Voucher redeemed and refund refused, please help!

MamaJ27

I'm hoping someone can offer advice on how to deal with a Groupon merchant that I believe redeemed my voucher unfairly and is now refusing to refund me.

On the 26th September I emailed the Merchant in question mentioning that I had seen the Groupon offer and asked whether they had available appointments on Friday afternoon, the 28th. I was asking as I wanted to check if appointments were available before I purchased the voucher and I explicitly said this in one of my emails:

"I haven't actually purchased the voucher yet as I wanted to check whether or not you could fit us in around then on Friday! Please could you let me know what appointment times you have available? "

Despite emailing back and forth on the 26th and 27th I could not get an answer to the question about Friday afternoon appointments and was instead asked to send the voucher details. As a result, I purchased the voucher and sent the details in the hope I would then get a 'yes' or a 'no'. I also sent an email on the 27th explicitly stating my intentions if the Friday afternoon appointments weren't available:

"Please let me know if I can book this voucher for 1:30pm or 2pm tomorrow. If not I will have to cancel the voucher and get a refund"

I finally dropped by the salon on the 27th to ask someone in person if they had any appointments on Friday afternoon and found out that they didn't. I said not to worry and that I would cancel the voucher with Groupon. However, upon returning to my Groupon account I could see that the voucher had been redeemed on the 27th.

I never confirmed an appointment. All I did was enquire about availability and made it really clear that I didn't want to use the voucher unless Friday afternoon was available. The only reason I purchased the voucher at all was because I couldn't get an answer to my questions about availability, and was instead asked to send voucher details. The merchant is claiming that because I sent the voucher details and was offered an appointment the voucher was redeemed.

I found the following in the Groupon 'Merchant Terms & Conditions' - "Merchant agrees that so long as an appointment or reservation is made to redeem a Voucher, or purchaser has made an attempt to make an appointment, before the Voucher’s Promotional Value Expiration Date, the Voucher will be honored for the Full Offer Value without restriction, even though the services may be provided after the Promotional Value Expiration Date."

However, on the voucher 'How to Use' section it states 'Appointment Necessary', so shouldn't the salon confirm an appointment before redeeming the voucher?

There was no information anywhere on the voucher that warned the consumer that if they contacted the salon to even just ask about availability that the voucher would be redeemed. I feel that the salon have acted unfairly here, particularly as they knew I didn't want to purchase the voucher without first knowing the Friday appointment was available. I felt they weren't going to give me any information until I purchased the voucher.

Any help with this would be much appreciated as I'm not sure where to start!