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About LinkBacksNo, people buy vouchers because they are stupid.Originally Posted by 3dcandy
Vouchers are as vulgar as cash, show as little thought as cash, and have credit risk attached.
No, people buy vouchers because they are stupid.
Vouchers are as vulgar as cash, show as little thought as cash, and have credit risk attached.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Bit harsh, people usually do it because it shows that you have some interest in what the person likes and it looks nicer then handing over a £20 note. Thoughts of credit risk do not cross ones mind when buying birthday presents.
got to agree with the above, say your grandparents?
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
If you have bought your vouchers via credit/debit card, speak with your bank and they will refund it like I did with my unused GAME vouchers.
They can't refuse.
Of course your over looking all the supermarkets and other online retailers that sell media related products at reasonable prices. Amazon is quite often not the cheapest place to buy games, music or films if you look around.
Personally I'm happy to see the fall of HMV. It was a greedy, bloated chain. Stupid sized premium stores, way over priced products - consumers demand better value - if its from the high street or online.
Its also a wake up call for property owners who charge such high rents for retail spots. They are pricing their own customers out of business. I think the high street is in for a massive transformation over the next 10 years.
I predict we will see more older chains close this year, maybe WH Smiths will be next.
To add a little to what unique said, remember that once the administrators are in, it's they and not the HMV board, that run the company, and the administrators have a mandatory and statutory duty to follow which, essentially and a bit simplistically, is "protect creditors", which will include staff payroll obligations (but not to necessarily continue staff jobs), the taxman, secured creditors and last and very much least, the likes of unsecured creditors.
Unless there's a good business case for why honouring vouchers is in the interests of those that called in the administrators (and acknowledging that there are different types of administration, and that courts are involved) the administrators would be in breach of their statutory duty if they just paid out.
It's hard on consumers with a few quid in vouchers to lose, but believe me, it can be FAR harder on business creditors, suppliers or contractors for example, who may lose sums large enough to put a previously viable business out of business. I've seen it happen.
True, but this is mostly due to the fact the internet and home computing has become such a common thing, brick and mortar have extra running costs which either reduce the profit margins (due to trying to remain competitive with those that can afford to lower the price) or force them to keep prices higher than people are willing to pay.
On the mention of jobs, i think its a shame that a lot of the people that lose jobs from retail positions aren't immediately able to go into customer service jobs for online stores, the skill-sets cross-over a bit, but not enough to guarantee easy access to essentially the job market shift from retail to IT.
Damnit, now i want to research the reduction in retail positions in brick and mortar stores for every-day items and cheper retail stores (electronics, clothing etc, not cars or expensive items) and see if the respective online stores in those same areas have grown in proportion with job the loss of retail positions available.
I want the answer, but i'm not going to put the several dozen hours needed to find it out
I think this is all part of a dramatic and utterly inevitable restructuring of the high street, as a direct result of hugely increased levels of information to consumers, and the options open to them.
If you are a retailer, then the options for you are to adapt or die, though what "adapt" means varies. On the one hand, we have the pound shops, and on the other, John Lewis Group. Pound shops have boomed by offering prices which at least appear to be attractive (though appearances can sometimes be misleading, and deliberately so in my opinion), on goods by the nature of which online shopping is not terribly attractive. On the other hand, John Lewis, though facing challenges and having to somewhat de-staff, succeeded by targetting a different demographic for whom the lowest possible price is not the prime driver, but for whom quality and customer service are hugely important. And, JL has worked very hard indeed to integrate high street and online, and to leverage each with the strengths of the other. That involves some pretty substantial behind-the-scenes changes, and no small infrastructure commitment, and changes to warehousing and systems, to allow, for instance, ordering items online and having them delivered to your local Waitrose for collection, offering a combination of internet shopping, and personal high street collection.
Retailers, depending on their market sector, have to work out ways to adapt, or die. HMV seem to gave failed to notice they needed to adapt, much less work out how to do it, at least, not until it was too late and the rot was terminal.
Question is .... who next?
Creditors, not debtors. and creditors are paid/protected, in a set order. Consumers are unsecured, so last in line so that a wound up company pays off secured creditors first, along with whatever other obligations they have.
I might be wrong, but isnt the minimum requirement that its a transaction over £100 on a credit card?
Anything else is just good will from the bank, and not mandatory, at least as I understood it.
Yup, basically. Section 75, Consumer Credit Act. Transactions between £100 and £30,000 involving credit, are covered .... so it doesn't cover debit cards.
Some debit cards offer a degree of cover, but as you say, at the bank's discretion, not as an obligation under consumer credit law. There are also another wrinkle or two in that s.76 cover, but that's the basic provision.
For what I wanted HMV was never that expensive, almost every time I go to my local shopping centre I go into HMV to have a look at some old DVDs, and I always manage to find a good looking DVD for £3, which is a bargain, but other than that, the prices are nothing special at all, I don't like buying digital games and music, id rather buy the real thing, although games I have little choice now as its usually much cheaper for me to buy from steam
All vouchers nullified? You mean you stole money from people who, in good faith, paid for their vouchers, right?
No, people gave them money, which would only be redemable with them, and they have gone in to administration.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
No matter which way you look at it, people have given them money and gotten nothing out of it.
Well yes, but it's totally normal in this sort of situation. Not that I'd be happy if I had anything stored on a card with them!
A voucher is a debt owed by HMV to you, the same as they have debts to other creditors. When they go into administration, vouchers are just another debt that HMV owes, one very, very far down the scale!
As mentioned, vouchers are a sucky present!
I think thats what people always miss, the company is still trading, but its only in name, its being run by someone else, the administrators, who you havent given any money to.
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