Gift Cards

weemuzzer

Hi, this is my first post so please forgive me if this has been discussed already! (I have had a search and it doesn't appear so..)

I was just wondering what other people's views on gift cards are? I'm only asking because I recently discovered an expired HMV gift card. I was able to re-establish it by sending it to their offices but when I recieved it back (by post), the letter stated that they do not redeem expired gift cards and that they were only doing it as a "gesture of goodwill"

Now, in my opinion (and bearing in mind I haven't researched the legalities of all this), when a gift card is bought, the buyer (or the intended buyer) is pledging their custom towards the company and therefore there shouldn't be an expiry on this! Why is it that the 'old' paper gift tokens were accepted as the equivalent of cash but now gift cards aren't?

Needless to say that once I've spent my HMV gift card, I shan't be requesting any further cards like those.

zulubabe

I agree its a bad thing to do to be honest I don't know why stores do this - you have paid money for it so why take it off you? Its like buying a cd and keeping it in your shelves and hmv asking for it back because you haven't used it within a specified period! What makes me even more angry is their e-vouchers - I only got them yesterday and apparently I only have until April 08 to use them! Amazon last for 2 years (I think!)

saintscouple

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Helix

weemuzzer wrote: »

Why is it that the 'old' paper gift tokens were accepted as the equivalent of cash but now gift cards aren't?

It had already started happening with Paper Vouchers. PC World printed the date they expired onto the vouchers and Music Zone (when they were still around) used to write the date of purchase on them and then I think they were valid for a 1-2 years after that.