Refund - Dorothy Perkins

Kelbutterdish

I recently purchased a fair amount of dresses for NYE - a selection to try on for myself and my daughter - I used Klarna as my payment method.
Unfortunately the whole order needed to be returned - on registering the return the system only gave one option to refund to a gift card and not my original payment method.
I contacted Customer Services who stated once the return had been registered on their system there was no way of changing this for the refund to go back to the original payment method. 
So now they have issued a gift card of nearly £200 (of which i will not use) and i have a balance of the same to pay to Klarna.
Can they do this?
TIA

A_Geordie

Kelbutterdish said:

Unfortunately the whole order needed to be returned - on registering the return the system only gave one option to refund to a gift card and not my original payment method.

I suspect this part is unlikely to be the case. Dorothy Perkins is under the same group as Debenhams and there's been a lot of posts blowing up recently with the same issue being raised. It appears that they pre-select the option for a refund by way of gift card instead of the original payment method and people are too quick to skip to the next step, missing out the option to choose a refund back to the original payment method. 

My other half recently returned a number of items via Debenhams and she claims that it can be very deceiving because when she processed her returns, she said that the the option to select a refund back to the original payment method is in much smaller writing underneath payment by gift card such that it could be easily missed.

I have not seen the return process for Dorothy Perkins but it does sound similar to the practices put in place by Debenhams. If you are absolutely adamant that there was no option to refund back to the original payment method, then you may need to sue DP to recover your money. 

Personally, I think these tactics by Boohoo Group  who own these brands are underhand and intended to deceive or mislead customers with the aim of intentionally using manipulative tactics to avoid issuing a refund. Even if you choose to take no further action, I would strongly recommend you make a complaint to the Competition and Markets Authority on the basis that DP are actively using misleading practices to avoid compliance with statutory obligations relating to consumer rights. You can use the link here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tell-the-cma-about-a-competition-or-market-problem

The more people complain, the more the CMA are likely to investigate.

Woodstok2000

This is a long shot, and may not work, but DP do have a formal process for cancelling a gift card and getting a refund back to the original payment method. It's detailed in their T&Cs online here:

https://www.dorothyperkins.com/pages/informational/terms-and-conditions

Obviously this is for direct purchases of gift cards, not credits due to a return, but it is worth a go.

If you're still within 14 days, maybe try this and see. It does show that they definitely CAN process gift card refunds, the question  is whether they will in this case.