B&Q Vouchers

gwaring

I have been a member of B&Q's voucher club for many years buying anything from small packets of screws to power tools and used my club card for all purchases whether in shop or online. Occasionally, I would see people handing in vouchers and when I raised this with the staff they said " I can't help you with that" or something similar.
After probably too many years of not getting any vouchers I decided to raise the issue with B&Q customer support. 
I received the message "Please accept our sincere apologies.

We have escalated your request to the relevant team and they will be in contact with you to assist." Shortly after this I received a new email stating that "I could not receive vouchers because I was opted out of marketing emails and due to the Data protection Act 1998 they were not legally able to send me any club card vouchers. You are now showing fully subscribed to marketing and should continue to receive all the benefits associated with your club card." 

This was followed shortly after by the message "You're now unsubscribed. You'll no longer receive vouchers, digital receipts and marketing emails from us."  and again a few hours later - same message.

Does anyone know if the statement about the DPA is factually correct, ie are the voucher only given to those people who subscribe to marketing junk and are digital receipts linked to my marketing preferences, this is not the case with other companies. WHO IS BREAKING(MISINTERPRATING) the law? 

Also, why am I subscribed and unsubscribed multiple times by B&Q without even logging in?

Confused( with or without the .com)

ForumUser7

gwaring said:

I have been a member of B&Q's voucher club for many years buying anything from small packets of screws to power tools and used my club card for all purchases whether in shop or online. Occasionally, I would see people handing in vouchers and when I raised this with the staff they said " I can't help you with that" or something similar.
After probably too many years of not getting any vouchers I decided to raise the issue with B&Q customer support. 
I received the message "Please accept our sincere apologies.

We have escalated your request to the relevant team and they will be in contact with you to assist." Shortly after this I received a new email stating that "I could not receive vouchers because I was opted out of marketing emails and due to the Data protection Act 1998 they were not legally able to send me any club card vouchers. You are now showing fully subscribed to marketing and should continue to receive all the benefits associated with your club card." 

This was followed shortly after by the message "You're now unsubscribed. You'll no longer receive vouchers, digital receipts and marketing emails from us."  and again a few hours later - same message.

Does anyone know if the statement about the DPA is factually correct, ie are the voucher only given to those people who subscribe to marketing junk and are digital receipts linked to my marketing preferences, this is not the case with other companies. WHO IS BREAKING(MISINTERPRATING) the law? 

Also, why am I subscribed and unsubscribed multiple times by B&Q without even logging in?

Confused( with or without the .com)

I think vouchers are normally promotional, and would therefore be classed as marketing. If you were opted out of marketing, they cannot send you marketing.

This is different to for example a credit voucher provided if you requested an in store voucher to the value of a refund, rather than a refund to your original payment method.

Digital receipts shouldn't be linked to your marketing preferences. This is them providing you with proof of purchase. Are you saying you didn't receive digital receipts? Perhaps they have an option to opt out of digital receipts and you were opted out of this too, but I don't know this for sure. B&Q would hopefully be able to provide more clarification about this, as they will be able to see your account preferences.

With regards to them seeming to unsubscribe you twice within a short period of time without you asking for this, raise this with them and hopefully they can check at their end to see if there is anything that is causing it. Certainly seems odd, so I hope you're able to get to the bottom of it and finally receive some B&Q vouchers. Good luck