Groupon - must book by date vs valid date

AmericanDad on 30/08/2013 - 16:03

Bought a dining voucher from groupon and sought of left it there for a while. Went back to check it and realize that there was a must boil by date of 19 August although the voucher is valid till 19 September ( which is the date that I remember).

Contacted the merchant and the merchant refused to accept it stating it has passed the must book by date.

I believe this is unacceptable - if I'm unable to redeem it after the 19 August then that should be the validity date, otherwise doesn't it negate the whole intention of having a valid till date? I believe this to be a misleading conduct. Really the voucher only has a 2 months validity date ( bought it in July) instead of 3.

Thinking of taking it to consumer affairs. What's your thought?

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  • airzone on 30/08/2013 - 16:53
    +1

    If it's in the T's & C's, then there's not much that can be done.

    These schemes are engineered to part you from your money, and avoid providing services by invalidating your voucher through this sort of crap. Ultimately (IMO) buying vouchers scoopon, groupon, etc is a bad idea, because the odds are against you.

  • huntress_love on 30/08/2013 - 20:27

    this is why you buy and use straight away or buy those where do don't need to book.

    The odds are not really against you, just need to plan better.

  • yjun355 on 31/08/2013 - 10:37

    We spoke to a hair dressers based in sydney who uses daily deal sites. One thing she mentioned was that most of the daily deal sites, do not actually give them any money if the voucher is unused. That was really surprising to us as well. So, that all goes into the relevant deal sites pocket. Also, she mentioned each time there are very relatively high number of unused vouchers.

    • airzone on 31/08/2013 - 14:33

      That is very surprising… I guess it pays to run one of these sites.. You can blame the vendor to escape liability, and then turn around and screw the vendor while you're at it..

  • AvidGamer on 31/08/2013 - 16:41

    I would still contact fair trade and find out from them who they beleive your contract of sale lies with. Then track down the t & c and email that to the fair trade rep you get. Let them decide as its a free service and you know that their advice will not be bias in any way

  • SirFlibbled on 03/09/2013 - 11:11

    I think it's a great idea and one I've been advocating for a long time. Your failure was not reading the T&Cs.

    A must book date means that that the restaurant doesn't get a last minute rush on bookings for the final period of the voucher. There's still a rush before the book before date but they have a month to spread out those bookings rather than a week or two.

    More voucher sites should do it IMO.

  • AmericanDad on 09/09/2013 - 15:25

    Update: I contacted Groupon which then contacted the merchant to arrange booking and they have agreed to honour it. Awesome! Groupon was very easy to deal with and responded to me within one day.

    P.s. I have nothing against the book by date but usually passing the book by date means booking is not secure vs this where booking is not taken at all.

    Anyway, learnt a valuable lesson after all these stuffing around.

  • louisalice on 12/09/2013 - 18:39

    buy those where do don't need to book.

  • adventurer96 on 28/09/2013 - 22:42
    +1

    I lost out on one voucher because of that. Never thought that the validity date and book by date would be different. In USA, if you do not use a groupon voucher, you still own a voucher to that amount with the merchant - so if you paid $10 for 12 mini cupcakes worth $24, you still own a $10 voucher but not the offer of 12 mini cupcakes. I think that is so fair and therefore there's no rush or worry about the loss of $$. I think this difference in validity and book by date is unacceptable.

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