Serendipity

Review: Purchased product from Serendipity in Pittsburgh on 12/7/12. Merchant refused to credit the purchase. Merchant provided a gift card with "no" expiration date. Attempted to use the gift card on 7/8/15 and merchant refused to allow the gift card to be used. Merchant claimed since they moved all of their POS data to a Cloud provider, they did not have our gift card on record and claim that the gift card expired. Merchant claims they advertised gift card expiration dates on their website and on their store front window, but we were never notified of such expiration dates. We showed both the gift card and original purchased receipt as proof, but merchant denied to allow us credit at their store.Desired Settlement: Store credit for purchased product.

Business

Response:

To [redacted]rom: [redacted] Serendipity Accessories Re: 10-[redacted] Date; 7/18/15Hello Mrs., [redacted]This letter is in response to Revdex.com case#-[redacted]In August of 2013 Serendipity Accessories switched merchant service providers From [redacted] merchant service to [redacted] Corp... At that time [redacted] did not back up gift card amount information to the cloud so there was no way to switch card amounts to a new service provider. When finding this out my wife [redacted] and I along with our staff would verbally remind, our clients daily in the store, we Advertised it with a sign at the cash out in the store, and sent out e-mails for six (6) months, along with the advertisement on our web site. The ad, signs and e-mail explained that we were switching merchant service providers and to return there gold gift card accompanied with a picture of the gift card to exchange for the new red one. We also offered a twenty percent coupon with the e-mail and 20% in store discount with return of the card for the inconvenience. We also carried two (2) merchant service accounts and two (2) printers till January 2014, one with [redacted] for sales and new gift cards and [redacted] for the old gift cards so there would be no problems through the Holidays for our clients. Also all gift card purchases are backed up to the cloud now. During the process with returned cards many times the balance believed on the card was different because of previous forgotten purchases. Although I understand Mr. [redacted]'s frustration and with no disrespect towards Mr. [redacted] I have no way of proving his claim from a 2012 purchase. As for the claims we did not notify him, I believe we made great effort to notify our clients to rectify the inconvenience outside of calling him personally. If Mr. [redacted] would have looked at our website, had subscribed to our e-mail, or had just came in the store before February 2014 we could have accommodated him. We have been with the new merchant provider now for two (2) years. Serendipity has been in business in the downtown area for over 12 years and we pride ourselves on our integrity, consistency, and reputation along with customer service. We do apologize for the inconvenience; this was the practice of [redacted] merchant service at the time. I believe Serendipity Accessories acted In good faith with our clients with all the actions we implemented stated above. Attached is the letter from [redacted] Corp. verifying the merchant service switch, along with the e-mail ad we started sending out in July of 2013. I hope you can see and understand our point of view, Thank you for your time in this matter[redacted]Serendipity (Accessories to express yourself)