Letter from a Reader: Disappointing Online Voucher Deal

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Dear Fashion Pulis,

I am newbie in your throng of readers but this does not make me enjoy your articles less. Even if I am a considerably new follower, it has been already a habit of mine to check your website regularly for the juiciest blind items. In this way I have also seen how powerful your website is in informing netizens things that they should avoid. In this light, I have come to write about an annoying experience.

I have never been really a fan of those voucher sites but I sometimes check on them in case I see a deal that might be useful for me. In this particular deal site, I saw a deal that offers half the price for ink cartridge refills. I had doubts before purchasing a voucher but I eventually gave in since I am a student and printer inks are very important for me since I do nonstop paper work for school. I checked out the terms and conditions of the deal site first before purchasing to see if they have some policies on refunds because ever since this voucher trend became popular, I have been hearing and reading about false advertisements, bad deals, etc. It was clearly stated in their FAQs that refunds could be done if they find the voucher not useful to them and there would be no any problems with regards to that. That gave me a sense of security just in case I would not be able to get the said deal stated in their advertisement so I ended up purchasing one voucher.

When I ran out of ink, I planned to use the said voucher to refill my cartridges. I asked my mom who was going to the same vicinity of the refilling shop to drop by the shop to have the cartridges refilled. However, I wanted to make sure so my mom would not be embarrassed using the cartridges so I gave the shop a call first. I called to inform them that someone will have cartridges refilled using a certain voucher. To my surprise, the person who answered the call was totally clueless about it and he did not even seem to know the concept of vouchers. I even reiterated about the promo and he sounded even more confused and told me that he was not informed about something about the deal. I asked if there is another person I could talk to and he told me that he is they only one there. I got very disappointed and just asked my mom to have the cartridges refilled in another refilling shop (different from the one in the deal website).

Due to this, I immediately went back to the website and looked for the refund procedures. I immediately emailed their customer support and told them about what happened. I was asking for a voucher cancellation. I got a response 3 days after and they apologized and clarified that it is not their fault and they should not be blamed for it. I understand that there was a problem of miscommunication or non coordination with the merchant and did not think for a second that the deal company was at fault. They immediately cancelled my voucher but did not mention anything about the refund. I was even the one to ask about my refund when it should be an SOP that they would issue the refund upon cancellation of the voucher! An agent responded and assured me that a refund will be given as soon as possible.

I paid them through PayPal so I also requested a refund through PayPal. After a few days, I got a response from the deal website's PayPal account declining my refund request with an arguing message which stated: "did you actually call the numbers on the voucher? Because they are very well aware of the promo." This shocked me because this is not the way you should be responding to a client! Moreover, I stated very clearly that I already did my part as a customer yet they said they are not aware of the promo. It was so disappointing to get such argumentative message when the client is already the one on the losing end. I responded and said that my voucher has already been cancelled even if they check my account so they should issue a refund. I also emailed their customer support citing the reply I got from their PayPal account and all I got was a message saying that I was CC'd in the email sent to the person in charge of refunds. It has been more than a week and I still do not see a payment reversal in my PayPal account.

The amount in question is just 200 pesos. 200 pesos won't make me poor or rich but in principle, I believe that they should return my money since they already cancelled my voucher. I would have accepted it if they refused to cancelled my voucher but that is not the case. Not have I only been cheated on but I also felt that I was scammed since I haven't gotten the refund that I was assured of. This deal website also has poor coordination and they just communicate to each other through email. Seriously? Do they have such large corporation with different departments that they are so busy that they could only communicate with each other through emails? Moreover, they have rude personnel who would not recognize what the client has to say and would even argue. Disappointing! I would understand if I used my debit card or credit card in paying and refund would somehow take time. Refunds in PayPal are the easiest because all they have to do is to reverse the payment and it would go back to me. I already made their lives easier by requesting a refund so they would just click YES to my request but they argued to a client just for 200 pesos.

My advise to people who want to try deal websites, call the merchant first to confirm before purchasing or else this might just happen to you!

Thanks FP for taking your time in reading this.

Yours truly,
Clar Bear