Old M&S Vouchers not accepted even though no expiry date on them

Alderbank

ChiltonGaines said:

Thank you, everyone, for the advice. I will contact the complaints department armed with some more informed reasoning and see if I can have better luck with them.

As explained above you have no rights in law, however M&S can and often do make goodwill gestures.

Please do come back and tell us how you went on. Thanks.

MyRealNameToo

Alderbank said:

user1977 said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

user1977 said:

I would expect normal laws of prescription to apply here, so the debt expires after six years (in England & Wales, or five in Scotland).

In any event I suspect it would be the original purchaser of the voucher who actually has the rights?

For a simple contract it's 6 years "from the date on which the cause of action accrued" 

Usually on here we are dealing with "faulty" goods which is from the time of delivery but with something like this isn't it from the time they've refused to honour the voucher? 

No, it would be from the last time they acknowledged the debt i.e. when they issued the voucher. 

It's exactly what @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said - 6 years from when the contract is breached.

The purchaser entered into a contract with M&S that at some future date they would redeem the vouchers for £400 of goods.
The contract was not breached until the bearer presented the vouchers and M&S refused to redeem them. The purchaser now has 6 years (in England & Wales) from the date of that breach to pursue a claim.

All the purchaser of the vouchers needs to make a claim is proof of the date of purchase of the vouchers and a copy of the contract terms and conditions which applied on that day.
If the T&Cs from that date say the vouchers must be redeemed within 10 years for instance, there is no claim unless the purchaser successfully argues that is an unfair contract term (it might be).

Note that any claim would not be under the Consumer Rights Act because the CRA did not exist in 2011.
It could be under whatever version of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 was current (it was revised quite often) or simply a breach of contract law.

I'd argue differently, presumably they posted a notice stating "we will stop accepting gift voucher without an expiry date on 1/1/17" then the breach actually occurred on 1/1/17 when they made them all invalid. 

You could try to argue the date of knowing and therefore 3 years from that date but that will really depend on how widely advertised it was for the OP to confirm they didnt know rather than they did know at the time but has since forgotten as they presumably had already forgotten about the vouchers. 

The plus side, it seems as if it was really recent and therefore there could be an argument that its within the law of limitations even if you accept its when they stopped accepting them rather than then when the OP found out they couldn't spend them. 

According to the press a few months ago M&S were allowing paper vouchers to be exchanged for new digital vouchers and gave a few months notice. 

BargainSpotter

I am in a similar situation, although my vouchers are to the value of £30.  I only knew about M&S not accepting the old paper vouchers when looking for something else - I think it was actually on the MSE website.  I read that the older, undated, paper vouchers could be exchanged at customer service desks in store.  I went to our nearest M&S last week & spoke to a member of staff there.  He was aware that they were no longer accepting the older vouchers but said he would see if they would go through the till.  As I also had one £1 voucher, he used this in payment for an item.  It came up on the till that vouchers were no longer accepted but he gave me a £1 coin & said he would try to find out next time I was in store.  I don't often shop at M&S - or use their website - so was unaware of this with regards to the vouchers.  I did use their contact form online to ask a while back (I can't remember the exact date) but never received a reply.  Today, I have rung up & have basically been fobbed off by customer services & someone else when I said I wanted to escalate the matter.  I'm just contemplating my next step as I really do not think it's good enough to just basically say "I'm sorry but you've missed the deadline so tough luck."

Alderbank

BargainSpotter said:

I am in a similar situation, although my vouchers are to the value of £30.  I only knew about M&S not accepting the old paper vouchers when looking for something else - I think it was actually on the MSE website.  I read that the older, undated, paper vouchers could be exchanged at customer service desks in store.  I went to our nearest M&S last week & spoke to a member of staff there.  He was aware that they were no longer accepting the older vouchers but said he would see if they would go through the till.  As I also had one £1 voucher, he used this in payment for an item.  It came up on the till that vouchers were no longer accepted but he gave me a £1 coin & said he would try to find out next time I was in store.  I don't often shop at M&S - or use their website - so was unaware of this with regards to the vouchers.  I did use their contact form online to ask a while back (I can't remember the exact date) but never received a reply.  Today, I have rung up & have basically been fobbed off by customer services & someone else when I said I wanted to escalate the matter.  I'm just contemplating my next step as I really do not think it's good enough to just basically say "I'm sorry but you've missed the deadline so tough luck."

As above with @ChiltonGaines, what is the date when you purchased those vouchers and what were the terms & conditions in force on that date?

You need evidence of both of those before contemplating your next step. If you post them here we can probably help you to decide what your next step should be.

BargainSpotter

Alderbank said:

BargainSpotter said:

I am in a similar situation, although my vouchers are to the value of £30.  I only knew about M&S not accepting the old paper vouchers when looking for something else - I think it was actually on the MSE website.  I read that the older, undated, paper vouchers could be exchanged at customer service desks in store.  I went to our nearest M&S last week & spoke to a member of staff there.  He was aware that they were no longer accepting the older vouchers but said he would see if they would go through the till.  As I also had one £1 voucher, he used this in payment for an item.  It came up on the till that vouchers were no longer accepted but he gave me a £1 coin & said he would try to find out next time I was in store.  I don't often shop at M&S - or use their website - so was unaware of this with regards to the vouchers.  I did use their contact form online to ask a while back (I can't remember the exact date) but never received a reply.  Today, I have rung up & have basically been fobbed off by customer services & someone else when I said I wanted to escalate the matter.  I'm just contemplating my next step as I really do not think it's good enough to just basically say "I'm sorry but you've missed the deadline so tough luck."

As above with @ChiltonGaines, what is the date when you purchased those vouchers and what were the terms & conditions in force on that date?

You need evidence of both of those before contemplating your next step. If you post them here we can probably help you to decide what your next step should be.

Unfortunately, I don't know when the vouchers were purchased - all I know is that I have had them for some time, so I no longer have any form of receipt for them.  It's annoying as if they did have a time limit on them, I would've made sure to use them.  It doesn't seem right that because I never saw any notification in an M&S store or went on their website it's my own fault for not being aware they were going to be made invalid.