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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Should Restaurants Honor Lost or Expired Gift Certificates?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reader Sherrie Nist-Olejnik emailed with a gift certificate dilemna. Her daughter purchased a $200 gift certificate to Watershed in Decatur for her and her husband back in June, but the couple inadvertently lost it.
They would like Watershed to honor the certificate, so much so that they emailed a copy of the transaction from their daughter’s debit card records.
Says Nist-Olejnik in her email: “I understand that we should have been more careful with it, but I also believe that if restaurants are going to sell gift certificates, they should have some responsibility as well. Even though we have proof that it was purchased, I’m sure Ms. Jones (Ross Jones, owner-operator of Watershed) is legally within her right not to honor it because we don’t physically have it, but I think it’s pretty poor business.”
Jones, in response, offered to buy the couple drinks and appetizers and to “personally take care of them” on their next visit to the restaurant, but will not honor the certificate.
“We treat gift certificates like cash transactions, and have no way of knowing if someone has cashed it in or not,” she explained to me by phone. “That’s a very intensive manual process to keep track of.”
Watershed recently moved to a card system for issuing certificates, operated by First Advantage. “It’s a much easier process for our accounting,” explains Ross, “but we still have no record of who uses the card. Fraud does occur from time to time with these types of transactions.” She added that she had “no doubt” that Nist-Olejnik was telling the truth, but that with no way of knowing if the card had already been used, and no way to void or stop payment of the certificate, she had to treat Nist-Olejnik as she treats everyone else — which means the card won’t be honored.
This is a sticky spot for a restaurant to be in. Who’s right? What would you do?
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