Littlewoods Catalogues - Rip Off Merchants

You say littlewoods sent you a discount voucher, Was this an incentive to become a customer or did you receive it as a result of placing an order. ?

Was it a physical voucher or sent in electronic form ?

Apparently the fact that the voucher was accepted against the order, the googs paid for and received by the customer at the discounted price seems to cut no ice.

It's not as if you can send used clothes back after 2 months or more, is it? After all tthe orderr may not have been poroceeded with if the voucher had been denied at point of sale. Maybe that's why these dishonest crooks are waiting 2 months before mugging you.

If what you say is correct then littlewoods are leaving themselves wide open to prosecution.

Have you brought this matter to the attention of your Trading Standards Dept ?

The last is caused by gausing (magnitisation of parts of the TV). This can be caused by storing the TV set near something that has a strong magnetic field, so is not the fault of Phillips. It is quite easy to fix, taking about 10 minutes, not needing to get inside the TV, but needs a degausing coil (which you can wind yourself). I've carried out the procedure many times, usually after someone has operated a vacuum cleaner near the TV set.

I used to repair TVs and monitors for a living and tried treating the screen with a degaussing wand - the shadowmask is warped and so the set was beyond economic repair.

Very good question, and one which wasn't answered the last time this drivel was posted a couple of weeks ago.

Along with the supplementary "or did you lift it off the internet and/or share it with others"

From the web site references it seems some people are sharing the vouchers with others and then wondering why they are not honoured.

It sounds as though you used a voucher you were not entitle to and that Littlewoods have no found out. Of course their website should not have allowed you to do this. Nevertheless if you used the voucher and were not entitled to it they might have a case to recover the money.

Peter Crosland

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk

That may be the case. However, Littlewoods T&Cs state that vouchers will be verified prior to the order being accepted, and that acceptance takes place at the point of despatch. Therefore, they verified the codes, accepted the order anyway, and are now trying to dishonour the codes.

The terms are located here (the relevant portions appear to be 2.2 and

2.3):



Their T&Cs state that vouchers are verified before the order is accepted. Surely if they have verified them, and accepted, then delivered, the order anyway, they are too late to have any recourse? Especially if the customer is no longer able to return the goods.

In the normal course of events then yes, but not in the case if deliberate fraud. Not that I'm suggesting that's the situation here of course.

Assumming the voucher codes were posted to a website somewhere, it's probably safe to say that any T&C's relating to those codes would not have been distributed along with them. Therefore, there's a good chance those using the codes had no idea whether they were eligible to do so or not - many such codes are, after all, available for use by anyone.

On the above basis, it doesn't seem unreasonable to try the code and see if it works. Even more so if the customer checks the T&Cs prior to ordering, since they clearly state that codes will be verified prior to acceptance, and the codes rejected if they are found to be invalid.

The actual terms are:

2.2 When you submit an order to us on our website you will receive a 'bounce back' confirmatory email of this order saying that we are processing your order. You will then receive a second email from us acknowledging your order and giving you estimated timescales for delivery. You should check both emails for accuracy and let us know immediately if there are any errors. Neither of these emails constitute acceptance of the order by us. Your order will be accepted by us (and a contract will then be formed between us) when we despatch the goods to you. Title to the goods will pass to you on delivery. 2.3 Where you have redeemed a promotional code or any other offer ("a Code") against your order, acceptance of this order is subject to our verifying that the Code has been issued to you personally, that you comply with all the terms of the offer and qualify for the Code. In the event that the Code has not been issued to you for your personal use or you do not qualify for the offer, the price of the order will be adjusted notwithstanding any email or other confirmation that you receive.

It seems that Littlewoods are interpreting the "In the event...." part of 2.3 as seperate to the rest of that clause, believing that it allows them to reject the voucher even after the point of acceptance. My interpretation is that it is part of the same clause, and that since the above term obliges them to verify the codes prior to acceptance, rejecting said codes should also happen prior to acceptance. If they failed to meet their contractual obligations by not verifying the codes before they accepted the order...well, tough.

So by the same token, if I were to find your CC number, expiry date and CVV2 posted on a website, you would not think it unreasonable for me to use it to see whether it works?

And if the mailorder site I use it with accepts it, but you later find out and try to recover the money from me, it would be reasonable for me to accuse you of being a rip-off merchant?

I don't disagree with you at all.

What I find disingenuous is the OP, and others, who have been posting the same thing several times which state "using a discount voucher they sent you" and refusing to confirm that in-fact the discount voucher WAS actually sent to him personally and not picked up off someone else.

If the voucher was picked up off a web site or whatever then they should at least be honest about it. Let's see all these people who have had this "using a discount voucher they sent you" dishonoured (where it hasn't been shared etc). Has the OP actually seen this voucher? Has he read any small print on the voucher? The questions are valid and haven't been answered.

No, because it is well known that a credit card number can only legitimately be used by the owner of the card.

However, discount voucher codes are often intended to be used by multiple people - they can be a very effective form of viral marketing in this respect. There are websites which exist specifically for the purpose of sharing such codes[1]. As the manager of an online retail operation, I've done exactly that myself in the past - released a code to our own mailing list in the expectation that they will share it with their friends and thus bring in new customers to the shop.

Also, a credit card number can be used many times, so the shop can't easily determine if it's being used illegitimately other than by a set of tests which are not entirely reliable. On the other hand, it's trivial for a shop to ensure that a voucher code can only be used once, or can only be used by those it was originally sent to. So if the shop accepts multiple use of a code with no verification of the customer using it, it is entirely reasonable to assume that multiple use by an uncontrolled population was intended.

If Littlewoods sent out voucher codes that were capable of multiple use, and were accepted without immediate verification of the customer, then it would be hard for them to argue that the customer had done anything wrong even if it is a breach of their Ts&Cs - especially if the customer had no way of knowing whether the codes were intended for their use or not. It's not the customer's fault that the retailer has had their faulty programming made embarassingly public.

[1] is one such example, and they've even got this page on their site: Mark

Is this really Cynic? This isn't up to your usual standards at all. Still...

If credit cards existed which could be freely distributed (as some voucher codes are), and could only be used to purchase things directly from the credit card company who issued them, then I could understand your argument here. But they don't.

When someone uses these vouchers, Littlewoods have two options: they can decline the voucher, since it wasn't issued to that person, or they can choose to honour it regardless. After all, it's their voucher, they issued it, and they are the ones who decide whether or not it is acceptable when tendered by a particular customer. Indeed, they cover this eventualilty in their T&Cs, and reserve the right to reject the vouchers. But that right applies, by their own T&Cs,

*prior* to acceptance of the order. Once the order has been accepted, they are indicating that they have validated, and chosen to accept, the voucher.

Given the fact that some vouchers can be freely distributed, and given how trivial it is to validate a voucher against an email/postal address, I don't consider it fraudulent in the slightest to try a code and see if it works. Every site I have ever used has either accepted or rejected any codes used immediately. Any that have more complex requirements for acceptance, I would expect the company to tell me before they ship my order that my voucher is not good. Either one of those options is acceptable. Accepting the order, forming a contract, and passing title of the goods to me, then telling me two months later that you want more money from me is not.

This isn't like a cheque, that can bounce many weeks or months down the line. It's a voucher issued by Littlewoods, which Littlewoods are entirely capable of validating immediately, and certainly prior to accepting the order. There is simply no excuse for waiting two months, when the customer is unable to back out of the contract, to unilaterally decide that the voucher is no longer good.

rotfl!

You're the criminal, and with the defamatory comments you've made you can look forward to a discussion with their solicitors.

"Littlewoods wants discount refund

Littlewoods has angered internet bargain hunters by demanding that an online discount voucher be paid back to the UK retailer.

The £25-off voucher was meant for a small number of specific customers, but got widely distributed through chat rooms and consumer- saving websites.

Two months later, Littlewoods has asked those it says were not eligible for the promotion to pay back the cash.

It says that the terms attached to the offer means it is within its rights.

Terms and conditions

A spokesperson at the Liverpool-based firm said: "A £25 discount code was created for a small group of specific customers.

"This code was then circulated, without our authorisation, through a number of websites resulting in around 3,000 customers obtaining a discount for which they were ineligible.

"As a result, in accordance with clause 2.3 of our online terms and conditions we have re-charged this discount back to their accounts and have written to them individually to explain.

"In addition, we are looking at a number of ways of ensuring this doesn't happen again."

He added that Trading Standards in Liverpool had been informed and were "satisfied" with their actions.

The terms and conditions on the discount voucher state that the promotion can only be accepted if used by the person to whom it has been directly issued.

It also said: "In the event that the code has not been issued to you for your personal use or you do not qualify for the offer, the price of the order will be adjusted notwithstanding any email or other confirmation that you receive.

"We will not accept the item to be returned back also refer to the returns section."

Marketing tactic?

James Gosnold was one disgruntled Littlewoods customer who had his £25 voucher accepted and then two months later received a letter demanding the money back.

He admitted to the BBC that it was quite likely he did not "have a foot to stand on" against the clothes-to-household goods retailer, which sold off its UK stores two years ago to focus on its catalogue and internet operations.

But he argued that the situation had important implications for online trading standards.

"Only they know how many thousands of orders this generated that most definitely would have not otherwise been placed," he said.

He added: "Can you imagine buying something in a sale at High Street shop only to discover two months later that the sale price didn't apply to you? And that you didn't have the option to return the goods?"

A similar situation occurred at off-licence chain Threshers in December last year when a 40% wine and champagne voucher intended for suppliers and their family went viral around the internet and got downloaded by millions.

In that case, Threshers honoured the offer to all recipients of the discount code.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2007/10/25 12:52:26 GMT"