Argos Gift Card Expiry

[menara]

 

Hello there, we have bought Argos e-gift cards (worth of £350 around) and we saved them for a reason to buy a nice gadget for children. Unfortunately, we have not checked the dates and those cards are expired now. Spoken to Argos customer services and they are not helpful.

 

How do I escalate this issue and get the value of cards back. 

 

Let me know should you need more details. thank you 

[BankFodder]

I'm afraid that it's highly likely that if the gift cards were sold with an expiry date – then they may be very little you can do. Post up a link to their gift card system and we can have a look.

However you have probably better know that all of these gift cards and vouchers and tokens et cetera which one buys from places like Amazon, Argos – et cetera – are predicated in part on the fact that a certain percentage of people will lose them or not use them and so it becomes money in the bank for the retailer. It's a practice that is really unfair and it should be outlawed.

[menara]

Thanks for your swift response.

 

Just to provide further information I have purchased these e-gift cards from completesavings.co.uk and not from Argos directly. 

[BankFodder]

Still will you please post up the links – to the place that you bought them from and also the terms and conditions relating to the gift card please.

Secondly, how much trouble you prepared to make about this. I can imagine that Argos have this often and as I say they depend on profits generated by and used gift cards which is disgracefully unfair. I expect they would be prepared to put their heels in – would you be prepared to bring a small claim in the County Court?

[menara]

Thanks for your swift response.

 

Just to provide further information I have purchased these e-gift cards from completesavings.co.uk and not from Argos directly. 

 

here is the link where I bought Gift cards : https://www.completesavings.co.uk/Benefits/GiftCards

Link for T&C : https://www.completesavings.co.uk/terms-and-conditions

 

Thanks for the small claim details, will go through it and come back to you later if I can take this hassle  

[dx100uk]

middle man making money out of you and removing the protection that argos give if you purchase them directly.

 

argos send out reminder emails to tell you that the cards are about to expire, they allow you to renew them so it doesn't expire, but you must act.

using a 3rd party middleman removes that AFAIK.

 

you have a total of 540 days to do a chargeback to your bank.

sadly I expect that boat limit has sailed 

[BankFodder]

What a complicated mess it all is. If you had bought these gift cards directly from Argos then I think there would have been a way to reclaim them even in the event of expiry – although it would have been sporty.

Now it is very difficult to see who your contract is with.

It seems to me that you've gone through a succession of brokers. You've gone through a company called Complete Savings – which I can tell you has a pretty poor reputation around the Internet, particularly for taking £15 per month membership from people with apparently many people thinking that it is simply a £15 fee in respect of a particular item. This has been referred to particularly on the Which? Website.

It turns out that Complete Savings are not a British company at all – they're simply the trading name of a Swiss company Webloyalty International SARL which is comfortably out of the jurisdiction of the British courts

Then Complete Savings (Webloyalty) acting as broker for another outfit – who apparently are a "partner"  SVM Europe Ltd ("SVM") (Company number 06748892), registered office Ibex House, Baker Street, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 8AH but trading from Rotherham are roughly speaking brokering  on behalf of various companies but in fact sell you gift cards redeemable at Argos amongst others.

What you have here is a complicated series of companies which all act as barriers to each other, protecting each other – offering benefits if you fulfil their conditions correctly which basically as far as I can make out means buying something every month so that you are getting some value out of your £15 subscription – – otherwise it is all money in the bank for Webloyalty and their partners – and of course for Argos if you happen to lose the vouchers or allow them to expire. And the problem here is tracking down who exactly your contract is with which may be with SVM who themselves have a website which can scarcely be reached if at all www.svmglobal.com . (I expect they like it that way)

I'm afraid it's all about Piggy in the Middle – and you are Piggy.

If this had been directly from Argos then I would have fancied your chances. I think there are some weaknesses in the terms and conditions although they attempt to prevent people recovering from expired gift certificates – but I think I see a way round it.

However, here, it is so tangled it becomes very difficult and although £350 is certainly a worthwhile chunk of cash, it may not be worth taking any further action on it. If you could get me the terms and conditions that you'd entered into when you actually bought the gift vouchers from SVM then maybe we could come up with an idea.

I'm sorry, it sounds very pessimistic. I'm afraid that a much better way to save your money is to put it in a bank account even at the crappy interest rates they pay nowadays. A savings account with anyone of the bank such as Nationwide would have meant that the money was building up for you. It wouldn't expire. You might get a fraction of a percentage of interest. I'm afraid that by buying E vouchers, E coupons, E certificates, E gifts, all you are doing is giving companies an interest-free loan. There is zero benefit to you