M&S made blunder with gift cards
In October of last year retail giant Marks & Spencer introduced a new system to replace their gift vouchers. The new system was in the form of a gift card, similar to a credit card, which was pre-loaded with a specified amount of credit to be used in-store. As with the gift vouchers used previously customers could select the amount that they wanted to purchase, such as £10 or £20, and this could then be used to spend or give as a gift for someone else to spend.
When the purchase of the card was made many customers were given a receipt and a greetings card, but no actual plastic card was given. When consumers queried this they were told that the receipt was all that was needed and an actual plastic card was not necessary. However, when the recipients of the vouchers tried to make purchases with the receipts they were told that they needed the plastic card and the receipt along was useless.
One consumer expressed her outrage at the situation. She said she had purchased a gift card for her granddaughter and was given only the receipt, which she queried. She was then told that the receipt was all that was required. She stated: ‘They definitely didn’t give me a plastic card. They always used to give you vouchers with the amount printed on it. I was surprised when they just gave me a piece of paper so I asked about it. I was told that’s all I needed and that it didn’t need to be spent all at once."
She added: ‘After Christmas, I asked my grandchildren what they bought with it and they said it was no use. They thought it was me forgetting to put in the plastic card. But I was so insistent when I bought it about checking that the receipt was all I needed that I know I didn’t get a plastic card too. When the store rejected it, my grandchildren threw it away. It’s all very disappointing.’