Gift Cards - Balance Redeemed but Order Not Placed Due to an Error

Lzulus on 14/03/2019 - 10:38
Last edited 15/03/2019 - 15:48

Any help/advice is appreciated regarding the below situation.

I quite often buy gift cards and use them without any issues, however this time I had a problem with The Good Guys gift cards:

  1. Bought two gift cards through Suncorp
  2. Went to TGG online, placed items in the cart I wanted to buy
    2.1 Applied a discount coupon I had
  3. Applied the gift cards - all good, balance is there
  4. Tried to place an order - got some non-meaningful error
  5. Order didn’t go through
  6. Checked gift cards balance - both now show 0 balance, when I check the balance online through the website- it shows that they were redeemed online at the time I was placing that faulty order.

So far I did:
1. Contacted [email protected] , explaining the situation and asking for a refund (I no longer intend to place that order) - no reply
2. Contacted [email protected] - card issuer, no reply
3. Contacted issuers help line 1300 554 268 - the guy noted the complaint and said will forward to the head office - no reply so far

The purchases made using a credit card through Suncorp rewards.

Given the situation (I believe TGG Online had some rare glitch when placing the order and since it’s not a default situation- no-one really bothers to investigate) I wonder what my options can be to “reinvigorate/speed up” the resolution process (given that it looks like no-one really cares on the TGG or the issuer side).

Essentially I ended up with no goods (error in order placement on TGG online) and no balance on the gift cards (balance from gift cards was redeemed when placing that order).

My thoughts are:
1. Submit a complaint to NSW Fair Trading
2. Submit a complaint to ACCC
3. Credit Card chargeback?

I wonder if anyone else was in a situation like this and what the resolution was.

Update 1:
Called-up TGG online support.
The rep got all the info, result: “our IT engineers are investigating what happened, we’ll call you back”

Update 2:
After several calls to TGG support they’ve sent a replacement gift cards, so it’s all good. Mind you that support people are very different and I finally got to a person who cared and resolved it for me.

General Discussion Gift Card

Related Stores

The Good Guys
The Good Guys

Comments

  • Ughhh on 14/03/2019 - 10:44

    When did this happen?

    I remember I had something similar happen- glitch at checkout, thought can't remember if I used a gift card. Ended up with a refund plus the item for free.

    • zulus on 14/03/2019 - 11:27

      Happened this Monday. The error was very descriptive: “{0}”, probably just a placeholder for a real error message.

      • HighAndDry on 14/03/2019 - 12:59

        I'd give them a least 5 business days to check what actually happened.

  • [Deactivated] on 14/03/2019 - 11:00
    +2

    I think it's a mistake to confuse this matter by now saying you want a refund and not the original order. It looks like a change of mind. I would establish first in isolation that an error has occurred.

    • zulus on 14/03/2019 - 11:28

      Good advice. Will try to follow this up first without any reference to refunds, although this is ultimately the result I want to achieve in this situation. A good outcome however would be to get the balance back.

  • kerfuffle on 14/03/2019 - 13:02

    Usually if the gift cards have been redeemed but not actually redeemed due to an error, the money goes back onto the gift card (in the case of Myer anyway). Have you checked the gift card balance after a few days of attempting to place the order?

    • zulus on 14/03/2019 - 14:07

      Yes, the balance is 0. From the gift card perspective it looks like it was redeemed successfully, but there’s no order number or order confirmation as the order was not placed. Likely an IT problem on their side.

      • kerfuffle on 15/03/2019 - 18:17

        I wonder if you can call up customer service and ask them to give you a list of transactions that were made with the gift card

        • zulus on 15/03/2019 - 18:55
          +1

          Yep, called them up and after a lot of back and forth they’ve sent me replacement gift cards.
          Really depends if you get to a sensible support person.

  • KaraZorEl on 15/03/2019 - 14:25

    Something similar happened with my woolies gift card. They investigated and then gave a voucher code for the amount. But it was annoying that I had to spend $30 to use this voucher.

  • Thrifty Dan on 30/07/2022 - 22:19

    I have the same now with a $50 Myer gift card plus $10 Myer One Reward card. I got an error after checking out using 10$ reward card and $50 gift card. tried to buy again but suddenly balance is 0. UPDATE: 1 hour later $60 magically came back on gift cards, order placed again. This time all good!

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