One4all, the universal high street gift card scheme, have stopped giving the option of swapping (for a fee) their One4all cards for a pre-loaded “virtual” visa card that could be used with any retailer rather than the limited number of high street retailers that are members of the scheme.
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I recently received a One4all gift card as a prize in a local photography competition [1]. Usually I like to treat myself to books so I looked on the One4all website [2] to see whether any booksellers were members of the scheme. Unfortunately Amazon UK, my bookseller
of preference because of their very wide range, were not. Waterstones were, but a quick look on the Waterstones website showed that the book I wanted the most was not available through them (though it was through Amazon).Looking through the leaflet that came with the One4all gift card I saw that there was an option to trade in the card for a pre-loaded visa card which they called a “virtual visa” card. This looked perfect! I’d be able to trade in the £25 gift card for a pre-loaded visa card which I could then use on the Amazon UK website. There would be a £2 fee for doing so, but the books I wanted were discounted on Amazon by more than £2 anyway so I’d still be ahead over buying them on the high street.
So off I went to the One4all website. I found the option for a virtual visa card amongst their list of online retailers and clicked on the link. Nothing. Just a 404 page unavailable error.
Thinking that part of the site might be offline for maintenance I decided to come back later. Still the same problem. Eventually I gave in and emailed their customer support. A day later came
a reply that that the option to convert to a virtual visa card had been removed and that the site had a notice to that effect. In reply I pointed out that there had been no notice that I could see and that the booklet which came with the card (which I’d only received a few days before) mentioned the virtual visa option and that I thought that they should therefore honour the information that came with the card. In reply to that the customer service supervisor said that it was beyond her powers to do so, that the virtual visa had been withdrawn because of problems with it, that adequate notice had been given and that anyway their terms and conditions allowed them to add and remove retailers at will.That may be so, but, One4all, you now have one dissatisfied customer. My trust in you has been severely dented and I am writing this to let others know of my experience and to take care if they are considering purchasing one of your gift cards. They might just find that, like me, their retailer of choice no longer participates in the scheme, and in that case the customer service staff will not be ready to take action to find a way around it.
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[1] Article “Prize-Winning Photograph of Canadian Vimy Ridge Memorial”, Expertscolumn