Boohoo

noraaa

Hi, I was wondering if you can help with an issue I’ve had with Boohoo refunding me with a gift card rather than cash into my PayPal account?
Will Ty to explain as straightforward as poss:
I had a £25 boohoo gift voucher which I used to partly pay for an order of 4 pairs of trousers totalling £58.50. I paid the remaining £33.50 using the PayPal account linked to my debit card.
I kept two pairs of trousers worth £27 in total and returned the other 2 pairs.
I expected the refund of £31.50 to go to my PayPal account as I’d paid more via that method than the cost of the 2 items returned, instead they have issued me the refund as another £25 gift voucher and the surplus £6.50 to my PayPal account.

I think that this is unfair and that Boohoo are, in effect, forcing me to spend more money with their company. The whole point of the order was to use the original gift voucher! Now I have paid out of my own money
fir the trousers that I have kept and still have a gift voucher that I need to spend! I’m annoyed. 

Didn’t get very far with the text message customer service help. 

I received this response:

I got where you coming from as you received the rest of your refund in the form of a new gift card which makes you want to make a complaint to our relevant team. I can hand you them but then you would still be advised the same since you placed the order using a gift card and PayPal. Let me explain further.

For the refund of the order that was placed using a gift card with the other payment method, please check the below info for details.

Under "RETURNING ITEMS PURCHASED WITH AN E-GIFT CARD"

"If you or the person you have nominated to receive and use your Gift Card have purchased items with a Gift Card, but then subsequently returned the items and are entitled to a refund for them in accordance with our general website Terms and Conditions, any money owing by us for the refund will be added to the remaining balance on the Gift Card (for any purchase amount originally taken from your Gift Card), or refunded to the other prescribed payment method used to pay us (for any purchase amount originally taken from another prescribed payment method other than the Gift Card)."

You can see it here:

Sorry for long post! I would understand the refund by gift voucher if the total cost of the goods I kept did not meet the full amount but they do!

Any advice? 

eskbanker

The quoted extract from their terms is ambiguous in saying that refunds will go to the gift card or to another payment method, i.e. it doesn't say whether they or you get to choose which - obviously you'd prefer the right to choose (to your advantage), but the fact that they have done so (to their advantage) doesn't actually seem to breach anything demonstrably, so I don't see that you have anywhere else to complain to.

Are you still within time to return the two pairs you still have, which should be refunded to PayPal, and then repurchase them with the gift card?

Alderbank

It's standard business practice to return the gift vouchers first.

In the old days if you had paid partially with a cheque you would have got the cheque back first. Similarly if you paid partly with Euros or dollars, as many tourists here in Edinburgh do, the foreign currency would be returned first.

If you are an economist you will recognise this as a variant of Gresham's law.

noraaa

Ah well! Lesson learned! Unfortunately both pairs that were kept have been worn so no option to return and repurchase!
Thanks for your replies both! 

Okell

I'm not a fan of gift cards or vouchers.  I don't buy them for myself, I don't give them as gifts to other people, and I certainly do not want to receive them as gifts myself...

The general rule - and it's usually explicitly stated* in the T&Cs of a gift card or voucher - is that if you make a purchase using a combination of gift card/voucher and some other method of payment, then if you subsequently claim a refund, the refund will be credited first against the gift card/voucher before being applied to the other method of payment.

So if you buy goods to the value of £100, using a £40 gift card and putting £60 on your debit card, and you return goods to the value of £70 for a refund, you'll get all the £40 back on the gift card and only £30 back on your debit card.


*What is perhaps surprising is that the T&C extract quoted by the OP does not explicitly state this, but to me it's obvious anyway.  You can't convert gift vouchers into cash by returning unwanted goods...