Harvey Nichols / Elemis Facial Vouchers won’t be honoured

lincroft1710

Emmasophie said:

I cannot redeem these vouchers, through no fault of my own, as the concession has gone.  I lost my business and job 11 months ago (after effects of Covid on my sector) and I am now a full time carer for 2 family members, living on the £69 per week carers allowance.  I can’t afford to ‘write off’ this type of money as the vouchers were expensive.

I think some companies need to be grateful that they still have jobs, and customers.

This is not the correct way to appraise the situation. As soon as you bought the vouchers you "wrote off the money". I appreciate the difficulty with your financial circumstances, but if you did receive a refund, for several reasons this would be a bonus rather than a "right". 

sheramber

Alderbank said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

It's also still not quite clear as to who the vouchers were bought from.  Elemis, as far as I know, manufacture cosmetics and toiletries that may be used in a facial, however do not actually provide beauty treatments themselves.  That brings us back to either Harvey Nichols or an as yet unnamed third party in terms of who was operating the concession.  Was it Elemis, Harvey Nicks or someone else?  

Their website, https://uk.elemis.com/our-treatments, says:

In Store

Our globally renowned facial treatments offer both expertise touch and ground breaking technology combined with active ingredients to deliver clinically proven transformative results. Our hands on facial treatments performed by our highly trained Elemis Elite Therapists use touch as a powerful diagnostic tool, softening and prepping the skin to receive actives.

They list a 'menu' of six different facial treatments ranging from £109 to £169 each.

OP, I really admire you for caring for two people. Caregiving for one is so demanding, caringfor two even more so. It's really important to look after yourself though and make some 'me' time otherwise everyone loses out in the long term.
These facials are long paid for. Look on them as a little treat and reward for yourself when you feel down. Enjoy them - you of all people deserve them.

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I cannot redeem these vouchers, through no fault of my own, as the concession has gone

Emmasophie

lincroft1710 said:

Emmasophie said:

I cannot redeem these vouchers, through no fault of my own, as the concession has gone.  I lost my business and job 11 months ago (after effects of Covid on my sector) and I am now a full time carer for 2 family members, living on the £69 per week carers allowance.  I can’t afford to ‘write off’ this type of money as the vouchers were expensive.

I think some companies need to be grateful that they still have jobs, and customers.

This is not the correct way to appraise the situation. As soon as you bought the vouchers you "wrote off the money". I appreciate the difficulty with your financial circumstances, but if you did receive a refund, for several reasons this would be a bonus rather than a "right". 

I thought that if I bought the vouchers I was agreeing a contract with Elemis / Harvey Nichols - that in exchange for my money they provide me with a voucher that is a promise to provide a facial treatment i.e. I did not “write off the money”.  The fact that Covid caused facials to pause, and then they removed the only facility for providing this treatment, seems wrong that they gave me no way to redeem these vouchers - they kept my money in exchange for no service, and gave me no way to redeem.  If they had to stop doing facials surely they should refund the ‘promise’ they had made via my vouchers??

Emmasophie

eskbanker said:

born_again said:

>I bought some vouchers in May 2019 for a ‘package’ of Elemis facials, in store in their Harvey Nichols concession.  <

i can't see how this is a HN issue if bought from the Elemis concession. As that is direct from Elemis.

It is a bit unclear whether the wording of that excerpt means that it's the voucher purchase or the redemption that would be in their HN concession, but OP does later confirm that (as far as Elemis were concerned) they were bought from HN:

Emmasophie said:

I explained the situation to a member of staff, that I still had vouchers and was told to contact Elemis direct.
I did contact them and after many months, they advised me that in order to get a refund I would need to go back to Harvey Nichols as they sold them to me.

It does seem ropey for HN to make OP jump through all sorts of hoops to secure a refund, only to refuse at the last minute, but in terms of consumer rights it does seem unlikely that vouchers would be refundable (Ts & Cs are usually explicit about that), so she would seem to be dependent on HN making a goodwill gesture on the basis of concession closure, assuming that there was some sort of prior agreement reached about extending their validity.

That is exactly my point - I have done everything they have asked of me, every step of the way.  I think this has just been an exercise in - “keep giving her something to do” instead of giving customer service, hoping that I will either lose the will and go away, or fail to get something they have asked for.  I have spent hours and months getting everything for them - so I’m fuming now that they have just gone back to their original “no receipt/ no refund” when we had already discussed and decided that  a credit card statement would suffice.

donnac2558

Elemis have a number of salons/spas around the UK/Ireland doing nothing but facial and body treatments.   Then are now owned by L'Occitane.   I do use and have done for many years used Elemis products, even had facials. 

lincroft1710

Emmasophie said:

lincroft1710 said:

Emmasophie said:

I cannot redeem these vouchers, through no fault of my own, as the concession has gone.  I lost my business and job 11 months ago (after effects of Covid on my sector) and I am now a full time carer for 2 family members, living on the £69 per week carers allowance.  I can’t afford to ‘write off’ this type of money as the vouchers were expensive.

I think some companies need to be grateful that they still have jobs, and customers.

This is not the correct way to appraise the situation. As soon as you bought the vouchers you "wrote off the money". I appreciate the difficulty with your financial circumstances, but if you did receive a refund, for several reasons this would be a bonus rather than a "right". 

I thought that if I bought the vouchers I was agreeing a contract with Elemis / Harvey Nichols - that in exchange for my money they provide me with a voucher that is a promise to provide a facial treatment i.e. I did not “write off the money”.  The fact that Covid caused facials to pause, and then they removed the only facility for providing this treatment, seems wrong that they gave me no way to redeem these vouchers - they kept my money in exchange for no service, and gave me no way to redeem.  If they had to stop doing facials surely they should refund the ‘promise’ they had made via my vouchers??

The vouchers expired a long time ago. There are other places where you could receive the treatment not just HN. You bought vouchers so if there was to be any refund by Elemis, it would be new vouchers, not cash as that is what you would be entitled to. HN are within their rights to ask to ask for a receipt as proof of purchase however onerous this may be. 

Emmasophie

donnac2558 said:

Elemis have a number of salons/spas around the UK/Ireland doing nothing but facial and body treatments.   Then are now owned by L'Occitane.   I do use and have done for many years used Elemis products, even had facials. 

I have been a loyal customer of Elemis for around 20 years too, and bought many things on top of the regular facials when I had money.  I didn’t know they were now owned by L’occitane.

Emmasophie

I would agree with the receipt under normal circumstance but the pandemic caused the problem and I did explain to them why I wouldn’t have kept the receipt - I had used three out of five vouchers, and had no reason to think that I would be prevented from using the rest by them removing the concession and not being able to do facials for so long.

If I had an accident that stopped me from using them, I could understand their position, but this was an extraordinary circumstance, and from my early conversations I was told that if I didn’t have the receipt I would need the credit card statement.  I then spent hours on the phone, and a month of waiting for the credit card company to get the statement from archive, only to be told by HN that this was not something they could use after all.  I’m kind of annoyed that they just gave me that as a pointless task to make me go away I suppose, and have now gone back to asking for the receipt which brings us full circle and wasted my time further.

At the end of the day I have paid a large amount for a service they no longer offer.

born_again

Emmasophie said:

At the end of the day I have paid a large amount for a service they no longer offer.

No you paid for vouchers to exchange for a service.

This is the problem with vouchers, they expire, the company that they are for goes bust or move elsewhere. What you bought has been provided. A bit of paper to exchange for what ever.

I get that you did not get what you have paid for due to situations beyond everyone's control. Many retailers extended vouchers to cover this. But just because they no longer have a concession in HN. Is not a reason for a refund. Given the service is provided elsewhere.