Buying a gift voucher

Q: A few months ago I bought a gift voucher worth €70 as a birthday gift for a friend. The voucher is meant to be used to buy beauty treatments. A few days ago, my friend decided to use it and called the company to make an appointment.

To date she did not manage to get in contact with anyone from the company, as no one answers the phone.

We went to check out the establishment and it does not seem that it has closed down permanently. It just looks closed, with no notices on the front door. The company also has a website and nowhere is it written that the company is going through a shutdown period.

What should I do in such a case?

A: If the company has not closed down, there would not be much you could do except to continue trying to get in touch with it. You said the company has a website, so besides calling, you should also try to send e-mails.

If it is just a temporary shutdown, you just have to be a bit patient and wait for the company to reopen for business. Once it opens, my advice is that your friend uses the gift voucher as soon as possible.

Should the voucher expire during this shutdown period, your friend should write down details about how long and how many times she tried to contact the company for an appointment and she should be entitled to have the date of the voucher extended for the time the studio was closed.

If the company refuses to grant such an extension, then your friend should file a complaint with our office and we can take it from there.