social choice card

bclampton

Please everybody think twice about buying a social choice card. They are the worst company I have ever dealt with. I was given a card and could not spend it due to lockdown I conacted them asking if they would extend it as other people have I.e.national trust, Malmesbury Gift Card and others, but they have refused to despite the fact that they have had the money, they issued the code and they have not passed the money on as I have never activated the card.
If you want something like this please buy from the actual company I.e W. H. Smith, pizza express etc.
Social choice are diabolical and just keep quoting terms and conditions to you.

Mnoee

You could use it for sainsbury's or just eat?

I've never heard of this company, and gift cards in general are a really silly idea, but a quick browse on their site shows they can be spent on things online. Better to get a takeaway than for it to go to waste. 

Pollycat

Mnoee said:

You could use it for sainsbury's or just eat?

I've never heard of this company, and gift cards in general are a really silly idea, but a quick browse on their site shows they can be spent on things online. Better to get a takeaway than for it to go to waste. 

Sounds like the card has expired and they won't extend the expiry date.

Pete618

I was given a Social Choice Card as a gift in March 2020, just before the first lockdown.  The last thing on my mind was spending a gift card. When I tried to activate it in July 2021 the code had expired. 

I contacted Social Choice to ask for an extension and was told their cards have a 12-month validity period from the date of purchase.  Once activated each of the retailers codes has further 12-24 months validity. 

They said there has been no break in Social Choice's service even during the lockdown period because the Choice cards are redeemed online.  It was only the retailers whose service had been interrupted and the retailers were extending their gift cards.  

However, the Social Choice cards themselves expire after 12 months and get automatically deactivated once the expiry date is passed and cannot be reactivated in anyway, as the Social Choice cards are for online redemption.

They then referred me to their terms and conditions.

So, you have to activate their card within 12 months in order to convert this into an eGiftcard with your chosen retailer and start a new period within which to spend it. If not, it is too late, the social choice card cannot be redeemed.  I think this is important to note.   

I guess they can always point to their T&C's, but their response does not show much willingness to do anything to help.  Not very satisfactory and I wonder how many other people have been caught out during the recent pandemic.     

So, be warned!     

Tokmon

Pete618 said:

I was given a Social Choice Card as a gift in March 2020, just before the first lockdown.  The last thing on my mind was spending a gift card. When I tried to activate it in July 2021 the code had expired. 

I contacted Social Choice to ask for an extension and was told their cards have a 12-month validity period from the date of purchase.  Once activated each of the retailers codes has further 12-24 months validity. 

They said there has been no break in Social Choice's service even during the lockdown period because the Choice cards are redeemed online.  It was only the retailers whose service had been interrupted and the retailers were extending their gift cards.  

However, the Social Choice cards themselves expire after 12 months and get automatically deactivated once the expiry date is passed and cannot be reactivated in anyway, as the Social Choice cards are for online redemption.

They then referred me to their terms and conditions.

So, you have to activate their card within 12 months in order to convert this into an eGiftcard with your chosen retailer and start a new period within which to spend it. If not, it is too late, the social choice card cannot be redeemed.  I think this is important to note.   

I guess they can always point to their T&C's, but their response does not show much willingness to do anything to help.  Not very satisfactory and I wonder how many other people have been caught out during the recent pandemic.     

So, be warned!     

You had it for 16 months and did nothing with it so it's not exactly there problem because that is more than enough time to at least try and use it. You can't really blame them for sticking to their T&C's considering it was still possible to spend the card then entire time you had it.

But the lesson here is that gift cards are lazy and bad presents!. Someone has turned money that can be spent anywhere with no expiry to a card that can only be spent in limited places and expires after a year, what a rubbish present!

mattyprice4004

I was given one in January last year, and used it for a nice takeaway which I had right in the middle of lockdown. 
It sounds more like a case of 'who can I blame that I forgot something' than anything else, I don't live in a big town and there was plenty of places I could have spent it.