A transport blogger complained that an establishment gave him “the look” after he used a gift check for payment.
The blogger named James Deakin also opened up talks on how some stores and cashiers see these gift certificates in transactions.
In a post on September 13, Deakin told his over one million followers that he received “the look” from a cashier when he used a gift check at a store.
“A friendly reminder to establishments that offer GCs. Please, please, please don’t give people ‘the look’ when they use it to pay. You know the one. The ‘ay, GC pala’ look that makes them feel like a 2nd class customer. Happened to me again today,” he said.
Deakin narrated how the transaction went. He further described it as “degrading.”
“Won’t mention the store anymore but the whole process was so degrading—including asking me where I got them or who gave them to me, then a lengthy call to a supervisor, plus a thirty minute process at the cashier of manually encoding each card, topped off with asking me to fill up my personal data as well, and then the constant reminder that it can only be used for full price items and no sales,” he said.
“Not cool. Not cool at all,” he added.
Without mentioning the name of the store, Deakin pointed out that the purpose of GCs is a “gift” to customers, thus not entirely for free.
For him, if cashiers or store personnel treat a GC as an “act of charity” or “an obligation” to be redeemed, then it is a “hypocrite certificate.”
“Please do better,” Deakins said.
His post soon gained buzz on the platform.
So far, it received 56,000 reactions, 3,900 comments and 7,500 shares.
In the comments section, some users recall similar bad experiences when they use their GCs.
Other users also said that a GC is “as good as cash” or already paid in advance.
“They are good as cash sir. Paid for in cash. GCs are equal in value to cash. Good thing the gov’t removed expiration dates on GCs,” one user said.
In Section 5 of the “Gift Check Act of 2017”, it was stated that issuing a gift check that bears an expiry date is a prohibited act.
A gift check is defined as “any instrument issued to any person, natural or juridical, for monetary consideration, honored upon presentation at a single merchant or an affiliated group of merchants as payment for consumer goods or services.”
‘Wake-up call’
In an update on September 14, Deakin hoped that his grievance will serve as a wake-up call to businesses on their treatment of GCs.
“So the GC post really hit a nerve, huh? Good. That was the point. It was really meant to wake up those establishments out there that still view their GCs as second-class currency and to show them how their customers really feel about it, so they can finally realize how bad for business this really is,” he said.
Deakin then added the reason why he purposefully did not name the store or brand being referred to on his complaint.
“I didn’t name them precisely because this is not an isolated incident and I didn’t want the focus going to one brand; I wanted this to be a general warning to any business that thinks this way and give them a graceful way out,” he said.
