Groupon Issue

Enigma IE

I bought a groupon voucher last July for a gas/boiler service. Upon receipt of the voucher, I made a number of attempts to contact the 3rd party to arrange, phone and email, but I received no response.

I subsequently rented out my apartment, but passed the voucher onto my tenants. My tenant also tried a number of times to book the service, again phone and email but they failed to respond over a period of a 3/4 months.

Ok, so I contact Groupon my email last week to explain the situation and requested a refund. No reply from Groupon after 1 week, so I resend my original email and ask that someone contact me in relation to the issue.

I finally get a response, this is the first response.


Hi Brian,

Sorry that it has taken so long to respond to your email. We are currently experiencing very high levels of communication. Now that I have replied to your initial email, any response needed will not experience the same delay.

I’m sorry to hear that you were not able to use your Groupon voucher. As the expiry date was stated in the Fine Print section on the voucher and on the deal page, we’re unfortunately unable to action refunds at this stage. If you ever have an issue with a Groupon, we’ll be happy to help, but it’s always best if you let us know about the issue within the validity period. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.


Quite frankly I could not believe this response. I replied and stated extremely strongly that this issue is not of my making, I made every effort to redeem the vouhcer but the 3rd party failed to honour it. My contract is with Groupon, I want a refund, simple as.

Second response...

Hi Brian,

The expiry dates on Groupons are agreed upon in cooperation with the partner business before the deal starts, and reflect the needs of their business model. For that reason, expiry dates are unfortunately non-negotiable, and always stated clearly on the deal page and the voucher itself.

In the past, as a gesture of goodwill, we have occasionally offered Groupon credit for recently expired vouchers. However, as our customer base has grown, we’ve had to cut down on offering credit for expired vouchers. My apologies for any inconvenience caused, and I hope you can use your voucher before the expiry date next time around.

If you have any further questions, please let me know by replying to this email.

Kind regards,

Of course this makes me every more angry. I have replied again and told them in no uncertain terms, the issue was with the third party and I expect a full refund, still waiting on a reply.

What is my position here as a consumer? Has anyone else had issues like this with Groupon?

Thanks,
Brian

Davy

Any problems I have had, one which similar to yours I couldn't book, I phoned them, explained the problem, and got a refund without much hassle.

So I would try giving them a call, and explain you have emails to backup your claim which was before the expiry date.

athtrasna

When was the expiry date of the offer? If the offer expired long before last week that might be the issue. Most groupons only have a validity period of 1-3 months, yet you made contact 9 months after you bought the deal.

Enigma IE

The voucher expired in January. I've got all the emails I sent the third party in August, September time.

It slipped my mind in the meantime, hence only contacted groupon last week. Not sure why it makes a huge difference the fact I'm contacting them now or january, the third party didn't honour the deal simple as.

Ill give them a call instead. Cheers.

Davy

Enigma IE wrote: »

The voucher expired in January. I've got all the emails I sent the third party in August, September time.

It slipped my mind in the meantime, hence only contacted groupon last week. Not sure why it makes a huge difference the fact I'm contacting them now or january, the third party didn't honour the deal simple as.

Ill give them a call instead. Cheers.

Did you get it sorted?

Enigma IE

Davy wrote: »

Did you get it sorted?

Unfortunately not. I called them up, I was pleasant and cordial on the phone but the net out was the same. Basically, if I had contacted them within the validity period of the voucher, then I would have got my money back more than likely.

Cerco

Have you considered the small claims court? Doubt they would like adverse publicity. Seems to me you have little to lose.

coylemj

Cerco wrote: »

Have you considered the small claims court? Doubt they would like adverse publicity. Seems to me you have little to lose.

Isn't Groupon by now in the same league as Ryanair with more or less the same number of disgruntled customers? Why would they care about bad publicity?

Enigma IE

Given the voucher cost me 39EUR, I don't think it's really worth my while taking it to small claims court. Obviously I'd need to put time into it and possibly 1/2 day off work (or more possibly)......it just wouldn't be worth my while financially.

It would appear the company itself is in freefall, so my grievance wouldn't even register with them I would imagine.

Separately, I had an another issue with a 3rd party and I bought the voucher via groupon. It cost me 499EUR and the 3rd party redeemed the voucher 6+ months in advance of my scheduled appointment.

I called groupon about this also, detailed my issue, they spoke to the 3rd party and have issued me with a full refund - expect it to hit my bank account within 7-10 days.

EDIT - this specific voucher was still in the validity period, otherwise I suggest I would not be getting my money back. However, I would have gone straight to a solicitor in this case.

Pacing Mule

Enigma IE wrote: »

Given the voucher cost me 39EUR, I don't think it's really worth my while taking it to small claims court. Obviously I'd need to put time into it and possibly 1/2 day off work (or more possibly)......it just wouldn't be worth my while financially.

It would appear the company itself is in freefall, so my grievance wouldn't even register with them I would imagine.

Separately, I had an another issue with a 3rd party and I bought the voucher via groupon. It cost me 499EUR and the 3rd party redeemed the voucher 6+ months in advance of my scheduled appointment.

I called groupon about this also, detailed my issue, they spoke to the 3rd party and have issued me with a full refund - expect it to hit my bank account within 7-10 days.

EDIT - this specific voucher was still in the validity period, otherwise I suggest I would not be getting my money back. However, I would have gone straight to a solicitor in this case.

Groupon don't allow the merchants to redeem the coupons after a set amount of time. We ran a promotion with them where people made bookings for up to 12 months in advance but they had to book and we had to redeem the coupon within 2 months. We had a customer contact us after the expiry wishing to book in for a couple of months later. We were happy to accomodate her but group on refused to honour the voucher as it was past the redeem point (even though once redeemed people could have and did book for months past this customers requested date) Because they didn't honour it we would not get paid by them for it so we had to refuse the customer. Ultimately she got a credit from group on and we gave her the same deal price directly which suited us anyway as it meant group on did not take a cut from that deal price. The point I'm making though is that it may not have been that merchants fault.

Enigma IE

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

Groupon don't allow the merchants to redeem the coupons after a set amount of time. We ran a promotion with them where people made bookings for up to 12 months in advance but they had to book and we had to redeem the coupon within 2 months. We had a customer contact us after the expiry wishing to book in for a couple of months later. We were happy to accomodate her but group on refused to honour the voucher as it was past the redeem point (even though once redeemed people could have and did book for months past this customers requested date) Because they didn't honour it we would not get paid by them for it so we had to refuse the customer. Ultimately she got a credit from group on and we gave her the same deal price directly which suited us anyway as it meant group on did not take a cut from that deal price. The point I'm making though is that it may not have been that merchants fault.

Cheers for the info. Sounds like a basic flaw in the groupon system in my opinion. In my specific case, the merchant redeemed the voucher and disappeared to South America (his homeland) and has not returned - I would be curious how many vouchers he redeemed before he left the country.