Blue Light Card ‘reward’ has now turned into £3,941 loss

In early June, my partner and I completed the purchase of our first house. It needed new carpets and flooring throughout, and we chose Carpetright because it was offering 6.5% off to customers, such as me, who have a Blue Light Card. The card offers savings to emergency and healthcare workers, and I used mine to buy vouchers to fund the purchase through the Blue Light Card voucher shop. My partner also used her workplace discount scheme to get a further 6% off.
Carpetright went into administration before the flooring could be installed. We are now in the awful position of having no carpet (we had ripped up the old one ready for the new) and having lost £3,941. I have tried requesting a refund through Blue Light Card, but it says it can’t oblige. We have registered with the administrators but are unlikely to get much back from them.
It seems that a card designed to reward people who provide emergency and healthcare services has left us unprotected. It has turned what should be a joyous time – our own home, finally! – into a total nightmare.SR, London
Unknown numbers of customers and suppliers have been left empty-handed after Carpetright sank into administration last month and more than 1,000 employees will have lost their jobs. The flooring company Tapi has bought the brand and 54 of its 273 stores, but is a separate legal entity and therefore has no liability for orders placed before it took over.
If you had paid Carpetright directly for your flooring with a credit card you would have been able to claim the money back from your card issuer using section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. The voluntary chargeback scheme operated by Visa and Mastercard would have protected a purchase made by debit card. However, both schemes only apply when the payment was made directly to the retailer. Transactions made with vouchers bought from other sources, such as gift cards, are usually ineligible because the money is paid to the voucher retailer who fulfils its part of the contract by supplying the voucher.
At first it looked as though you would be in this situation. You bought your voucher from Blue Light Card’s trading partner, Reward Gateway, which works with retailers to provide discounts to employees of member organisations. However, after I contacted Blue Light Card, one of its advisers got in touch and told you that the money you paid for the discount voucher went straight to Carpetright. They reckoned you were therefore eligible to make a chargeback claim to your bank and talked you through the process.
Almost immediately your bank refunded you. Your partner is now trying to do the same via her bank for the sum paid with her employee vouchers. This is potentially good news for anyone else who used workplace schemes to shop, although success depends on whether the payment went straight to Carpetright or to a third-party voucher provider.
Blue Light Card says: “Reward Gateway has confirmed with us that the monies paid were Carpetright’s as soon as SR’s voucher, purchased on a debit card on their site, was made. Reward Gateway is therefore not obliged to provide a refund”.
In early June I published an SOS from Madeleine Ruse, a student in Sheffield whose car had gone missing from the kerbside. It turned out Sheffield council had towed it away because it was infringing temporary parking restrictions – and had forgotten to tell her for an entire year.
It did tell the police, but they also forgot to inform her when she reported it stolen. In the meantime, Ruse’s insurers paid out and, unable to afford a replacement car, she had to get by without one.
Twelve months after her car vanished, the council got around to informing her of its action, telling her the vehicle would be destroyed unless she collected it within two days and paid a £12-a-day storage fee for the year, amounting to £4,400.
The recovered vehicle was in such a state it was declared a write-off. Sheffield council waived the storage fees when I intervened, and promised to pay Ruse compensation. That was more than two months ago. Since then, despite regular prompts from her and me, the council has sat tight. It appears to believe an apology is enough to tide her over.
Councillor Minesh Parekh, deputy chair of the council’s waste and street scene committee, says merely: “We said at the end of May we are very sorry for the stress and inconvenience Ms Ruse has experienced because of the delay in informing her about her impounded car.”
At this rate it could be another 12 months before she receives her dues; I shall be sure to give the council the publicity it deserves until it stumps up.
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