Ambiguous terms and conditions

[cornishbird]

I was gifted some love2shop vouchers which were due to expire on 29 Feb 2024. I registered the cards online in the afternoon of the 29th with the intention of converting them to e-cards to spend on a meal once I'd spoken to my husband when he got home at 7pm. I logged back on in the evening to find the balance was showing £0 and upon further investigation I discovered a payment had been taken as the "issuer fee" on one card at 5pm and at 7pm on the second card. I immediately contacted their customer services team to find out why the fee had been taken before the cards had expired.

They set out in their T&Cs:
"Definitions: Expiry Date- midnight on the date clearly printed on the Card."
"7. Charges and Expiry:
7.1 Your Card will expire on the Expiry Date. After this time, the Card will not be valid and You will not be able to use the Card. The right to use any remaining Available Balance on the Card ceases at expiry. 7.2 We will charge you £10.00 for the cost of issuing the Card. This charge will be applied to the Available Balance of your Card on the Expiry Date. If there are no funds on your Card at this time, you will not pay this charge."

I have been arguing with them that the T&Cs implies that the Issuer fee (7.2) will be applied in line with the expiry and therefore your balance will be available until midnight, not 5pm on the afternoon of the expiry date which their customer services representative has said "is as late as possible". It's worth noting that the second card had the payment was taken at 7pm, this clearly shows that 5pm wasn't as late as possible.

Forgive me if I'm wrong but under Consumer Rights Act, as the terms and conditions don't explain that the fee will be taken at any point in the day when elsewhere they have set a time for the expiry, this ambiguity is designed in favour of the organisation and is therefore unfair to the consumer which is a contradiction of the Act.

I've only lost £10 but it makes my blood boil that they can mis-inform people in this way to their own advantage.

I hope someone can help me with this.
Thank you for your time.

[Manxman]

I was gifted some love2shop vouchers...

Only the person who bought the vouchers has a remedy under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk). That is the person who gifted the vouchers to you, not you.

Having said that - I don't think the T&Cs are particulalrly ambiguous. To me, the phrases "Definitions: Expiry Date- midnight on the date clearly printed on the Card." and "Your Card will expire on the Expiry Date. After this time, the Card will not be valid..." are perfectly clear and unambiguous. Your gift cards expired at midnight* on 29 February and not at 5pm or 7pm. The T&Cs are perfectly clear about that.

I'd go back to them and emphasise that their own T&Cs reinforce that the giftcards expired at midnight on 29 February and that they were in breach of their own T&Cs by applying an issuer fee before that time.

If you get nowhere, ask for a consumer services manager to look at it and if that doesn't work make a formal complaint. Make sure you refer clearly to the definitions in their own T&Cs. Not worth going any further for £10 unless you want to do so "on principle". And it would have to be the person who bought the cards who took any further action.

(It is of course possible that their computer systems or customer service systems have been thrown out of whack by the leap year. But that's their problem, not yours...)




*I hate it when T&Cs refer to "midnight" as I think that is ambiguous. Midnight falls between two dates. Better to say "at 23:59:59 on 29 February" or "at 00:00:01 on 01 March". That is clear and unambiguous.

[R0b]

Using midnight as a time period is potentially a dangerous situation for any company and as you say, it can lead to ambiguity. Based on what you have said, there may be two (or more) ways of looking at this.

The Love2Shop voucher expires on 28 February at 23:59:59pm and in that case the card has expired and you should not be able to use it. If you were able to use the voucher on 29th then that would indicate that the card had not yet expired although it is possible Love2Shop may take this view anyway as an argument.

The alternative is that the Love2Shop voucher expires on 29 February at 23:59:59pm which is what I presume you are suggesting. Therefore if the cards have been deducted a £10 issuer fee at those dates suggested, then Love2Shop are in breach of contract, because they collected the issue fee too soon, irrespective of what the agent says who from the sounds of it doesn't have any idea and is simply speculating.

Are you sure you've only lost £10 as two issue feed deductions would make £20? If you felt really strongly about it, you could take them to court out of principle which at that point I am sure they will simply give you the £20 back since the cost of issuing the claim is more than the value and not worth their time to defend if they are in the wrong. Otherwise, make a formal complaint in writing and tell them you are reporting them to trading standards for breach of consumer rights - it may or may not come of anything.

[des8]

If you completed their complaints procedure you could escalate to FOS ~~(https://www.love2shop.ie/web/guest/c...p_lifecycle=0~)

or post about it on their review page, or their Facebook page

[atticus]

I don't see the ambiguity. Midnight means midnight, not 7 or 5 hours earlier.

[cornishbird]

Using midnight as a time period is potentially a dangerous situation for any company and as you say, it can lead to ambiguity. Based on what you have said, there may be two (or more) ways of looking at this.

The Love2Shop voucher expires on 28 February at 23:59:59pm and in that case the card has expired and you should not be able to use it. If you were able to use the voucher on 29th then that would indicate that the card had not yet expired although it is possible Love2Shop may take this view anyway as an argument.

The alternative is that the Love2Shop voucher expires on 29 February at 23:59:59pm which is what I presume you are suggesting. Therefore if the cards have been deducted a £10 issuer fee at those dates suggested, then Love2Shop are in breach of contract, because they collected the issue fee too soon, irrespective of what the agent says who from the sounds of it doesn't have any idea and is simply speculating.

Are you sure you've only lost £10 as two issue feed deductions would make £20? If you felt really strongly about it, you could take them to court out of principle which at that point I am sure they will simply give you the £20 back since the cost of issuing the claim is more than the value and not worth their time to defend if they are in the wrong. Otherwise, make a formal complaint in writing and tell them you are reporting them to trading standards for breach of consumer rights - it may or may not come of anything.

Thank you for the above reply, in answer:
- The cards both have "Expires End: Feb 2024" written on them which would, as it is a leap year, equate to 29th Feb at 23:59:59.
- There were two cards, each with £5 credit. Their issuer fee is "up to £10", therefore my loss is [only] £10.
- It's a principle. I've been to-ing and fro-ing with customer services without success. Today it was escalated to an internal formal complaint. If this does not come to favour I shall take it to FOS as it has really upset me to think of how many others have faced this issue due to poorly written T&C's.

[atticus]

I bet the issue is that in their system February has 28 days, and that it failed to take account of the leap year.

[cornishbird]

Only the person who bought the vouchers has a remedy under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk). That is the person who gifted the vouchers to you, not you.

Having said that - I don't think the T&Cs are particulalrly ambiguous. To me, the phrases "Definitions: Expiry Date- midnight on the date clearly printed on the Card." and "Your Card will expire on the Expiry Date. After this time, the Card will not be valid..." are perfectly clear and unambiguous. Your gift cards expired at midnight* on 29 February and not at 5pm or 7pm. The T&Cs are perfectly clear about that.

I'd go back to them and emphasise that their own T&Cs reinforce that the giftcards expired at midnight on 29 February and that they were in breach of their own T&Cs by applying an issuer fee before that time.

If you get nowhere, ask for a consumer services manager to look at it and if that doesn't work make a formal complaint. Make sure you refer clearly to the definitions in their own T&Cs. Not worth going any further for £10 unless you want to do so "on principle". And it would have to be the person who bought the cards who took any further action.

(It is of course possible that their computer systems or customer service systems have been thrown out of whack by the leap year. But that's their problem, not yours...)




*I hate it when T&Cs refer to "midnight" as I think that is ambiguous. Midnight falls between two dates. Better to say "at 23:59:59 on 29 February" or "at 00:00:01 on 01 March". That is clear and unambiguous.

Apologies, I should have been more specific. The ambiguity relates not to the date nor to time of expiry of the card but to the time at which the Issuer Fee will be taken. They have not stated a time for when this fee will be taken, merely "This charge will be applied to the Available Balance of your Card on the Expiry Date."

[atticus]

But the Expiry Date is defined by reference to a specific time - "Definitions: Expiry Date- midnight on the date clearly printed on the Card."