DTI makes Gift Certififcates 'Expiration-less'

As a result, there will no longer be any expiration period for GCs except for those issued as part of a promotion, Trade Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya said Monday.

via newsinfo.inquirer.net

For some consumers, this is will be a lasting gift from the Arroyo-led Department of Trade and Industry (DTI): Gift Certificates without expiration.

Undersecretary Zenaida Maglaya announced yesterday that the DTI signed a memorandum lifting restrictions on when Gift Certificates are supposed to be used. In effect, it will order all retail establishments to honor gift certificates that have expiration dates on them. The only restriction retained are those certificates issued under a promo that are 'time-bound'.

This is great news especially with the Rustan's Gift Certificate I'm holding on to, which I won during a game at a friend's wedding - more than a year ago. I don't really shop at Rustan's plus this certificate has a lot of restrictions so I have yet to decide, which item I can use it to buy things on. I'm biding my time because it has no expiration date and I don't shop at Rustan's. However, I do agree that money spent on Gift Certificates should not have deadlines on them - where do you see legal tenders having a deadline? That's ridiculous.

Posted via email from Everything Customers

Cherry Foodarama's woeful customer service policies

I didn’t know having a pen and paper would get you into so much trouble in Cherry Foodarama, Mandaluyong. My wife and I were at this supermarket at around 8 pm, last night (March 24), to survey the cheapest diaper brand in the market, it’s no joke buying costly disposable stuff.

While doing our survey, we were accosted by a plain-clothes security personnel. Apparently, Cherry do not want you to list things in a piece of paper. It can be misconstrued as spying. But are we spying in the context of the word, "spying"?

We got into a heated argument. Finally, with my wife’s prodding, I cooperated and went with him to see the operations manager. In full view of the shoppers that evening, I wasted no time telling them that it is the consumer’s right to know how they can save. I questioned their policies and line of questioning that seemed to point that we’re there to do their store harm. I belabored that point that price spying is the least of retailers’ problems in the today’s society. To win customers, it’s customer service – for crying out loud.

In all of this, I was already furious, tight-lipped, and was red in anger. The man apologized and I advised them to do something more to protect their customers. This is no ‘Marcosian’ world we live in now where people are made to be afraid of doing freely what will protect them in this gloomy economy.

Here are more thoughts for Cherry Foodarama: Did you train your security personnel (agency) to see what was written in the paper I was writing on? Did you tell your security agency and advised them to ask questions first and find out what we were doing? What warrants your security personnel’s actions to order us follow him – like Cherry owns us or something? That was rude. If indeed we were doing something wrong (and obviously not) then the best your security personnel should’ve done is to warn or to advise us for guidance.

How embarrassing, Cherry Foodarama. Your customer service policies are a shame. It's Drakonian and out-of-touch.