Help with wayfair closing my account with an active balance

Jonboy_1984

I would be tempted to try and  rope in one of the newspaper name and shamers such as Helen Crane or Anna Tims...

Undervalued

alex777777 said:

Yeh, thank you for all your help btw it is much appreciated I think I will have to go down the legal route, I appreciate there are people who scam people with returns - ive worked for a clothing store in my younger days and see how people abused returns, but the fact they have admitted fault on all the items and have just closed my account seems odd - I will look at the legal route and way up the costs

That they can do, they don't have to have a reason to refuse further business from a customer.

The knock on consequence with the gift card is the difficult issue. This is similar to Amazon customers losing access to films etc that they have "purchased" on Prime if Amazon close their account. As far as I know this has not been tested in a high enough court to set a legally binding precedent. I suspect those that make a determined enough fuss about it get their film and Kindle purchases refunded but I have no evidence to back that up.

born_again

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Gavin83 said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I think your legal claim would actually be against Amazon as that is who you have a contract with for the sale of the gift card but for the cost of a stamp sending the letter to Wayfair as a bluff might see a result. 

Would it? I'd have thought they'd have upheld their part of the contract once they supplied the gift card. Once redeemed against the users Wayfair account I'd suggest that forms a new contract and therefore it's those terms that apply.

Regardless though I agree with your suggestion. If I was you OP I'd be sending a letter before action to Wayfair. If that doesn't produce a result then you need to decide what action to take next as I don't think this is a clear case. As others have said their terms almost certainly allow them to do this so your argument would be whether those terms were unfair.

I suspect in reality you'd get a default judgement as they wouldn't bother to turn up but that's a risk for you to consider.

I'm not really sure, I do see it the way you mentioned but also see it in the way that the gift voucher didn't conform to the contract as the customer was unable to spend it due to unfair terms imposed (should that be deemed the case). 

If I was the OP I wouldn't like to invest the cost and time in small claims without knowing the exact legal position they stand in. The terms aspect and stance of Wayfair may be up for debate during the process and go either way but if the OP inadvertently claims against the wrong party they are just going lose more money, it's a very tricky situation I wouldn't want to be in.

born_again said:

Even if it was paid for by CC. There is nothing they can do. No chargeback, OP got a gift card as requested. No S75 as D-C link is broken.

All I can see is a Letter before action & court case. 

When you say D-C link is broken is that correct in this instance? If say a gift card couldn't be redeemed I don't think the credit provider is off the hook with S75 by stating a gift card was supplied as that gift card wouldn't have conform to the contract and the credit provider have the same liability as the retailer.

I understand in this instance it has been redeemed but the OP is left unable to spend the money and I think it does raise a question of whether the goods conform to contract. I'm not saying I know the answer to that question but I think it's one the OP needs answered, probably professionally, in order to get somewhere with this. 

Other option is contact a newspaper and see if they run it, often companies will resolve the matter with a sorry to avoid any bad PR. I don't read the news but I'm sure the Daily Mail has articles of questions put to them where they then contact the company, possibly other papers do something similar. 

Gift card has been redeemed though.
Or we would not have this thread.
It's value is sat with Wayfair & it is them that will not refund for some reason.

So any court case would be with Wayfair to get the £250 back.

tightauldgit

is the gift card balance transferable? As someone else suggested it might be easier to just use a different account and delivery address to spend it? 

I suspect as unreasonable as it seems that you might just be caught in a bit of a trap legally on this one. 

1. Wayfair probably have the right to stop you ordering from them and close your account for whatever reason they see fit.

2. They've probably complied with all the T&Cs on the gift card. 

The fact you are getting standard cut and paste responses from CS suggests that you aren't going to get anywhere with them. So the only other way forward is probably to escalate to senior management or get some publicity around it via social media/press coverage. 

born_again

tightauldgit said:

The fact you are getting standard cut and paste responses from CS suggests that you aren't going to get anywhere with them. So the only other way forward is probably to escalate to senior management or get some publicity around it via social media/press coverage. 

I suggest you look at the post by OP 16 February at 11:31AM

They have already gone to the top. 👍

tightauldgit

born_again said:

tightauldgit said:

The fact you are getting standard cut and paste responses from CS suggests that you aren't going to get anywhere with them. So the only other way forward is probably to escalate to senior management or get some publicity around it via social media/press coverage. 

I suggest you look at the post by OP 16 February at 11:31AM

They have already gone to the top. 👍

No, they appear to have just gone to another part of CS with a fancy name unless I'm misunderstanding.  

Manxman_in_exile

alex777777 said:

The issue seems to be with the refunds not gift card as I had already used the gift card and then that amount was then refunded:...

@alex777777 -  sorry, but what does the bit I've highlighted in bold mean?

You originally said you'd had three issues with items received from Wayfair and you had had to return them for refunds.  You then seemed to say that you had separately bought a Wayfair gift card in what seemed to be a later transaction after you had had the refunds.

But are you now saying that you actually used the gift card in question to buy the three items that you had to get refunded?

And if you did, how exactly did Wayfair refund you?

====================================================

But, putting the above questions to one side for the moment, if you've legitimately bought a gift voucher or gift card for use at Wayfair to the value of £250, then I don't see how they can just prevent you from spending it.  They should either let you spend it, or they should refund you if they no longer want to do business with you

But if you bought a fake or counterfeit Wayfair card from Amazon, I think your argument is with Amazon and not Wayfair.  

I'm afraid part of the problem is that I don't find your narrative as to exactly what happened very clear.  Particularly what you mean when you say you "used the gift card and then that amount was then refunded."

Also, if I understand correctly, you bought the gift card from Amazon using an Amazon gift card?  That sounds to me like it will complicate matters, but I'm not sure how...

Manxman_in_exile

tightauldgit said:

... I suspect as unreasonable as it seems that you might just be caught in a bit of a trap legally on this one...

... 2. They've probably complied with all the T&Cs on the gift card...

I know what you mean, but I find it hard to believe that the law would consider fair any term that allowed a trader arbitrarily to take away a balance from a consumer's gift card if the consumer had paid good value for it.  I would have said that any term that allowed a trader to do that was blatantly unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

The fact that Wayfair might be entitled to close the consumer's account for other reasons not connected with the gift card* doesn't mean they can just pinch an existing balance on there that the consumer has already paid good value for.

(As an aside, I often wonder if the law would consider the time limit/expiry date imposed on gift cards etc to be fair).


*In this particular case it's not clear to me if Wayfair might have closed the OP's account because of some question marks over the use of the gift card?

Alderbank

Manxman_in_exile said:

(As an aside, I often wonder if the law would consider the time limit/expiry date imposed on gift cards etc to be fair).

As a starting point you could wonder if the law considers the Limitation Act 1980 to be fair?

HampshireH

Unhelpful post I expect but The terms and conditions Limitations section of Amazon terms and conditions say you can't use a gift card to buy another gift card. (I intended to do this over new year before reading I couldn't).

How did you get around this? 

I've had issues with various purchases at Wayfair in terms of them arriving damaged or incorrect as well as them not honouring cashback and I can appreciate how frustrating their lack of customer service is.