Argos Cashback

Recently a friend of the Sea Turkeys decided to upgrade his digital camera and had seen one which he liked in the local branch of Argos. The deal couldn't have been sweeter. The camera not only came with a few extra accessories, but with an offer of £50 cashback. Needless to say, that pretty much sealed the deal for our friend.

So off he goes down to the local Argos to purchase his shiny, new digital camera. Apparently so had many other people, as there was only one left in stock. He writes out the little ticket and skips his happy arse over to the checkout. As he pays for the item, the cashier doesn't give him any details about how to claim his £50 cashback. "No worries," he thinks, "the information must be in the box." As he stands there, watching the cashier deposit over £500 in cash into the till (not into a safe-box, as you would imagine), he waits for his receipt then, with a hop, skip and a jump, stands waiting for his number to be called. Finally, he gets called to the counter to pick up his new camera. Which he does, with a big, stupid grin on his face and skips happily out the store to his car. Not wanting to waste any time, he drives home and unpacks the camera. The large, red sticker on the box states that the offer of the £50 cashback ran out in August 2007, some several months prior to his purchase.

Not wanting to be outdone, he quickly calls the Sea Turkeys HQ and tells us of his predicament. Not liking what we hear, and having had dealings with Argos in the past (click here), we decide to take up his case and promptly fire off a letter to Argos HQ in Milton Keynes outlining the above. A few weeks later, the following reply came back:

Dear Sir,
           Thank you for your recent letter regarding your purchase of a digital camera.

Firstly, please accept my apologies for the time taken to reply to your letter.

To enable me to look into this further for you I would require the catalogue number of the item you purchased, a copy of your till receipt and also the location of where the offer was stated. Therefore, can I kindly ask you to provide me with this information anf I will be more than happy to help.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Yours etc.

Deborah Smith
Correspondence Co-ordinator

As requested, we were more than happy to supply her with the details she requested and sent off the following letter:

Dear Ms. Smith,                     
                      I am in receipt of your letter dated 4 January 2008 and I apologise for the delay in responding to this.

The offer was stated on an inserted page in the in-store catalogue (regular catalogue page ***). The catalogue number of this item is: ***/****. The offer was also stated on the Argos website at the time of the purchase.

You will also find attached, a copy of the receipt. I did find it quite concerning that, although I paid the full amount in cash, the cashier put it straight into the till and not into a secure box behind the counter.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Yours etc.

Cogsy@ST

Approximately ten days later, a letter arrived from Argos complete with a cheque for £50. When we called our friend to tell him the good news, he was pleased that we managed to succeed in such a short period of time. Another happy customer!

UPDATE!

We also complained to the manufacturer of the camera and they were kind enough to send us £50 as well. So a nice little earner of £100 for us!