Warning! Amazon gift vouchers expire with no warning

Fella

My g/f has just checked her Amazon gift voucher balance (which was nearly £600) & it has been reduced to zero.

Last year I added over £1,000 of gift vouchers to the account. At the time, I noticed that these had an expiry date (of about a year) but we thought that must mean how long you get to redeem the vouchers, not to spend them.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side we contacted customer service who assured us there was no expiry once they'd been applied to the account.


Now however, I am filled with horrible misgivings that we were wrongly advised. I am going to be LIVID if Amazon actually steal peoples gift certificate balances in this way. I so hope I'm wrong about this.

Will feedback once we've spoked to CS :mad:

Edit: Just found this link http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=502522

8. Gift certificates and unused portions of gift certificates expire one year from the date of issue, where permissible under applicable law.

I simply cannot BELIEVE Amazon have this term. This is plain theft & completely unjustifiable.

Whether they have the term or not, their CS expressly advised us this was not the case so we'll be fighting this.

what a sh*tty start to the day.

Edit > Original thread title edited

withabix

Was just about to post the same clause.

Many companies unfortunately have similar terms.

Fella

withabix wrote: »

Was just about to post the same clause.

Many companies unfortunately have similar terms.

I simply cannot see how this is legally defensible. Surely it's theft plain & simple?

MuzzyMoo

Not sure but if the T&C's stated the above when you nought the vouchers then you wouldnt really have a leg to stand on as such.

Sorry.

timberflake

If you still have the email from Amazon saying your vouchers are safe as long as they were applied to the account that may give you some ammo??

stugib

No great answers, but you might find this interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/apr/29/consumernews.moneysupplement

Seems to be for tax reasons AFAICS. Consumer loses out to keep the taxman happy and company accountant's jobs simpler.

Fella

Update on this. It's actually worse than I thought. I've double-checked what my g/f ordered & it only comes to £250. The account originally had over £1,060 of voucher credit (it was built up in dribs & drabs to that amount) which means they've taken over £800 from it.

Because it's been happening gradually as the vouchers "expire" my g/f never realised that her balance of £600 should actually have been over £800.

I should add, in case anyone doesn't realise, that there is literally no way of telling from an Amazon g/c account which vouchers are being used or when the rest of the balance, or parts of the rest of the balance, expire. All you get is a total g/c balance that goes up when you add vouchers & down when you buy things.

libra10

Thanks very much for posting about this. I have £192 gift certificate value with Amazon, rewards from doing surveys and such. I thought once they had been applied to the account they were safe. Better get spending!

helloecho

That's truly awful. It's one thing to have a paper voucher with an expiry date stamped on, but when they are virtual vouchers which have all been purchased at different times, it must be nearly impossible to know when each individual voucher is going to expire, and much less to be able to use a particular voucher for a particular transaction.

After losing £100 of vouchers last Christmas (they must have been picked up and thrown away with the wrapping paper) I'm totally anti-voucher now anyway. They seem a total rip-off. I'd rather get a gift, even if I don't want it - at least it actually has market value and is in no way property of the retailer.

Fella

helloecho wrote: »

That's truly awful. It's one thing to have a paper voucher with an expiry date stamped on, but when they are virtual vouchers which have all been purchased at different times, it must be nearly impossible to know when each individual voucher is going to expire, and much less to be able to use a particular voucher for a particular transaction.

It is completely impossible. You simply get a total g/c balance. I wonder how much money Amazon have been making out of this little scam over the years? Anecdotally, I haven't found a single person (& I know dozens who have Amazon gift vouchers because they give them as rewards where I work) who realised they expired.

I have an update on my g/f's account. After several phone calls & emails they've agreed "as a one-time goodwill gesture" to reinstate £700 of the credit & told to "spend it straightaway because it'll expire again soon". So now the intention is to spend it immediately (Was about to do Xmas shopping anyway) & then chase up the outstanding approx £100 that they haven't refunded.

I'm appalled at Amazon to be honest. Stealing £800 & then giving £700 back as "goodwill" is not acceptable. What about all those other people who have lost money & never even realised / never bothered to chase to get it back.

I'm going to inform Watchdog among others about this. Will be interesting to see if anything gets done.

cheers
Fella

Fella

libra10 wrote: »

Thanks very much for posting about this. I have £192 gift certificate value with Amazon, rewards from doing surveys and such. I thought once they had been applied to the account they were safe. Better get spending!

BTW libra - if you've been collecting vouchers for more than a year then it's worth checking the gc emails to make sure none have expired already (I don't know how closely you track your Amazon balance - but certainly my g/f didn't realise it was being leaked away).

cheers
Fella