argos problem - dreadful customer service

wolfe

I bought over £100 of argos products in a NI branch on 14th april and recieved the free £10 voucher to be used by 25th may.
my wife went in to buy something today. she handed over the voucher to the cashier. when the girl swiped it she said "this card has been used the same day you got it" my wife said "thats rediculous, if we supposedly used the voucher, how do i still have it"? to which the girl says "i cant explain that".
anyway she calls over the manager and after about 10 mins of discussion they come back asking her what was purchased that day. etc. She didnt have the receipt so they told her she will have to bring back the receipt and they will have to look up cc tv to see if was used by me on the same day.

I am totally angered by the stores attitude. They are basically telling us, the customer, that we are liars when it is quite obvious it is a fault with their system. I am planning to go back to the store before the voucher expires in a few weeks, and would appreciate advise on how i should handle this matter as i am not prepared to be fobbed off a about cctv footage etc and want to redeem my voucher there and then.

IsThatSo?

I bought over £100 of argos products in a NI branch on 14th april and recieved the free £10 voucher to be used by 25th may.
my wife went in to buy something today. she handed over the voucher to the cashier. when the girl swiped it she said "this card has been used the same day you got it" my wife said "thats rediculous, if we supposedly used the voucher, how do i still have it"? to which the girl says "i cant explain that".
anyway she calls over the manager and after about 10 mins of discussion they come back asking her what was purchased that day. etc. She didnt have the receipt so they told her she will have to bring back the receipt and they will have to look up cc tv to see if was used by me on the same day.

I am totally angered by the stores attitude. They are basically telling us, the customer, that we are liars when it is quite obvious it is a fault with their system. I am planning to go back to the store before the voucher expires in a few weeks, and would appreciate advise on how i should handle this matter as i am not prepared to be fobbed off a about cctv footage etc and want to redeem my voucher there and then.

They won't look up cctv.

Did you buy the original items on credit card? Thats probably what they meant by cc and they will look up the cc transactions to see if the voucher was used at the time. I don't think they are fobbing you off, checking the cc transactions on their system is the best they can do to prove (on your behalf) that the voucher wasn't used and that an error occured

foggy_lad

it could be a scam by the staff that gave you the voucher thinking you would not be back to spend your £10 as you were from the south?

wmpdd3

Life in retail is too short to think like that.

The last thing you want to have to do is say no to a customer.

snappieT

foggy_lad wrote: »

it could be a scam by the staff that gave you the voucher thinking you would not be back to spend your £10 as you were from the south?

+1 on this.

VERY easy for cashier to do this: People get their promo vouchers, will try and use them in store that day. Cashier does transaction as normal, keeps "spent" voucher under till drawer instead of ripping up and binning.

When new customer (you) comes along, print off new valid voucher as normal, but swap with spent voucher. End of shift, cashier walks off with tonnes of activated vouchers, one for each customer she scammed.

dahamsta

wolfe wrote: »

thats rediculous

(For the record, it's "ridiculous".)

tony1kenobi

snappieT wrote: »

+1 on this.

VERY easy for cashier to do this: People get their promo vouchers, will try and use them in store that day. Cashier does transaction as normal, keeps "spent" voucher under till drawer instead of ripping up and binning.

When new customer (you) comes along, print off new valid voucher as normal, but swap with spent voucher. End of shift, cashier walks off with tonnes of activated vouchers, one for each customer she scammed.

Wil you explain, because I may be thick, what the benefit is to the cashier? Or how they profit fro it? After all they are risking their job.

I really can't understand the benefit from the scam you have described.

All I can get from it is that the cashier wi have a load of vouchers that have been generated by his or her self. When would they get to use them?

nava

snappieT wrote: »

+1 on this.

VERY easy for cashier to do this: People get their promo vouchers, will try and use them in store that day. Cashier does transaction as normal, keeps "spent" voucher under till drawer instead of ripping up and binning.

When new customer (you) comes along, print off new valid voucher as normal, but swap with spent voucher. End of shift, cashier walks off with tonnes of activated vouchers, one for each customer she scammed.

Not sure that will be the case, I think most people will try to use the Free voucher on the same day as they might not go up that ofthen ( I did that once before) so just bought someting from the special offers they had by the till, if that was to happen they will get cought.

I will say it was just a mistake on the day, if the shop was busy maybe they give the voucher someone had just used to pay.

wolfe

wolfe wrote: »

I bought over £100 of argos products in a NI branch on 14th april and recieved the free £10 voucher to be used by 25th may.
my wife went in to buy something today. she handed over the voucher to the cashier. when the girl swiped it she said "this card has been used the same day you got it" my wife said "thats rediculous, if we supposedly used the voucher, how do i still have it"? to which the girl says "i cant explain that".
anyway she calls over the manager and after about 10 mins of discussion they come back asking her what was purchased that day. etc. She didnt have the receipt so they told her she will have to bring back the receipt and they will have to look up cc tv to see if was used by me on the same day.

I am totally angered by the stores attitude. They are basically telling us, the customer, that we are liars when it is quite obvious it is a fault with their system. I am planning to go back to the store before the voucher expires in a few weeks, and would appreciate advise on how i should handle this matter as i am not prepared to be fobbed off a about cctv footage etc and want to redeem my voucher there and then.

Worked for Argos for a while (unfortunately). There POS (point of sale) software was designed in the early 90's so there is a possibility it was a system error.

I'm gone from Argos a while now, but i think there might be a record of the gift card transaction on the reciept you got when you spent over £100 that time.

If you still have it, bring it in, otherwise get on to the consumer rights association or the Argos head office in the UK.

As for the CCTV, ya right! I'll chew off my arm if that Argos store has a fully functional system (which we didn't have) or if the staff or managment actually know how to work the damn thing!!

All you can do is bitch and argue with them until you get what you are entitled to. They are very like Quinn Direct. They really won't go down without a fight!! Unless I serve you! I wasn't getting paid enough to deal with these issues so I never argued! Haha!

Best of luck with them anyway!

snappieT

tony1kenobi wrote: »

Wil you explain, because I may be thick, what the benefit is to the cashier? Or how they profit fro it? After all they are risking their job.

I really can't understand the benefit from the scam you have described.

All I can get from it is that the cashier wi have a load of vouchers that have been generated by his or her self. When would they get to use them?

After 50 such transactions, they'll be walking out with £500 of vouchers. They can't all spend them themselves, far too risky, so go and sell each £10 voucher for £5 down in the pub, and you've made a tidy £250 for a day's work (on top of your hourly wage).

nava wrote: »

Not sure that will be the case, I think most people will try to use the Free voucher on the same day as they might not go up that ofthen ( I did that once before) so just bought someting from the special offers they had by the till, if that was to happen they will get cought.

This is how they're getting the spent vouchers: people using them on the day. Assuming only one cashier is on (or all of them are in on it, or the most senior one is in on it, and will get asked if something goes wrong), they just swap the spent voucher back for one of the valid ones they have under their till drawer (and should have given out), and do the transaction as normal. They don't get to keep their £10 voucher, but they haven't been caught either.

IsThatSo?

Yes, it MAY be a scam, but as long as OP gets the value for his voucher who cares.......................I don't think the staff would make much out of the kind of scam described anyway as really £10 is a lot (off the price of something) and not many people will let that go, I certainly wouldn't.

Yes, scams do happen, but so do mistakes.................paranoia does not help :eek:

Musha

Had the same thing happen with a lotto ticket, €10 on the fridge since the day it was bought went into Dunnes and they said that it had been cashed in before, called the manager over and she checked and checked again and still the same thing. I pointed out that if it had be cashed before how come I still had the ticket anyway about a minute later the little voucher popped out of the printer there must have been some delay on the lotto data lines and I walked away with my €10