit. I declined this, as they neglected to take into account my earlier correspondence where I said I was £37.34 out of pocket, and that I would only accept that from either Wowcher or F&B, or I would alternatively accept £40 in Wowcher credit for me to shop again.

They have been ignoring me, each time I speak to them I need to email them twice, I last wrote to them on the 17th May and today have had to send them a reminder.

Where do I stand? Do you think it is fair that I should pick up the tab? Even though I do not value the F&B meal at £37.34 and only went as I found £19.95 to be good value.

If you have any tips or advice then let me know, otherwise I'll just slog it out and advice the result.

pinkshoes

Are you 100% sure that the food and drink you ordered met the requirements of the voucher?

This might be an issue with the till at F&Bs rather than the Wowcher voucher.

Les79

Seems a bit fishy to me...

In regards to the shift manager you stated that "she had helped me throughout to pick qualifying items"

One must beg the question as to why you went on to pay the bill if that was the case! I personally would have said "hang on a sec, you told me that these qualified so I'm only paying £19.95" - or some nicer iteration of that, at first at least.

Why didn't they simply accept their mistake in this and offer you a manual reduction in the bill? That's what I don't get. Either you gave up pretty easy at the time, or I suspect that they weren't as involved in the picking of qualifying items (though looking at wowcher's site I can't really see what hasn't qualified on your order...).

What official reason have you been given for the voucher not working?

rama0927

I'm 100% sure I picked qualifying items. The Supervisor also knew that I had picked qualifying items, as they were very involved. It is hard not to pick qualifying items, as only obvious things are not included.

I have not been issued any reason as to why it was not accepted.

In the restaurant I did suggest can they manually deduct the items. However I am not sure if you understand Les79, but I had already paid £19.95 to Wowcher for the voucher. So my spend in the restaurant was supposed to be £0. My understanding is the Supervisor would not allow me to go paying £0, with what they thought was a voucher which wasn't working, just incase I had already redeemed it or something.

I'm really struggling here. Very bad service so far. The fault lies either with Wowcher, if the system was not working at the time the merchant processed the code, or was generated in such a way that the merchant could not recognise it. Or the fault lies with the merchant, who did not follow the processing procedures properly.

Korkyb

I'd be complaining to F&B as well. They obviously have some arrangement with Wowcher that hasn't worked & they need to play a part in sorting it out.

rama0927

Thanks for the suggestions. I lodged a case on Resolver on 5th June and I am awaiting response. I will post the outcome to here after some time for any future forum lurkers!