Piercings By Tee

I had a gift certificate for a free piercing ($50 value). I tried contacting her through email and her website with no return of my inquiry. I then phoned the store where her salon is and left a complaint that I had been trying to contact her to use my gift certificate and was getting no answer. Their excuse was she is a student and isn't in that often but they would get her to contact me. Finally, I got a return call after the expiry date of the gift certificate which I had mentioned in all of my messages. When I talked to her she said she WOULD NOT honor her gift certificate which really made me upset as I had spent money to get it and had been trying to reach her for a couple months with no avail. Her excuse to me was that it was past the expiry date and she is a student and needed the money. That was not acceptable for me and her communications with me were very unprofessional and she was making excuses for everything. Finally she said I will give you the piercing at 50% off. That is unacceptable. I had been trying to reach her for a few months and nothing until after the fact that the gift certificate expired.Product_Or_Service: Gift Certificate - Free Piercing $50 valueDesired Settlement[redacted] because I spent money on the gift certificate and had been contacting her for a couple months before it expired that I should get my money back! Business Response The first email that I received from [redacted] was Jan 8th stating she had just found the gift card but would be out of town until after it expired. She wanted to book an appointment for the end of February or March, but her gift certificate expired February 1st. She made no mention of trying to contact me previously at this time and because I had never dealt with something like this before I was going to speak with the owner of the store before deciding to accept an expired promotion.All of the information to reach me directly is easily accessible on my website, which is written twice on my gift certificates. Although my cell number is posted before the store's she called there instead of calling my number. The store messaged me after receiving her phone call and I called her later that day to set up an appointment. When we spoke she made no mention of the gift certificate or having tried to contact me previously. She sent me a text message moments after our call to confirm an appointment date and it was then she inquired about using the expired gift certificate.Through text messaging, I asked her for more information about where she got the certificate. It was then she mentioned sending an email in January and calling the store once. After speaking with the store owner we thought giving her 50% off would be a fair way to deal with the situation, as if it were a gift certificate purchased at the store it would not have an expiry date. I contacted her to tell her what we had decided but had to leave a voice mail.The gift certificate that [redacted] was inquiring to use was given away as a donation to be raffled off by another party, with an expiry date on it that was one year after the time of donation. At no point in time did I, or anyone at [redacted] take money from Ms. [redacted] for this gift certificate as it was donated to help raise money for another cause. If she did however purchase it from the store I am more than willing to refund her money with proof of purchase.[redacted]