M&S policy on giving change when using gift vouchers

fabsaver

I couldn't believe what happened in my local M&S yesterday:mad:

I spent £2.98 and paid with £3 of gift vouchers. I held out my hand for the 2p change but got a shock when the assistant said she was not allowed to give change!!! This seems ridiculous for the sake of 2p. Anything less than £1 has always been given in cash previously. I pointed this out and a superviser was called over. She said this was now company policy and the only way they could give me my change was to load it onto a gift card.
I left the store clutching a gift card loaded with the princely sum of 2p:eek:

Have M&S gone completely mad or are they banking on the fact that people will probably just throw these cards away. Surely it cost them more to produce the card so why not just give me the 2p?

Looks like I'll have to wait for the sales to find anything cheap enough to spend my giftcard on:rotfl:

BusinessStudent

I believe this is the policy at M&S now. You could always top your gift card up and give it to a friend for xmas. I was watching something on television earlier tonight and they were saying that alot of money on giftcards goes unspent because people simply forget about them!

amandada

They certainly used to give cash change up to 99p, then any more change was gift vouchers.
I s'pose the electronic vouchers mean they can do this now though-totally nuts though

Chris25

I must admit I'm not that keen on this type of gift voucher - I can never remember how much is left on it.:rolleyes:

sammyjammy

The same thing happened to me, I was a bit surprised when she handed me a gift card for the 50p, I don't have a problem with it apart from when I next went in I used the 50p giftcard (v embarrassing!) and they then cut it up and threw it in the bin, its such a waste, at least when they were paper vouchers you could pretend they recycled them. I would never load more onto it because I don't give cash/gift vouchers to people but he could have given it back for if I need to use it for voucher change again.Sam

jilmad

sammyjammy wrote: »

The same thing happened to me, I was a bit surprised when she handed me a gift card for the 50p, I don't have a problem with it apart from when I next went in I used the 50p giftcard (v embarrassing!) and they then cut it up and threw it in the bin, its such a waste, at least when they were paper vouchers you could pretend they recycled them. I would never load more onto it because I don't give cash/gift vouchers to people but he could have given it back for if I need to use it for voucher change again.Sam

I work for M&S and we are told to offer the used giftcards back to the customer if they want to top it up in the future. The gift cards can be used as a way of saving.

chipbeck

jilmad wrote: »

I work for M&S and we are told to offer the used giftcards back to the customer if they want to top it up in the future. The gift cards can be used as a way of saving.

That's a great idea. Can you let me know how long these cards are valid for. Also if I put a couple of hundred pounds on one how much will it be worth next Christmas? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

carolineb23

This is interesting because we used £50 g/v to pay for goods totalling £45.xx and were expecting 4 x £1 g/v back along with small change, but were give the total amont in cash. My friend also ended up with almost £10 in change after using vouchers. Looking at our receipt it shows that gift vouchers were given as change, I wouldn't like to be cashing those tills up at the end of the day! If they have a new policy you'd think they would at least ensure the old policy is put into place!

pamperedprincess

I work in M&S, if the customer spends the full amount on the gift card we ask if they want the card back, if they don't want it the card is recycled along with the hangers. As for the change from a gift card - the till automatically takes the amount being spent from the gift card leaving the change on there - the SA doesn't have the option of offering cash as change anymore.

Chocmonster7

I've had the same in Argos so I now have a cardboard Gift Card with £1.11 on it!

neiljc_2

I was in Nottingham M & S last week and asked for gift vouchers, the girl behind the counter started to load onto gift cards, I stopped her and said I asked for gift vouchers.

she said "oh were not doing them anymore, I dont think we have any"

I asked her how long the cards were valid for and like the report last week they expire if you didnt use it after 24 months and as the report pointed out people do forget



their gift vouchers have no expiry, I asked her to look and surprise surprise she did have some gift vouchers in the till

If they have gift vouchers expiry doesnt matter, the only person who benefits from this gift card scam and I believe it is operating like a scam, by introducing highly restrictive conditions to the detriment of customers, are the stores themselves

did nothing for my confidence in the integrity of M & S

Shall we start a new campaign

"Stop the gift card Scam"