Expired Gift Card - Expiry date versus Valid-thru date

maire c

Hi, looking for some advice please. I was given a 12 month gift card for a specific shopping centre (not in Dublin) in November 2010. It was one of those mastercard type ones and on the face of the card it had the words "valid thru 02-12".

I looked at the card in the run up to October 2011 and once I saw the vaid thru date, I was satisfied with myself that I had a couple extra few months to spend. However I tried to use the remaining balance on the gift card in December 2011 only for the sales assistant to say the card wouldnt work and that I should contact the customer services, which I did.

I have since sent a letter to the provider stating how I found their product to be very misleading by having the text "valid thru 02-12" placed so prominently on the face of the card. They responded with the typical .... the terms and conditions state.....

Expiry date -means a date twelve (12) months from date of purchase of the gift card
and
Expiration of your XXXXXXX card - the value on your gift card exprises twelve months after the date of activiation. After that period, the account will be closed and the fee for closing the account will be equal to the remaining value on the scotch hall mastercard prepaid gift card. This amount will be deducted from the scotch hall mastercard prepaid gift card and will bring the closing balance to zero.

Their letter stated that stage 1 of their consumer complaints procedure is completed and I can, if I want , proceed to stage 2 of the Complaints Procedure (I dont know what that involves). I have since sent a letter declaring my intention to proceed to Stage 2 and have asked for someone to call me and explain what this involves.

I feel very strongly about this and fustrated as I dont know what my options are from a consumer rights point of view.

Can anyone give me any advise on this matter? Has anyone else expierenced this?
Thanks

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Value thru is the same as valid until. So this is valid until the end of Feb 2012.

You mentioned the shopping centre twice in the quoted reply. You may want to remove this as you initially seemed reluctant to give the location.

Fey!

Does that mean that if there was €1,000 left on the card, the fee to close it would be €1,000, but that if the balance was €10, it would cost €10 to close it?

To me "valid thru 02/12" would be the same as valid until February 29th 2012.

The whole lot sounds nuts. I hope that you have some luck getting this sorted.

snubbleste

One4All cards have the same condition - expires 12 months after purchase. However the front of my card has a 2014 expiry date. Go figure

jonosam

''One4All cards have the same condition'' Not anymore.
They had a year expirey but that gone thankfully.