Why receiving a gift card can cost you money

A Dublin reader has got in touch after being given a gift voucher that costs the recipient money. The card is the HQGiftFlex GiftCard issued by the Dundrum Town Centre.

"I recently received a very generous gift voucher which I have discovered in the small print will cost me money if not used within two months," our reader writes. She also complains that it is not accepted by some of the shops in the centre including House of Fraser and Next.

She included the terms and conditions which state "If you were not charged an issuance fee at the time of purchase of the card then this fee is deducted from the second month after the card was purchased until the card balance reaches zero." If you were charged an issuance fee then the monthly fee of €2 is "deducted from the sixth month after the card was purchased". So, what is an issuance fee?

We contacted Dundrum Town Centre and were told that the gift card operates "on the same principle as a debit card and therefore is subject to the same banking conditions and costs as that of any credit or debit card." A statement said that the company that runs the gift card programme, HQGiftFlex, has a policy of implementing an issuance fee for cards, which covers the setup and maintenance of the card holder's account and transactions. "In the case of the Dundrum Gift Card a decision was made to waive the issuance fee and therefore allow customers a three-month period without any charges. If customers have a balance on their card after three months, a maintenance fee is applied at the rate of €3 per month."

A spokeswoman for Dundrum Town Centre said House of Fraser had "operational issues with processing the card". These are being investigated and it is hoped the shop will be able to accept the gift card from 2007. "Paper vouchers are available for customers specifically wishing to shop in House of Fraser," the spokeswoman said, adding "Next made a commercial decision not to participate."

Paying the price at the till

Last week we featured a query from a reader about her rights if the price tag on an item was less than the price at the cash register. She asked whether she was entitled to buy the goods at the lower price. The bad news is she wasn't, as consumer legislation says that if the price of something on the shelf is less than the price at the till you do not have an automatic right to it at the lower price.

This prompted another reader to get in touch. "I wonder if the seller does not have an obligation to display the correct price?" asks Patrick from Cork.

The short answer is yes. The seller is obliged to display the correct price on the garment and if they do not, they may be guilty of a misleading price indication which is a breach of consumer legislation and retailers who deliberately mislead their customers leave themselves open to prosecution.

Sky's customer non-service

Recently we featured an item detailing one reader's fairly negative experience with Sky Television's billing and customer service departments. Our reader, a Sky satellite subscriber for some years, started having problems after he received correspondence from Sky telling him he had instructed MasterCard to cease his payment although he had done nothing of the sort.

Sky charged him an administrative fee and encouraged him to switch to paying by direct debit which he did. Sky then failed to collect the direct debit, sent him another snippy letter and charged him another administrative fee.

The piece prompted quite a few readers to get in touch detailing their own similarly negative experiences. Rita Gavan wrote to say she had the "exact same experience".

She says that having been down "the exact same route of transferring to payment by direct debit (supposedly saving some money - which never happened), I eventually just rang them and told them I wanted them to cancel my subscription." Since doing so, she says she has received several offers from Sky to return to them at reduced rates.

"I haven't opted for any other satellite provider as yet," she says, "but must admit that there have been one or two sporting occasions I have missed. Otherwise, it was the best thing I did!"

Harold Huberman also has a bone to pick with Sky, "regarding their premium-rate phone line". In July he telephoned Sky on its 0818 number, and "having listened to all the reasons why I should subscribe to the company ( which I had already done), I was told that my call would be answered in approximately five minutes," he says. "One hour and five minutes later I hung up in total frustration. I wrote to Sky on the same day asking them to justify the premium rate. To date they have not responded."

To be fair to Sky, the 0818 number is not charged at a premium rate but it is at the national rate of 1c per minute off-peak and 4.5c per minute at peak times.