Tens of thousands of consumers are being ripped off by unfair terms and conditions on gift vouchers, Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar has claimed. Paul Cullen, Consumer Affairs Correspondent, reports.
Expiry dates as short as three months, service and administration charges and a refusal by some retailers to give change on the unused part of the vouchers were among the problems highlighted in a survey carried out by Mr Varadkar.
Almost one in five people who received gift vouchers found they had expired before they got a chance to use them, the survey found.
With the gift voucher market worth an estimated €330 million a year, this means that more than €50 million worth of vouchers are never redeemed, he said.
"The results of this survey make vouchers look like a gift for retailers, not customers. This is a huge windfall for retailers."
Fine Gael e-mailed more than 1,000 consumers with questions on the issue, and received 212 responses.
Some 68 per cent of respondents said the vouchers they received over the Christmas period had an expiry date. More than 80 per cent of vouchers stated that customers would not get change on their purchase, even for sums less than €1. This forces them to make another purchase to get the full value of the voucher.
Mr Varadkar called on the National Consumer Agency (NCA) to draw up guidelines on the sale of vouchers and gift cards and take enforcement action against retailers who breached the guidelines.
He said the guidelines should be introduced before next Christmas and should impose a minimum expiry period of three years, give customers the right to change where there is less than €2 left on a voucher and require retailers to state all terms and conditions on the vouchers.
"Measures such as these will protect consumers and ensure that the gift voucher market ceases to be such a rip-off of consumers and a cash windfall for retailers."
The NCA says it has encountered many problems with gift vouchers. Many shops have no proper policy in relation to expiry dates, with decisions often taken on an ad hoc basis. Even where no expiry date is stated, this does not mean a shop operates an open-ended expiry policy. Where a dispute arises, consumers are advised to refer the matter to the Small Claims Court.
Consumers have no right to get change when using a gift voucher, the NCA also says, or to a replacement for a lost card. A list of retailers offering gift vouchers with and without expiry dates is available on the NCA's website, www.consumerconnect.ie .
BAD VALUE: some examples
Among the cases uncovered by the survey were:
• an Indian restaurant selling vouchers with a three-month expiry date
• Hodges Figgis sold a €350 voucher to a customer but refused to give him the usual loyalty tokens
• Eason imposes a €2 service charge if its service card is not activated within a year of purchase
• The Arcadia card used in Topman, Miss Selfridge, Burton and Dorothy Perkins cannot be used for online purchases
• One for All Voucher charges a transaction fee of €2 in the post office and €3.49 online per transaction
• Dundrum Shopping Centre charges €7.50 to have several gift cards consolidated onto the one card