Tony Hetherington is the Financial Mail on Sunday’s star investigator, battling readers’ corners, revealing the truth behind closed doors and winning victories for those left penniless. Find out how to contact him below.
Mrs. WE writes: Buyagift has withdrawn £200 from my deposited vouchers. There is no way to contact anyone except online and they don’t respond.
We have saved these gift certificates so that my 81-year-old husband and I can have a few days off.
I don’t know who to turn to if Buyagift doesn’t even want to talk to me.
Outage: A reader’s £200 in Buyagift vouchers disappeared from her account and she was then unable to get help from the company’s online chatbot.
Tony Hetherington replies: Buyagift is an online voucher company. Are you missing ideas for Christmas? Give your friends a coupon they can spend on a variety of things, like restaurant meals, spa days, or a hot air balloon ride.
Can’t think of what to give a family member for that big birthday? A Buyagift voucher can put you at the controls of a Spitfire.
That’s if everything goes well, of course. And at first glance, there is no reason to worry. Buyagift is run by Experience More Limited, part of the Moonpig greetings card group.
However, £200 in vouchers he had saved simply disappeared from his account without explanation.
When he tried to resolve this issue through Buyagift’s online chat service, he was first cut off and then told that nothing could be done. He also threatened to report the matter to the police as a robbery.
Then I found out for myself what you had been up against. Buyagift’s website offers no phone number or email and warns: “We cannot respond to letters sent by postal mail.”
There is a “contact us” page, but it simply offers access to Buyagift’s FAQ list. If there is no topic, the client’s question is meaningless.
There is a chatbot, but no matter how hard I tried to ask my questions, I received a response.
Did you already have a Buyagift voucher? No, I didn’t. Did you want to buy a bond? No, I didn’t. Since I didn’t have vouchers and wasn’t planning to buy them, the chatbot wasn’t interested in anything I said.
Interestingly, the customer service page asked, “Did you find this article helpful?” The day I tried to use it, a footnote announced: “916 of 8,960 found this useful.” So over 8,000 people tried to understand Buyagift’s FAQ and chatbot, and got nowhere!
However, 24 hours after you threatened to call the police, a Buyagift customer service agent sent you a message saying: “Our mission is to bring happiness and I can see that we have fallen short on this occasion.” . He gave me his email address, which allowed me to request details from his company’s press spokesperson.
And to my surprise, he responded.
I wish I could say this was a real turning point, but Buyagift could put the mafia’s code of silence to shame. I laid out all the details of their complaint and added my own question about why Buyagift made it so difficult to contact them.
Despite a further push a week later, Buyagift did not offer any comment or answer questions.
I also wanted to ask the company about a check I did on court records, which turned up a couple of judgments against them listed as “unsatisfied.”
This means that the company did not pay off its debts promptly or never paid anything.
But there is a happy ending for you. Despite being unable to provide any explanation, the customer service staff honored their missing vouchers.
You told me: ‘Thank you very much for your quick intervention which provoked a very satisfactory response.’
It’s a good result, but there’s no reason to believe that the exact same problem won’t happen again.
If you believe you are a victim of financial irregularities, please write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Due to the large volume of inquiries, it is not possible to provide personal responses. Please only send copies of the original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.