Gift cards are the perfect gift, right? Wrong! The administrators now running Borders and Angus and Robertson have put an expiry date of April 3 on all gift cards, so if you don’t use them by then, you’ve just wasted your money.
If the thought of thousands of dollars of unredeemed gift cards sounds bad, you’ll be happy to know it gets worse. Redemption of gift cards is only offered if you spend an equivalent amount of your own money in a transaction – in other words, a $40 book would cost you $20 of your own cash and $20 of your gift card, even if you were using a $50 gift card. There’s also no option to redeem online anymore.
Given that the administrators will “not redeem gift cards after 3 April 2011 under any circumstance”, it means that should you want to redeem your $50 gift card, you’ll need to spend $50 of your own money.
Shit solution, right? Well, there is an alternative, although it doesn’t sound like a positive one. Should you decide you don’t want to spend your on money while claiming your gift card, you can opt to become an unsecured creditor of the company, although the administrators don’t think that will work out too well:
You may register as an unsecured creditor of the Company, however in doing so, you will no longer have the ability redeem your card in store (please refer to page three for instructions on how to register your claim). The Administrators do strongly urge you to redeem your gift card under the terms set out above. Please note however that our preliminary analysis has indicated that unsecured creditors are unlikely to receive any dividend in the liquidation of the companies.
It’s an all around crappy situation for both Borders and A&R, plus their customers and staff. But if you don’t want to end up out of pocket, you best use those gift cards this weekend.
[Ferrier Hodgson (PDF) via BookBee]
jeremy
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 10:29 AMI have had the pleasure of working for a company shafted by these guys. They may well be “under no obligation”, but you can best be assured they are doing this for a very good (selfish) reason. What they are likely doing is trying to get more cash in (thus the matching business) and flushing illiquid stock so that they can expend money on thier good selves in 6 minute intervals. So, redeem all but a small amount if you want and then put in a claim for the small residual – you will not get it back, but it will put them on notice for this piece of stand-over legal double-speak .
Andy
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 10:48 AMYay! Let’s really make sure the business is dead, if not now, then in the future, by alienating and dissapointing their customers! Great work, administrators. If Borders had a chance at surviving before, they don’t now!
Travis New
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 10:52 AMThat’s a bit shit.
Glenn
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 11:22 AMHmmm, I thought the new consumer protection laws that came into effect on Jan 1 this year were to stop this sort of thing.
I thought companies were now legally obliged to honor what was printed/advertised on the cards as if it was a contract document.
While I understand the Administrator’s in a tough position, the fact is they have already taken the consumer’s money, they’ve already used that money to purchased the stock for the consumer and now won’t hand it over.
Quite frankly it sounds a lot like theft to me…
(Or at least bait-and-switch)
Also, I would have thought that reducing the stock-on-hand would have benefited the administrators… (Reduced storage costs, and reduced losses at the inevitable fire-sale.)
Cameron
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 11:26 AMI really get the impression that the Administrators are simply working towards their own interests and not that of the company they were brought in to run. They seem far more concerned in liquidating stock and removing liabilities then actually making the company profitable enough for it to run on it’s own again. Give it a month and they’ll be nothing left, creditors will get nothing because the administrators have pillaged the entire company for what it’s worth, ensuring they get a nice fat pay packet form it before anyone else (Have you seen how much they charge?!?!). Although I wouldn’t expect any less from the money grabbing scumbags that run these firms.
Lauren
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 2:07 PMTo everyone that reads this article, who has a gift card. Please vent your anger online or in the comment section and not in the face if a manager or full-time employee who is likely to be made redundant within the next six months. They make next to nothing and are faced with running an entire store with no inventory, have customer screen at them daily and are fed information about the company on a ‘need to know’ basis.
Greg
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 4:16 PMGift cards were a waste of money long before this came along. Sure, I really want to give a multi billion dollar company an interest free loan that they may not ever need to pay back!
People who buy gift cards are idiots.
scalfy
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 10:35 PMI work in an Angus and Robertson store and it is really REALLY awful being on the front line of this. I go to work everyday waiting for the news that I’ve lost my job.
The vast majority of customers are really understanding to us all but hearing this here (this article is the first I’ve heard that they have put a used by date on gift cards) makes me feel sick.
Please follow Lauren’s advice and don’t take it out on the staff, we are equally as frustrated and angry at the entire situation as you are. You are losing the money spent on gift cards, we are losing our jobs.